I grew up on the west coast of beautiful British Columbia. It isn't really surprising that I decided to stick around to pursue my degrees there. In 2004, I completed my BA at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Psychology and Criminology. And how, might you ask, did I end up in Human Kinetics? In the final year of my undergraduate degree, I worked as a Research Assistant in the PsychoMotor Behaviour Lab under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Weeks. Dr. Weeks had transferred from SFU's School of Kinesiology, and his expertise was human motor control. After working in his lab for almost two years, he encouraged me to apply to graduate school. And the rest, as they say, is history.

I'm not only fascinated by the body's general ability to move, but also by its ability to adapt to changes within it (e.g., physical injury, neurological disorder) and the environment. What I'm curious to know more about is how motor behaviour adapts when interacting with other people. Think about a time when you moved furniture with a friend. How were you able to predict and anticipate their actions? How is it that two people, physically independent of each other (i.e., two separate neural systems), are able to coordinate their actions as if a single unit? My research aims to chip away at these questions.

I'm also striving to better understand how special populations (e.g., Down syndrome, Parkinson's disease) adapt their actions differently than a typically developing population. 

If you're interested in reading more about some of the research projects currently underway in my lab, click on the Research link in the menu above.  

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