Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management

Research themes

Based on the themes set forth in the University of Manitoba's Strategic Research Plan, FKRM research is categorized in themes of culture and creative works, and integrative research in health and well-being.

Discover the breadth of our expertise. Our world-renowned researchers and advisors to FKRM graduate students are on the front lines of cutting-edge discoveries leading to positive impact in the lives of our global community.

Our researchers

Christine Van Winkle, PhD

Professor
Research and expertise: Interested in visitors’ experiences at events and attractions, understanding visitor learning in free-choice environments, exploring the effects of technology on the visitor’s experience at attractions.

Kyoung June pictured in Active Living Centre

Kyoung June (David) Yi, PhD

Associate professor
Research and expertise: Focus is on individuals experiencing disabilities, Indigenous peoples, and newcomers to promote social justice and cultural sustainability in various physical activity settings.

Douglas Brown, PhD

Professor
Research and expertise: Focused on the origins of the Modern Olympic Games, early Canadian Mountaineering and winter sports. Explores themes such as identity, ethnicity and human agency within sport as well as the aesthetics or poetics of sport participation.

Fenton Litwiller, PhD

Associate professor
Research and expertise: Studies recreation for social inclusion and well-being. Uses participatory action research methods to cultivate understandings on how to create welcoming and inclusive recreation environments for individuals with mental illness. Researches drag performance with LGBTQ youth to explore gender, in particular, gender identity and gender expression.

Russel Field pictured in the Active Living Centre

Russell Field, PhD

Associate professor
Research and expertise: Examines the socio-cultural study of sport and physical activity. Focused on the lived experience of sport participants, the desire to separate organizational rhetoric from local remains and the integration of oral history with archival sources as a methodological approach. Interested in the cultural representations of sport and physical activity found in both narrative and documentary films.

jay johnson, PhD

Professor
Research and expertise: Explores the role of climate change on our physical experiences. Investigates how Indigenous youth experience the built environment and outdoor adventure-based education. Examines gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality and homophobia in team initiation rituals.

Sarah Teetzel pictured smiling, outdoors

Sarah Teetzel, PhD

Associate professor
Research and expertise: Research focus is on applied ethical issues in sport with emphasis on the intersection of rules and values. Areas of expertise include the Olympics, doping and drug testing in sport and gender issues in sport.

Leisha Strachan pictured in the Active Living Centre

Leisha Strachan, PhD

Professor
Research and expertise: Research focus on positive youth development in sport. Specifically interested in examining the experiences and various outcomes of children and youth in recreational to high performance sport programs.

Shaelyn Strachan, PhD

Associate professor
Research and expertise: Primary objective is to promote health through adherence to physical activity. Research centers on self-related variables and the role of these construct in the self-regulation of exercise.

Stephen Cornish, PhD

Associate professor
Research and expertise: Focused on exercise and nutritional immunology. Concerned with the effects that exercise and nutritional interventions can have in ameliorating chronic low-grade inflammation that is observed in many cases of chronic disease.

Professor Todd Duhamel standing inside the Active Living Centre.

Todd Duhamel, PhD

Professor
Research and expertise: Research examines the role of physical activity for the prevention, as well as treatment, of cardiovascular disease. Utilizes exercise physiology as a tool to identify novel therapeutic targets and signaling pathways that regulate cardiovascular and skeletal muscle health.

Cheryl Glazebrook, PhD

Associate professor
Research and expertise: Research program seeks to understand how the nervous system integrates information from different senses to perform precise movements. Particularly interested in understanding the processes of multisensory-motor integration to develop an understanding of perceptual-motor performance in individuals with developmental disorders as well as neurological disorders and injuries.

Primary investigator Dr. Gordon Giesbrecht.

Gordon Giesbrecht, PhD

Professor
Research and expertise: Studies human responses to exercise/work in extreme environments. Conducts cold-water immersion studies that have provided valuable information about cold stress physiology and pre-hospital care for human hypothermia. Other research interests include human physical and mental performance in other stresses such as altitude and diving.

Steven Passmore, PhD

Associate professor
Research and expertise: Utilizes a theoretical and applied background in perceptual motor behaviour to explore performance-based outcome measures in an attempt to objectively determine population characteristics, movement outcomes and sustainability of interventions.

Michelle Porter, PhD

Professor
Research and expertise: Interested in research pertaining to older adults. Themes include neuromuscular adaptations with aging, functional changes with aging and training and driving and aging.

Jonathan Singer, pictured in the Active Living Centre

Jonathan Singer, PhD

Associate professor
Research and expertise: Research works to advance knowledge of the specific neuromechanical mechanisms by which humans maintain stability, and understand why clinical populations, such as older adults and stroke survivors, experience challenges with stability control.

Veronica Silva pictured in the Active Living Centre

Veronica Silva, PhD

Assistant professor
Research and expertise: Research program is dedicated to understanding the determinants of successful mobility in naturally challenging conditions with a focus on the visual perception and executive mechanisms underlying the control of posture and locomotion.

Trisha Scribbans, picured in the Active Living Centre

Trisha Scribbans, PhD

Assistant professor
Research and expertise: Research focused on understanding the neuromuscular mechanisms that control of force production and movement of the upper extremity, with a particular emphasis on the role of scapular position and movement in shoulder and scapulothoracic mechanics/pathomechanics.

Rodrigo Villar pictured in the Active Living Centre

Rodrigo Villar, PhD

Assistant professor
Research and expertise: Focused on determining the underlying mechanisms involved in the cardiovascular, respiratory, and muscular integrative regulation to physiological challenges. Uses postural changes and exercise as a framework to elucidate the role of perfusion pressure, O2 availability, and vascular conductance/resistance in the regulation of blood flow and O2 uptake and the implications for the muscular system especially the muscle pump.

Ayesha Saleem pictured in the Active Living Centre

Ayesha Saleem, PhD

Assistant professor
Research and expertise: Mainly focused on deciphering the extracellular signalling as mediated through extracellular vesicles, that regulates the interplay between host tissue and imposed challenges. These challenges can be physiological, metabolic, environmental or developmental.

Ben Schellenberg, pictured in the Active Living Centre

Ben Schellenberg, PhD

Assistant professor
Research and expertise: Sport psychologist with a research focus on understanding how people can engage in their favourite activities in a way that produces the most benefits (e.g., high levels of performance and well-being), while avoiding potential costs (e.g., conflict, burnout). Other topics of study include savouring, self-compassion, coping, and perfectionism.

Dan Henhawk, pictured in the Active Living Centre

Dan Henhawk, PhD

Assistant professor
Research and expertise: Researches multiple conceptualizations of leisure and the socio-cultural study of sport and recreation. Specifically interested in how understandings and meanings of leisure are changing in relation to understandings of work. Focused on Indigenous notions of decolonization, indigenization, sovereignty and self-determination.

Brian Rice, pictured in the Active Living Centre

Brian Rice, PhD

Professor
Research and expertise: Qualitative land-based education expert with a focus on Indigenous community building.

Phillip Gardiner, PhD

Professor emeritus
Research and expertise: Interested is in the adaptations that occurs in the nervous and neuromuscular systems as a result of increased and decreased physical activity, aging, spinal cord injury, stroke, obesity and type 2 diabetes. Adaptations that are of interest include electrophysiology, morphology, and gene expression.

Marion Alexander, pictured outside of the Dr. Marion Alexander Research Centre

Marion Alexander, PhD

Senior Scholar
Research and expertise: Research interests focus primarily on sport biomechanics, or the analysis of athletes using filming techniques and computerized analysis programs

Elizabeth Ready, PhD

Senior Scholar
Research and expertise: Interested in physical health and functional benefits of physical activity in older adults. Explores the impact of age-friendly neighbourhoods on physical activity and health.

Adjunct professors

Our collaborations reach far and wide, providing our graduate students with extensive research opportunities and experiences.

Our FKRM research is funded by local, national, and international funding agencies. Researchers are funded by all three of the Tri-Council Agencies (Canadian Institute of Health Research, Natural Science and Engineering Research Council, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council), as well as by other funding agencies such as the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, Manitoba Health Research Council, Manitoba Medical Services Foundation, Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada, and the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management

Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management

Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management

Research themes

Our researchers

Christine Van Winkle, PhD

Kyoung June (David) Yi, PhD

Douglas Brown, PhD

Fenton Litwiller, PhD

Russell Field, PhD

jay johnson, PhD

Sarah Teetzel, PhD

Leisha Strachan, PhD

Shaelyn Strachan, PhD

Stephen Cornish, PhD

Todd Duhamel, PhD

Cheryl Glazebrook, PhD

Gordon Giesbrecht, PhD

Steven Passmore, PhD

Michelle Porter, PhD

Jonathan Singer, PhD

Veronica Silva, PhD

Trisha Scribbans, PhD

Rodrigo Villar, PhD

Ayesha Saleem, PhD

Ben Schellenberg, PhD

Dan Henhawk, PhD

Brian Rice, PhD

Phillip Gardiner, PhD

Marion Alexander, PhD

Elizabeth Ready, PhD

Adjunct professors

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