The College of Graduate Studies is excited to announce our new UBC Okanagan Thesis Award and UBC Okanagan Dissertation Award! Each year, a maximum of three prizes will be awarded to master’s students and three to doctoral students in the areas of fine arts, humanities, and social sciences; natural sciences and engineering; and health sciences. Winners of these awards created theses and dissertations that were of exceptional quality and originality, and made significant contributions to their academic fields. This year’s master’s winners conducted research related to:
- how exercise and cognitive training can improve health and save costs;
- minimally invasive and reproducible measurements of diaphragm blood flow in humans; and
- thoughtfully producing ways that Métis women and youth can experience and nurture positive self-esteem for themselves and their community through future moon time teachings.
This year’s doctoral winners:
- developed an online tool to help Canadian egg farmers assess their farm’s environmental impacts, evaluate alternate technologies and strategies, and compare their farm’s performance against national and provincial average data;
- explored ketogenic diets and ketone supplements, and their health impacts on different groups of people; and
- harnessed the power of artistic mediums to construct open-ended art environments that enable individuals to immerse themselves in the essence of time.
Congratulations to the winners!
Master’s graduates
Cassandra Adjetey
Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies – Community Engagement, Social Change, and Equity Theme
Thesis Title: Applied Health Economics: Economic Evaluation of Lifestyle Intervention to Promote Cognition in Older Adults With Chronic Stroke
Lay Summary: Stroke in older adults can cause cognitive impairment which affects the ability to think, process, or remember information. Cognitive impairment can negatively impact a person’s health and result in significant costs for society and the healthcare system. This study looked at how two interventions, exercise and cognitive training can improve health and save costs. The study compared these activities to a stretching and toning program that is commonly available in communities. The study found that exercise was a better option after six months than stretching and toning, while the benefits of cognitive training depended on how much someone was willing to pay for it. However, both exercise and cognitive training were not more efficient after a six-month follow-up period. Additionally, both exercise and brain training did not improve people’s overall quality of life in the study.
Jordan Bird
Master of Science in Health and Exercise Sciences
Thesis Title: Quantifying Diaphragm Blood Flow with Contrast-Enhanced Ultrasound in Healthy Humans: Feasibility, Validity, and Reliability
Lay Summary: The current state of knowledge for diaphragm blood flow (Q̇DIA) is almost exclusively informed by work in animals with almost all methods being highly invasive and not conducive to routine use in humans. This poses two issues for translation to human understanding as 1) there are incongruencies in function and structure that preclude direct comparison between species and 2) highly invasive measurements in humans can put participants at unnecessary risk. This gap in understanding warrants a reliable method of assessing Q̇DIA in humans. In our study, we tested whether we could get minimally invasive and reproducible measurements of Q̇DIA in humans. We showed that it is feasible, valid, and reliable to measure Q̇DIA across a range of respiratory efforts in humans. We highlight the associated limitations of the technique and future applications for basic science (e.g., exercise) and clinical medicine (e.g., patients on mechanical ventilation).
Jordan’s thesis is currently embargoed. The thesis will be published in cIRcle once the embargo is lifted.
Hanna Paul
Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies – Community Engagement, Social Change, and Equity Theme
Thesis Title: Sharing Métis Women’s Stories About Moon Time and Colonial Body Shame Through Visiting and Berry Picking in Buttertown, Alberta
Lay Summary: For many reasons, engaging with positive body image and self-esteem practices can be difficult for Indigenous Peoples living within colonial bodily concepts. For Indigenous women, layered colonial oppressions interfere with positive self-esteem and self-care. I began this thesis research project to understand moon time and its connection to body image exists in my community through visiting with family through research and moments in-between research work. As a Métis community member and researcher, I am taking on kinship-based research in my Métis homelands. My Métis community is called the North Vermilion Settlement (or Buttertown) near Fort Vermilion, Alberta. I use the Métis method of visiting and a metaphoric saskatoon berry picking methodology to guide this research; the procedure parallels Indigenous research and the berry picking process. This project is meant to thoughtfully produce ways that Métis women and youth can experience and nurture positive self-esteem for themselves and their community of Buttertown through future moon time teachings.
Doctoral Graduates
Vivek Arulnathan
Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Studies
Thesis Title: Development of the National Environmental Sustainability and Technology Tool (NESTT) – A Sustainability Measurement and Management Platform for Canadian Egg Farmers
Lay Summary: Livestock-based agriculture systems are a key contributor to major environmental issues. With the need for sustainably produced food products, there is increasing demand for better sustainability assessment, reporting, and management capabilities. The National Environmental Sustainability and Technology Tool (NESTT) is an online tool that was developed to help Canadian egg farmers assess their farm’s environmental impacts, evaluate alternate technologies and strategies, and compare their farm’s performance against national and provincial average data. A participatory approach in which Canadian egg farmers were involved in the design and development of NESTT was adopted to ensure that the tool meets the requirements of farmers. NESTT is compliant with all the major principles of sustainability assessment including the capacity for continuous development in the future. NESTT will both help the Canadian egg industry reduce its overall environmental impacts and act as a novel example of making complex sustainability assessment capabilities accessible to farmers.
Read Dr. Arulnathan’s Dissertation
Kaja Falkenhain
Doctor of Philosophy in Kinesiology
Dissertation Title: Effects of Carbohydrate Restriction and Exogenous Ketosis on Cardiometabolic Health
Lay Summary: Ketones are naturally occurring molecules circulating in our blood. ‘Ketosis’ is a physiological state when blood ketones increase such as when eating a low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet or taking ketone supplements. This thesis examines how a state of ketosis affects different aspects of health. We determined that a ketogenic diet delivered to individuals living with overweight or obesity via an app can lead to weight loss and improvements in blood sugar control and liver health with no negative effects on blood lipid levels. We then showed that taking a ketone supplement did not lower blood glucose levels in adults with type 2 diabetes, regardless of whether a single dose of the supplement was consumed or whether the supplement was taken over a period of two weeks. Overall, our results show that ketosis can improve some aspects of health; however, there appear to be important differences between ketogenic diets and ketone supplements.
Dr. Falkenhain’s dissertation is currently embargoed. The dissertation will be published in cIRcle once the embargo is lifted.
Yujie Gao
Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies – Digital Arts and Humanities Theme
Dissertation Title: Flowing to Unsettle: A Multimedia Exploration of Inhabiting Time in Computational Performative Art
Lay Summary: With the ubiquity of technology in our lives, new possibilities arise for experiencing time in novel ways. This research delves into the realm of time perception within various art settings enhanced by digital technologies. By harnessing the power of artistic mediums like immersive visualizations and performances, this study endeavours to construct open-ended art environments that enable individuals to immerse themselves in the essence of time, fostering a deeper comprehension of their temporal experiences.