Ali successfully defended her Masters in February 2019, and graduated with a Master of Science in Kinesiology in May 2019.
Her thesis work focused on exploring the extent of residual innervation to the pelvic floor muscles in people with motor-complete spinal cord injury. Thank you, Ali, for all your hard work over these past few years! We are delighted that she will be continuing her work in the lab as our Laboratory Manager.
In February 2019, the 10th World Congress for Neurorehabilitation took place in Mumbai, India. Ali and Tania attended, and presented their latest research on proprioception training, pelvic floor muscle activation, and arm-cycle training for people with spinal cord injury. We hope to be able to attend this excellent conference again in the future!
Ali presents her findings on arm-cycle ergometery for seated balance
In November 2018, Raed published the findings of his Masters which explored the recruitment of trunk musculature by different robotic exoskeletons (Ekso & Lokomat) in individuals with a high thoracic motor-complete SCI. To find which elicited trunk activation, read more here!
Congratulations to authors Raed Alamro, Dr. Amanda Chisholm, Alison Williams, Dr. Mark Carpenter, and Dr. Tania Lam.
In November 2018, lab members Ali, Gevorg, Raza, Flurina, Mason, and Dr. Lam traveled to San Diego to present their latest research at the Society for Neuroscience (SFN) annual research meeting.
Raza, Ali, Flurina, and Gevorg arriving at SFN
This annual meeting is the world’s largest neuroscience conference dedicated to the nervous system. In 2018, the meeting brought together 28,691 attendees from across the world!
In October 2018, ICORD trainee committee co-chairs Ali and Seth Holland traveled to Vanderhoof, BC to represent ICORD at W.L. McLeod Elementary School’s 20th annual ultimate frisbee tournament to raise funds for spinal cord injury research. During their time in Vanderhoof, Ali and Seth also spoke to the students about what it is like to be a scientist and university student.
Funds from the tournament directly benefit ICORD research and in 2013, ICORD named a travel and research prize for Master’s students the W.L. McLeod Trainee Award. Thank you students and staff of W.L. McLeod Elementary School for your ongoing support of our reserach!
In March 2018, Ali received the Ajab (Jab) and Nirmal (Munni) Sidhoo Charities Fund Trainee Travel Grant. This grant is given to support VCHRI trainees conducting research in urology or nephrology to attend international scientific conferences.
In February 2018, Ali used these funds to travel with Dr. Tania Lam to Mumbai, India and attend the 10th World Congress for Neurorehabilitation. Great work, Ali!
In January 2017, Raza published his Master’s work which explored the role of sensorimotor integration of vision and proprioception in ambulatory individuals with SCI while obstacle crossing. He found that vision was more important for obstacle crossing for ambulatory individuals with SCI compared to able bodied controls, due to proprioceptive deficits. Want to learn more? Read the full article here.
Congratulations to authors Raza Malik, Rachel Cote, and Dr. Tania Lam.
This month, the Human Locomotion Research Laboratory took a road trip to Jasper, AB for the 2017 NeuroHike conference! Neurohike is an annual event held in the Rockies that brings together researchers from Western Canada. Alternating between Jasper and Kananaskis, it provides a casual forum to talk science, have fun and as the name suggests, hike in the beautiful Rocky Mountains. We look forward to attending more NeuroHike conferences in years to come!
Lam Lab at the Old Fort Point lookout for NeuroHike 2017.
From L-R: Raza Malik, Alison Williams, Dr Tania Lam, Abdullah Alghamdi, Gevorg Eginyan, Andrea Lynn.
Last week, students from the Human Locomotion Research Laboratory attended the 7th Annual ICORD Trainee Symposium, a conference organized by students to showcase the amazing work being done by ICORD trainees. This year there were 129 attendees with 40 poster presentations and 10 oral presenters, as well as special plenary talks by Dr. Jeff Petruska, who traveled from the University of Louisville, and University of British Columbia’s Dr. Brett Finlay.
Taha Qaiser (third from the right) and Alison Williams (third from the left) with the other award winners from the ICORD Trainee Symposium
Congratulations to Taha Qaiser (MSc student) and Alison Williams (MSc student) who received third place in the oral presentations and second place in the master’s poster presentations respectively.
A huge congratulations to Taha Qaiser who successfully defended his Master’s of Science thesis on June 14th 2017! Taha has been a member of the lab since 2011 when he began as an Undergraduate Research Assistant through UBC’s Work Learn program. More recently, Taha’s thesis study which examined if it was possible to train proprioception after spinal cord injury showed some interesting results! We look forward to reading his published results down the road.
Dr Tania Lam and Taha Qaiser
Congratulations, Taha! You will be missed.