Here are our people:
S Jayne Garland, PhD, PT, Director
Dr. Garland is Professor and Director of the Lab. Her research interests have two main foci: 1) neural control of force production and movement, particularly under conditions of muscle fatigue, in which she employs sophisticated single motor unit analysis to investigate fundamental motor control principles; and 2) recovery of motor control following stroke, with emphasis on postural control, in which she utilizes clinical and physiological measures to investigate balance and mobility. Dr. Garland recently became Dean of Health Sciences at the University of Western Ontario but she retained an affiliated research position and her close ties with UBC.
Tanya Ivanova, PhD, Lab Manager
Dr. Ivanova has a PhD from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and has over 25 years of experience in the neuromuscular investigation of muscle strength and fatigue in healthy subjects and in people with stroke. She provides guidance and technical assistance for data collection and analysis for the projects underway in the lab.
Kimberly Miller, PhD PT, Post Doctoral Fellow
Dr. Miller is a Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada Research Fellow and she currently serves as the Research Coordinator for the FAST clinical trial. She is an Honorary Senior Fellow in Physiotherapy at the University of Melbourne Australia, where she was a Senior Lecturer and coordinated undergraduate and postgraduate neurology programs from 1998-2012. Her clinical research is directed at improving our understanding of the measures used to evaluate clinical outcomes, the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions directed at reducing impairments and activity limitations and the physiological mechanisms underlying changes in functional outcomes in people with neurological conditions such as stroke and Parkinson’s Disease. Her work has included the development of a new clinical assessment tool for evaluating sensation impairment (The AsTexTM).
Sue Peters, Doctoral Student
Sue Peters has a Master’s degree in Physical Therapy and a Bachelor’s in Kinesiology, both from the University of Western Ontario. While working clinically as a Physiotherapist, Sue became interested in understanding how the brain functions especially after injury. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Rehabilitation Science in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC. Sue plans to better understand the role of motor planning and how it contributes to motor performance after stroke.
Alessio Gallina, Doctoral Student
Alessio Gallina obtained his BSc in Physiotherapy from Università di Torino in 2009 and his MSc in “Science and Technology applied to Rehabilitation” from Università di Pisa in 2012. Besides, Alessio has worked for more than 3 years as research assistant in the Laboratory for Engineering of the Neuromuscular System, Politecnico di Torino, where he developed his background in biological signal detection and processing, mostly focusing on high-density surface electromyography. Alessio’s research interest is in the field of motor control, specifically how muscle activity is altered in musculoskeletal pathologies. In his PhD at UBC, Alessio will investigate how muscle activity is altered in individuals with knee osteoarthritis, and how this correlates with clinical findings.
Andy Miller, Research Coordinator
Andy is the Research Coordinator for the FAST clinical trial. He is assisting with the data collection and analysis for a number of studies currently underway.
Darryl McAndrew, PhD, Visiting Scientist
Dr McAndrew is a Senior Lecturer: Medical Sciences (Anatomy) within the Graduate School of Medicine (GSM), University of Wollongong, Australia. His PhD investigated the neural control of skeletal muscle fibres and their distribution within segmental muscle using mechanomyography and electromyography techniques. Darryl conducts lab based research on the non-invasive identification of muscle fibre types, the control of voluntary muscle activation and the role of ergonomics in the workplace. His most recent research focuses on how humans maintain balance and posture during normal everyday tasks like standing, stepping and reaching. Darryl was on a 6 month sabbatical in our lab from January 2015.
Allumni
Courtney Pollock, Ph.D., PT
Courtney Pollock graduated from the McMaster University graduate program in Physiotherapy in 1998 and worked clinically in a variety of settings before returning to complete an MSc in Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Western Ontario. Courtney is currently pursuing a PhD in Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of British Columbia. Courtney’s interests in research, integrating the areas of biomechanics and motor control to examine human movement, are shaped largely by her experience in clinical practice. The focus of Courtney’s PhD research is to explore how stroke impacts walking balance and how physiotherapists can best address these mobility and balance impairments with motor re-training. Cortney succesfully defended her PhD thesis in December 2014 and at present she is a Post-Doctoral Fellow with the Neuromuscular Mechanics Laboratory at Simon Fraser University
Svetlana Knorr, Ph.D., PT
Svetlana was a former Ph.D. student working under the supervision of Dr. S. Jayne Garland. Svetlana completed her B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Kinesiology and Health Sciences at York University, Toronto. While working on her Ph.D. in Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Western Ontario and as a visiting student at the University of British Columbia, Svetlana successfully completed the Master of Physical Therapy degree at the University of Western Ontario in 2012. Currently Svetlana is working as a clinical research coordinator and physical therapist at Toronto Rehabilitation Institute. Her ultimate goal is to make a contribution to the profession of Physiotherapy (neurosciences division) by: utilizing her clinical expertise while advancing research in the field of post-stroke rehabilitation; translating research findings and clinical knowledge into the academic teachings of the future physical therapists and physiotherapy assistants.
Vicki Gray, PhD, PT
Dr. Gray graduated in 2004 from the University of Windsor with a Bachelor of Human Kinetics, specializing in Movement Science. In 2005, she enrolled in the MSc Physical Therapy program at the University of Western Ontario with Dr. Jayne Garland as her mentor. In 2007, she transferred into the MPT/PhD program in Health and Rehabilitation Sciences in the field of Physical Therapy. Her Ph.D. thesis focused on the motor control of fast movements in persons post‐stroke. While at the University of Western Ontario she acted as a blind assessor for a longitudinal randomized control trial following individuals post‐stroke. After completing the MPT program, Dr. Gray moved to the University of British Columbia in 2010 as a visiting student, where her mentor took a new position. She successfully completed the combined MPT/PhD program at the University of Western Ontario in March 2012. At present she is a University of Maryland Advanced Neuromotor Rehabilitation Research Training (UMANRRT) Post-Doctoral Fellow.