UBC 2012 Experts

UBC professors, staff and students can provide insights and commentarys on a wide range of topics related to the upcoming 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games, including:

• Olympic and Paralympic Games
• Health Issues
• Sports
• Sport Psychology
• Sustainability
• Terrorism / Security
• Impacts of the Games
• Branding and sponsorship
• Paralympics
• UBC People Heading to London

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Olympic and Paralympic Games

Rob Vanwynsberghe
Dept. of Education Studies
Email: robert.vanwynsberghe@ubc.ca
*Vanwynsberghe will be travelling during the Olympics. Call UBC Public Affairs for contact info.

• Social, economic and environmental impact of the Games
• Story: What to expect at London 2012
• Lead researcher of the 2010 Olympic Games Impact study

Robert Hindmarch
School of Kinesiology
Email: drbobh@interchange.ubc.ca

• Olympic history and Canadian participation in the Olympics
• Attended every Olympics from 1960 to 1998
• General manager of Canada’s UBC-based 1964 Olympic hockey team, former vice-president of Canadian Olympic Association

Health Issues

Jack Taunton
UBC Faculty of Medicine and School of Kinesiology
Tel. 604.822.4122
Email: jack.taunton@ubc.ca

• Chief Medical Officer for 2010 Winter Olympic Games
• Served as advisor 2012 Chief Medical Officer Richard Budgett
• Sports medicine, Olympic health, safety and emergency care, doping issues

Babak Shadgan
UBC Faculty of Medicine
Email: shadgan@gmail.com

• Chief Medical Officer for Olympic wrestling
• Iran’s first accredited sports physician
• Will investigate the use of near-infrared spectroscopy to diagnose common wrestling injuries

Bob McCormack
UBC Faculty of Medicine
Email: robert.mccormack@ubc.ca

• Medical Director, Canadian Olympic Committee, 2012 Games
• Canada’s Chief Medical Officer for the 2008 Beijing Olympics

Navin Prasad
Division of Sports Medicine
Email: navprasad@shaw.ca

• Physician for Team Canada

Mike Wilkinson
Division of Sports Medicine
Email: mwilkinson@telus.net

•  Doctor for Canada’s rowing team

Marc Rizzardo
Physical Therapy
Email: marcrizz@telus.net

•  Chief therapist for the Canadian team; held the same role during the 2010 Winter Games

Andrei Krassioukov
ICORD (International Collaboration on Repair and Discoveries)
Email: krassioukov@icord.org

• “Boosting” blood pressure to enhance athletic performance among Paralympians
• Running an education clinic in the Olympic Village on minimizing cardiovascular risks during training and competition; Cardiovascular disease is the primary cause of death for people with spinal cord injuries
• Spinal cord injury researcher
• Develop an addition to the current athlete classification system for the benefit of Paralympians with spinal cord injuries

Sports

Jim Rupert
School of Kinesiology
Tel: 604.822.8462
Email: jim.rupert@ubc.ca

• Gene doping
• Sex testing
• Genetics of performance
• Can genetic variation effect doping control tests?

Michael Koehle
School of Kinesiology
Tel: 604.822.9331
Email: michael.koehle@ubc.ca

• Sport medicine: Injuries and illness in athletes
• Pollution and exercise
• Exercise physiology
• Medical coverage for sport mega-events; Venue Medical Officer for Whistler Olympic Park for the 2010 Games

Karim Khan
School of Kinesiology and Dept. of Family Practice
Email: karim.khan@ubc.ca

• Sports injuries
• Hamstring tears and prevention, tendon injuries and corticosteroid injections
• Exercise and health; Lancet series: role of the Olympics in promoting physical activity/public health
• Social media in health communication and the British Medical Journal’s Olympic Portal

Ben Sporer
Dept. of Family Practice
Email: bsporer@resync.ca

• Training for cyclists and endurance athletes
• High-performance sport and physiology
• Recovery and regeneration
• Participated in the 2008 Beijing Olympics with cycling and the 2010 Vancouver Olympics with snowboarding
• Altitude training for sport performance
• Exercise and asthma

Cynthia Thomson
School of Kinesiology
Email: cynthiathomson@hotmail.com

• Risk taking and sensation seeking in sport

Sport Psychology

Peter Crocker
School of Kinesiology
Tel: 604.822.5580
Email: peter.crocker@ubc.ca

• Stress/pressure, coping and emotion in elite athletes
• Confidence
• Body image issues

Katherine Tamminen
School of Kinesiology
Email: katherine.tamminen@ubc.ca

• Stress and coping processes in sport

Mark Beauchamp
School of Kinesiology
Tel: 604.822.4864
Email: mark.beauchamp@ubc.ca

• Team dynamics and leadership
• Confidence

Sustainability

James Tansey
UBC Sauder School of Business
Tel: 604.827.4443
Email: james.tansey@sauder.ubc.ca

• Helping offset the carbon emissions associated with the Canadian Olympic Team’s travel to London
• Calculated the carbon footprint of the 2010 Games

Matt Dolf
Manager, Centre for Sport and Sustainability
School of Kinesiology
Tel: 778 322 9556
Email: mattdolf@interchange.ubc.ca

• Advises sports organizations and events on sustainability
• Expertise in life cycle assessment, carbon footprinting, and environmental performance of events
• Member of Canadian Standards Association Technical Committee on Sustainable Events
• Developed the Sustainable Sport and Event Toolkit which is supported by the IOC to improve the sustainability and planning of sporting organizationsthe sustainability and planning of sporting mega events

Terrorism / Security

Richard Price
Dept. of Political Science and Senior Advisor to the President
Tel: 604.822.9206
Email: richard.price@ubc.ca

• International politics and law
• Chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, arms control
• The role of universities in high performance sport

Impacts of the Games

Tsur Somerville
Sauder School of Business
Tel: 604 822-8343
Email: tsur.somerville@sauder.ubc.ca

UBC News

• Sep. 5: UBC student wins Paralympic bronze
• Aug. 9: Historic day for Gleadle in London
• Aug. 8: Mason finishes eighth; Gleadle into Olympic final
• Aug. 4: Hayden and Dickens finish 8th
• Aug. 3: Sauder Prof helps 2012 Canadian Olympic team go carbon neutral
• Aug. 2: Martha McCabe finishes 5th
• Aug. 1: UBC swimmer Brent Hayden wins bronze
• Jul. 31: Brent Hayden advances to final
• Jul. 27: UBC expert sets the stage for London
• Jul. 27: Sports doc helps reduce Olympic injuries
• Jul. 26: Olympics research and story ideas from UBC
• Jul. 26: Q&A with Martha McCabe
• Jul. 26: Q&A with Scott Dickens
• Jul. 12: Annamay Pierse joins CTV’s Olympic broadcast team
• Jul. 11: UBC launches media resources for 2012 Olympic Games
• Jul. 4: What to expect at London 2012
• Jul. 4: A javelin’s throw away from the Olympics
• Jul. 4: Not your backyard badminton
• Jul. 4: UBC’s Olympians and Paralympians
• Jul. 4: UBC swims for Canada
• Jun. 22: UBC experts and stories for 2012 London Olympic Games
• Feb. 1: The Olympic jolt
• Oct. 25: 2010 Winter Olympics provided economic and cultural boost

See more Olympic-related content in the UBC Newsroom.