Category: Kinesiology

Even in retirement, Synthia Sydnor stays connected to kinesiology

July 03, 2024 | Ethan Simmons

With her unique scholarly background, Synthia Sydnor has provided a humanities-trained perspective within the department for three decades

Retired Health and Kinesiology Associate Professor Synthia Sydnor smiles outside of the Siebel Center for Design. (Photo by Ethan Simmons)

As a wandering graduate student, Synthia Sydnor used to take cross-country road trips while she worked on her Ph.D. at Penn State University. 
 
In 1986, an opportunity came calling from the College of Applied Life Sciences at the University of Illinois: an opening for a faculty position to study and interpret sport and play. 
 
The role seemed a perfect match for Sydnor—a budding scholar in the cultural-historical analysis of sport—but this Midwestern setting seemed unappealing.
 
Driving through the “barren” winter landscape of Illinois, “we always said, ‘this is the last place on earth we will ever live,’” Sydnor said. 
 
Two years later, the job was still open, so Sydnor applied to at least get some interview experience. To her surprise, Illinois hired her. Sydnor came to adore the university as well as Illinois’ prairies and skies, and she would retire from the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health in spring 2024, 36 years later. 
 
Sydnor has witnessed profound changes in her discipline and in the University of Illinois, from researching and writing in a basically pre-digital academic environment to teaching a 750-student online class before COVID-19 had even arrived. (Leading KIN 142: “Contemporary Issues in Sport” virtually felt like “running a corporation,” she said.) 
 
With her unique scholarly background—she held appointments in the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory and Illinois Global Institute—Sydnor has provided a humanities-trained perspective within the department for three decades. 
 
“What is sport? Why do we attach all these invented things to it, like ‘masculinity’, ‘teamwork,’ and lately, ‘peace’ and ‘development?’” Sydnor said. “I’ve tried with students and the research I’ve contributed to think of sport as a serious object of knowledge, not just frills and fun.”
 
In retirement, Sydnor is spending time with family while staying connected to her academic home, collaborating with several younger faculty across the department and mining her own discipline for new insights. Her humor, friendliness and mentorship of graduate students leave a distinct legacy. 
 
“She was always willing to take on a student in need of help—she had a soft spot in her heart for graduate students,” said Kim Graber, head of the renamed Department of Health and Kinesiology. “If they were experiencing challenges or difficulties, if they were not sure what they wanted to study, she’d always lend a helping hand, and be the person to listen to their concerns, and take them under her wing.” 

A changing field 

Sydnor left her mark on her department in more ways than one. The large triptych painting by Illinois alumna Brett Eaton and posters that line the first floor of Louise Freer Hall, celebrating the female pioneers of the field, are based on Eaton and 50 other undergraduates’ archival research in Sydnor’s course “Sport in Modern Society.”

The exhibit, “An Untold Story: U of I Female Faculty in the History of American Athletics and Sports Scholarship at the University of Illinois,” was funded by the Illinois Ethnography of the University Initiative and Illinois Gender Equity Council after Sydnor applied for them. 

“So many alums will walk up and down the halls during visits and really appreciate the art because they bring memories back for them,” said Graber, who joined Illinois six years after Sydnor.
 
Sydnor always took pride in teaching popular classes, which were often highly rated in student reviews. It’s especially rewarding when former students reach back out to discuss a class concept that clicked for them years later, she said. 
 
She also taught experimental courses, like one focused on extreme sport, to lead students into important topics of culture and theory. The class used a book she co-edited with Robert Rinehart, “To the Extreme: Alternative Sports, Inside and Out,” as a basis for study.
 
“What I do doesn’t predict or control, it doesn’t necessarily ‘solve’ something,” she said.  “Instead, you converse. ‘What does it mean to be human in different times and places? In different bodies?’ I’ve tried to contribute that to my classes, my teaching, my research.” 
 
As a physical education undergraduate at the University of Delaware, Sydnor was interested in cultural studies as well as sport, having played both lacrosse and field hockey. Sydnor continued her academic track at the University of Washington, where she obtained her master’s degree, and Pennsylvania State University for her doctorate in Interdisciplinary Humanities.  

With her rare combination of research interests, Sydnor had accepted the idea of becoming an independent scholar. 

I’ve loved being part of Illinois because of those leaders who had forethought and courage to pioneer new ideas.

Synthia Sydnor

Retired HK faculty member

“I thought that what I was doing contributed to knowledge, but I didn’t know if any university would ever hire me. And that was OK.” Her experience in ancient Greek language and cultural studies laid a framework for a scholarly niche missing in kinesiology. When she arrived at Illinois in 1988, the field of kinesiology was widening its umbrella. 
 
At the time, Illinois’ Kinesiology department head Karl Newell had begun hiring an “amalgamation” of exciting, cross-discipline scholars, Sydnor said. The department had changed its name from “physical education” to “kinesiology” the year before, and Newell was pushing for other departments across the world to follow suit. 
 
Sydnor even wrote an article with Newell about the historical development of the word “kinesiology,” rooted in the Greek term “kinesis.” They argued that the term was broad enough to hold multiple disciplines of movement and would have plenty of staying power. 
 
She admires the developments of each of the three department heads she’s worked with—such as Wojtek Chodzko’s push to focus on healthy aging, and Graber’s empowerment of younger faculty. 
 
“I’ve loved being part of Illinois because of those leaders who had forethought and courage to pioneer new ideas, and we’re on the cusp of that now with changing to ‘Health and Kinesiology,’” Sydnor said. “I love our department and how much it’s grown, and how much Kim Graber has let the new young professors lead us in research initiatives.”
 
In retirement, she’ll continue working with Health and Kinesiology Teaching Assistant Professors Caitlin Clarke and Jesse Couture to develop a student textbook, essentially a second edition of her 2021 book “Social Theory for Sport Lovers.”
 
She’s hoping to finish up her two books of her own: One that explicates new aspects of sport and its futures, and another in reception studies, focusing on how ancient motifs and symbols live on in physical culture in new ways that past civilizations would not comprehend. 
 
“I feel so fortunate, I’ve just loved it here,” Sydnor said. “It enabled my creativity, it enabled collaboration with great thinkers across campus and hopefully helped students approach sport in a learned way in their professional and personal lives.”

Editor’s note:

To reach Ethan Simmons, email ecsimmon@illinois.edu.
 

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Fresh legs carry on the Lifetime Fitness Program

May 06, 2024 | Ethan Simmons

The Lifetime Fitness Program sports an eight-decade history at the University of Illinois of helping adults ages 55 and older stay fit

Members of the Lifetime Fitness Program swing medicine balls overhead for an upper body exercise. Classes in the spring and fall terms are hosted at the Campus Recreation Center East in Urbana. (Photo provided)

It’s 7:30 a.m. at Campus Recreation Center East on the campus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Charmaine Young swings a 10-pound exercise ball around her head before lowering to the exercise mat for a “Superman” pose, which works her back muscles. 

Young is 86 years old, but you’d never guess it based on how she moves in the Lifetime Fitness Program, the five-day-a-week group exercise class run by the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health. She’s been returning to the class each semester for nearly 38 years. 

“I live alone, and outside of a log or a tree limb, I can pick up whatever I need,” Young said. “The [Lifetime Fitness Program] is such a part of me, it’s hard to take it apart.” 

The Lifetime Fitness Program, “LFP” for short, sports an eight-decade history at the University of Illinois of helping adults ages 55 and older stay fit, while supporting the college’s research goals. 

The program recently changed hands after longtime KCH Professor Ken Wilund, who ran LFP for more than a decade, left for the University of Arizona. 

But Lifetime Fitness quickly found fresh legs under it, with two first-year faculty at the College of Applied Health Sciences at the helm: KCH Assistant Professors Jack Senefeld and Emerson Sebastião. 

“[Wilund] was looking for someone else to sort of liven up the program,” Senefeld said. “He asked Emerson and I if we would be involved, and we both excitedly said yes.” 

Of course, the program didn’t just “fall in their laps,” Sebastião said. Both faculty have research bona fides in exercise science, especially for older adults. 

What they’ve quickly discovered is a fitness group brimming with devotees, many of whom have been coming back to the weekday classes for decades. And there’s room for more. 

“COVID was not a fun time for society, and a lot of community-based, physical activity-based programs had really dwindling communities,” Senefeld said. “Our goal has been to promote the program and increase the number of people that know about it, because the people who know about it, love it.” 

While the pair of faculty members administer the program and oversee its research, the 7 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. weekday classes are run by undergraduate students for class credit and supervised by graduate students Ashley Morgan and Kaitlyn Pawelczyk. Sebastião, like Wilund before him, still attends a couple of sessions each week. 

“Having this close connection, being able to work with the older adults, it’s good to be around them. It’s fun—it helps me in other areas as well,” he said. “Talking about building community, I think it’s important to be there, show our faces.” 

LFP is a community unto itself. Each class radiates positivity, even in those early mornings. 

“That’s an awesome part of the Lifetime Fitness Program, the social, community aspect of it. Not even just for the members, it’s even been like that for me,” said Pawelczyk, a first-year grad student coordinator for the program studying Nutritional Sciences. “Everyone is so supportive, caring, invested in each other’s lives from an exercise standpoint and from an intentional standpoint. Everyone wants to know how everyone is doing and support them.” 

A reservoir for research 

The year was 2009, and Sandy Goss Lucas had recently retired from the University of Illinois, where she directed the Introductory Psychology curriculum. A friend of hers tipped her off to a study in kinesiology, researching whether women’s weight was better controlled through diet or exercise, and Lucas decided to join. 

She was put on the exercise track and found out that the regimen increased the participants’ bone density, among other positive things, she said. For her participation, she got a small payment and a free semester of the Lifetime Fitness Program. 

“We were intersecting with people who were doing Lifetime Fitness anyway, so I went to see what it was all about,” she said. “And I got hooked.” 

The friendly atmosphere, challenging exercises, and “phenomenal” student instructors immediately appealed to her. Lucas, now 74, has been coming back for the past 15 years. 

“It’s just been one of the best experiences of my life,” she said. 

Having this close connection, being able to work with the older adults, it’s good to be around them.

Emerson Sebastião

HK assistant professor

Many of Lucas’ classmates found the class in the same way, after going through a research study in the college. That’s intentional: Many KCH faculty are interested in recruiting older adults for exercise studies, but after the study elapses, older adults might not have a place to stay in touch, Sebastião said. 

“This program also serves that purpose—to have a place to go after research studies are done, and then they can be integrated with that group and then start building their community and keep exercising, which is the main focus,” he said. “We want them to be long-term exercisers, not just for 12 weeks, which is normally how a study would last.”   

The exercise is “vigorous,” according to 20-year LFP attendee Fran Hacker, who said the regular activity helped her recovery from cancer. 

“When we’re off a week or two, I can notice the difference,” she said. 
But the program’s different classes—stretches in the morning, strength work, water aerobics and yoga—are designed to be functional, instructors said. 

“You want to tailor the program to the fact that they are older adults. We want to be careful of balance, of the knees, obviously, but we want to make it fun,” Pawelczyk said. 

The next frontier for the professors is getting new research elements off the ground, Senefeld said. Many of the adults who keep coming back to Lifetime Fitness are interested in their health; Senefeld and Sebastião are planning to implement regular assessments on various fitness metrics, from strength and aerobic capacity to walking speed. 

“They’re really interested to know if they’re slowing down, and so we can help them quantify that and provide that feedback and then use that to look at how does physical exercise benefit older adults,” Senefeld said. 

The Lifetime Fitness team recently published a program overview in Kinesiology Review, running through the structure of the program, its physical benefits for older adults and experiential learning for the student instructors. 

The group’s social ties have kept the cohort going strong, even through the COVID-19 pandemic. When classes were canceled in early 2020, a group of exercisers began meeting at West Side Park for spaced-out, masked-up outdoor yoga. The tradition of meeting on weekends has kept up ever since, said Mike Sims, an 11-year participant in LFP. 

“We text each other and meet on Saturdays and sometimes go out for coffee and watch movies after that,” Sims said. “The [social aspect] opens up a whole atmosphere bigger than just exercising.” 

Just three weeks after a knee replacement surgery, Lucas was back in class stretching with the rest of the cohort. Her classmates and the student instructors were, as always, ready to welcome her back. 

“We’re a very close group, right now we have people going through breast cancer, ovarian cancer, chemo. People have gone through all kinds of things, we take a meal, we stay in touch, we check up on each other,” she said. 

“I just feel very, very strongly that this group has kept me sane.”

(Members of the Lifetime Fitness Program pay $30 a month for full membership. Summer classes run until August 11, MWF from 8-9 a.m. at Freer Hall. Fall classes will resume Monday-Friday at CRCE on August 28). 
 

Editor’s note:

To reach Ethan Simmons, email ecsimmon@illinois.edu.
 

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Yogi, OT, teacher, researcher: Kinesiology Ph.D. candidate explores yoga for pain management

April 01, 2024 | Ethan Simmons

The question that guides her research: How might yoga be used to manage chronic pain?

Stephanie Voss poses outside of Freer Hall.

To doctoral candidate Stephanie Voss, chronic pain treatment and yoga have more in common than we think. 

Voss, now in her third year of a kinesiology Ph.D program at the University of Illinois, first came across the connection while working as an occupational therapist at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, a rehabilitation research hospital in Chicago. 

While she consulted patients who were dealing with persistent, chronic pain, Voss was training to become a yoga instructor—an out-of-class hobby that helped her overcome her own studying-induced back pain. 

“I couldn’t get over how similar the treatment approaches are,” Voss said. “Yoga is very much a holistic practice, and we address chronic pain in very much a similar way—it involves working as part of an interdisciplinary team on strength and muscle conditioning and posture and body mechanics. We also work on the psychological components, the emotional components and how we can integrate pain management strategies into daily life.” 

Today, Voss’s research at the College of Applied Health Sciences merges the two: How might yoga be used to manage lasting pain? 

This fall, she was named a recipient of the Paul D. Doolen Graduate Scholarship for the Study of Aging, an annual award given to two University of Illinois graduate students whose scholarly work advances research on the human aging process. 

With the help of the Doolen scholarship, Voss will develop a yoga protocol that specifically targets interoception, or the ability to perceive and interpret the sensations within one’s own body, an ability which may fade as we age. 

The project will explore whether yoga can improve older adults’ abilities detect and interpret feelings of pain and discomfort within their bodies. 

“I found [the scholarship] relevant to my research because most of my patients are older adults,” she said. “Chronic pain is immensely prevalent in older adult populations for various reasons but interestingly older adults tend to not be included in pain trials as often.” 

It’s so immensely important that my research questions are rooted in the clinical needs of the patients.”

Stephanie Voss

Kinesiology Ph.D. candidate

What the $4,250 scholarship gives her for now is “breathing room,” Voss said. “Being a grad student isn’t always easy from a financial standpoint, so having a little bit of extra support to free up my time and mental space, it’s one less thing to worry about.” 

Voss received her B.S. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from Northwestern University in 2014 and her M.S. in Occupational Therapy from Rush University in 2018.

She began at the University of Illinois in August 2021, working under former Illinois KCH Associate Professor Neha Gothe in Gothe’s Exercise Psychology Lab. Gothe was one of the only academics exploring the connection between yoga and pain management. Voss, then fully working as an occupational therapist, reached out to Gothe over email, expressing her desire to pursue a Ph.D. under her.  

Since then, Voss has worked as a research assistant and teaching assistant, having instructed an introductory-level yoga class while periodically working with patients at the AbilityLab in Chicago. She recently taught the yoga intervention for one of Gothe’s research studies working with older adults. 

“That got to really challenge my clinical and yoga teaching skills to integrate modifying postures for people who live in different bodies than mine,” Voss said. “It’s so immensely important that my research questions are rooted in the clinical needs of the patients. I want to make sure I’m still in touch with that population.”

When Gothe departed Illinois for Northeastern University in Boston, Voss decided to stay and finish the final stages of her Ph.D. program, with KCH Professor Steve Petruzzello stepping up as her on-site doctoral co-advisor. 

“She’s very smart, and very personable,” said Petruzzello, who first met Voss while she made insightful comments in his class, KIN 443: Psychophysiology of Exercise & Sport. “It’s just refreshing for somebody to have such a good perspective on the science of what she does, but to also be very respectful and willing to take criticism for what it’s worth.” 

Both her mentors described Voss as a methodical, talented researcher whose clinical experience has given her unique perspective and a deft ability to communicate scientific concepts to different audiences.  

“She has an eye for translation and application of the research in clinical as well as real-life settings,” Gothe said. “Her years of yoga training and teaching also give her a unique advantage to work and communicate with her patients and research subjects.”

After her graduation, expected in spring 2025, Voss hopes to work in a hybrid clinical-academic position. In the meantime, Voss has seen great recruitment interest in her dissertation research, examining yoga as a strategy for chronic pain management.  

“I do feel like I will be leaving with a degree that gives me a lot of opportunity and flexibility that I can teach in occupational therapy departments. I’ll be fully qualified for that, but I’ll also be fully qualified to teach in more traditional academic university-based settings that are not necessarily a clinical program,” Voss said.  

Editor’s note:

Stephanie Voss completed her Ph.D. at Illinois in May 2025.
 

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KCH’s Richards gets Fulbright to complete project in Australia

Nov. 29, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Kevin Andrew Richards

Kinesiology and Community Health Associate Professor Kevin Andrew Richards has received a Fulbright Specialist Program award from the U.S. Dept. of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

Dr. Richards will complete a project at the University of Canberra in Australia that aims to exchange knowledge and establish partnerships benefitting participants, institutions and communities both in the United States and overseas through a variety of educational and training activities within education.

He is one of more than 400 U.S. citizens each year who share their expertise with host nations through the Fulbright Specialist Program. Fulbright Specialist Program winners are selected based on their academic and professional achievements, demonstrated leadership in their field and potential to foster long-term cooperations between institutions in the U.S. and abroad.

For more information on the Fulbright Specialist Program, visit https://eca.state.gov/fulbright.

Editor’s note:

To reach Kevin Richards, email karichar@illinois.edu.
 

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The future is filled with hope, Chittenden Symposium speakers say

April 18, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

KCH Dept. Head Kim Graber, left, with Bill Chittenden and Wendy Rogers, right (Photo by Michelle Hassel)

The focus of the Chittenden Symposium was on human factors in health technology, with the goal of advancing a research agenda. But according to Kinesiology and Community Health Professor Wendy Rogers, the roadmap needs to first be drawn.

Rogers was part of the final presentation on April 13 of the symposium, a collaboration between the College of Applied Health Sciences’ Kinesiology & Community Health Department (KCH) and the Grainger College of Engineering’s Department of Industrial & Enterprise Systems Engineering (ISE).

Rogers was part of a panel discussion—along with ISE Associate Professor Girish Krishnan—entitled, “Future Directions for Collaborative Opportunities.”

“What we’re talking about is relevant to what the National Academy of Engineering has proposed in terms of grand challenges,” Rogers said. “We need to have these opportunities (future symposiums) to see what each of us is doing and how we can work together.”

Rogers also talked about the need to match up research priorities with funding streams.

“Some of the things that the (National Institutes of Health) is highlighting is what we are doing here,” the Khan Professor of Applied Health Sciences said. “We want to think about how best to capitalize on our strengths to best match what their priorities are. I was excited and inspired about what we can do.”

The symposium is the vision of William and Carol Chittenden, two Illinois alums who long supported research combining Health/Kinesiology and engineering technology, including aging and later-year quality of life issues. The symposium, which began in 2015, returned this year after a five-year hiatus.

Susan Martinis, the Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation, was the first speaker of the day and said she couldn’t “imagine a timelier topic” and that the university’s response to COVID-19 was an “extraordinary national model.”

“This kind of innovation just doesn’t happen,” she said. “Our response to COVID is really part of the DNA at Illinois. Decades of investments in people and symposiums like this. The spirit of collaboration can tackle the most vexing of problems. Our bench is incredibly deep.”

AHS Dean Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell said she was “proud of the role the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health has played in organizing this important event, and grateful for our ongoing partnership with the Grainger College of Engineering.”

“The collaboration between health and engineering has led to developments that we couldn’t have imagined in the not-too-distant past,” Hanley-Maxwell said. “Virtual reality as a means of helping patients manage pain; companion robots that entertain chronically ill children while allowing them to monitor their condition; 3-D printing of personalized prosthetics; and wearable sensors that enable patients to share vital health statistics with their doctors from the comfort of their own homes. Technology is revolutionizing and improving health care, and the potential for its impact seems boundless.”

Hanley-Maxwell noted that AHS made a commitment to taking a leadership role in education and research related to health care and technology.

“I hope today’s symposium inspires further discussion, collaboration, and innovation,” she said.

“This kind of innovation just doesn’t happen. Our response to COVID is really part of the DNA at Illinois. Decades of investments in people and symposiums like this. The spirit of collaboration can tackle the most vexing of problems. Our bench is incredibly deep.”

Susan Martinis

Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation

Keynote speaker Emily Patterson, a professor in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences in the College of Medicine at Ohio State, talked about the need to incorporate human factors into health research, and the importance of “framing problems differently.”

Patterson was followed by four presentations, two each from ISE and KCH.

ISE Assistant Professor Abigail Wooldridge discussed the importance of health technology in improving the “handover,” meaning the transition of patient care, whether it is in the same hospital and different shifts, or to a different hospital and medical staff.

“Care transitions are a process, and the things that happen before or after that are really important. They are really crucial to patient care.”

Wooldridge said strategies are needed to augment human coding to improve care transitions and the “tension between reporting and interrogation. Social glue is what helps clinicians work together down the road.”

KCH Assistant Professor Manuel Hernandez talked about advances in wearable technology to prevent fall prevention, noting that one in four adults over the age of 65 falls each year, and that one in five falls lead to serious injury.

“In the near future, wrist bands, watches, shoes and shirts will be able to measure how much we move on a daily basis,” Hernandez said. He said this wearable technology will be able to detect any changes in movement, slowing, or gait malfunction. The use of wearable technology can mitigate or even prevent the odds of falling and reduce injuries, Hernandez said.

ISE Specialized Teaching Assistant Professor Avinash Gupta talked about the role of human interaction in designing virtual reality-based healthcare training. Among Gupta’s proposals is a virtual reality-based training environment for first responders, a 3D educational platform for healthcare students and a VR simulation training for neonatal procedures.

KCH Professor Ken Wilund wrapped up the presentations with his talk on how technology can be used to improve hemodialysis patient outcomes.

“Hemodialysis is pretty brutal,” Wilund said. “It’s a difficult, challenging life, and it’s treated pharmacologically, with 18 pills a day. It’s one of the most expensive diseases to treat. It costs about $100,000 per patient per year … pretty close to one percent of the federal budget is spent on dialysis patients.”

Wilund said his biggest questions were how to get hemodialysis (HD) patients moving more and make it sustainable, and how to get HD patients to eat fewer processed foods and less salt. Technological advances might help, Wilund said, noting that an Internet-based Positive Psych Intervention (PPI) reduced depression in HD patients, but that the iPad might not be a sustainable delivery method.

Wilund acknowledged that a personalized plan for patients was necessary, that behavior change principles need to be incorporated into treatment, and that remote treatment would be necessary to achieve long-term success.

“We have been sticking bikes in front of dialysis patients and telling them what they can’t eat… for 40 years,” Wilund said. “There has to be a better way.”

Following the presentations, Rogers and Krishnan engaged in a lively discussion with audience members on what can be done to advance collaborations and build on the momentum of the symposium.

“Seminars are great, but how do we scale this up?,” Krishnan asked. “What’s the best mechanism to get the engineers and health care researchers together?”

Rogers said, “It’s really going back and forth and making sure we’re talking to each other. We’ve talked about how to do that better to provide opportunities for both colleges.”

KCH Professor Jeff Woods, who was the master of ceremonies, suggested leveraging virtual platforms to increase collaboration, while Wilund said giving increased responsibilities to graduate students would give them more opportunities to build their CV, while giving faculty members the space for big-picture ideas.

But all in attendance agreed on one point: they need to keep in contact.

“A future meeting to spark collaborations is important,” Rogers added.

When the symposium ended, attendees—including Bill Chittenden III, son of Bill and Carol—boarded vans for the opportunity to tour the McKechnie Family LIFE Home and see demonstrations of current collaborative research in human factors and health. Directed by Dr. Rogers, the McKechnie Family LIFE Home includes a simulation of a two-bedroom home with a garage for research and development, as well as meeting and office space to support the research activities.

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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Skating career led to kinesiology studies for Weinstein

April 08, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

It was a circuitous route to the University of Illinois for Lindsay Weinstein

Lindsay Weinstein recently found out she was accepted into the Doctor of Physical Therapy program at the University of Illinois at Chicago

At one time in her life, Lindsay Weinstein thought admitting she needed a physical therapist meant she was “weak.” Now she is studying to be one.

The four-time national medalist figure skater is now a kinesiology major in the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois. Weinstein, 22, recently found out she was accepted into the Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, one of the top DPT programs in the country.

It was a circuitous route to the University of Illinois for Weinstein, a Buffalo Grove, Ill., native who left home at the age of 15 to train at the U.S. Olympic Training Center for Figure Skating in Colorado Springs, Colo. But for Weinstein, the ice patch began long before that.

“A lot of parents from my hometown put their kids into beginner skating around the age of three,” Weinstein said. “Around that age, my older brother had best friends performing in the local ice show at the rink that would end up becoming my home rink. And my parents took me and my brother to go watch it. And I’m watching them on the ice, and I looked up at my mom, and I was, like, ‘I can do that. I know I can do that.’ And my mom replied, ‘Whatever.’”

Weinstein’s mother had been reluctant to sign her up because her brother had not enjoyed skating and “made my mom’s life miserable. Every time they got to the rink, he would start crying. She (said) ‘I’m not signing you up. I don’t want to go through that again.’”

But Weinstein did not relent.

“Being the three-year-old little menace that I was, every time we drove past the rink, I would say, ‘Well have you signed me up? Have you signed me up? Why haven’t you signed me up? I know I can do that. Why haven’t you signed me up?’ And I just kept insisting that I could do it.

And so finally, I would say it took four months before they finally did it. And I got on the ice, and it was just like true love.”

It might have been love, but it was not always easy, Weinstein admits.

“You learn from a very early age in figure skating that it’s not a sport that you can be in halfway,” she said. “It’s not a sport that’s like a hobby. I was skating at 6:20 a.m. before school, getting picked up at 7:30, being taken to school. I had a special schedule. So I’d get picked up from school at maybe like 2 p.m., three periods before anyone else. And I would go back to the rink and go skate. It was my life. I wasn’t doing normal things, like having sleepovers, like the other kids were.”

Starting at the tender age of six, Weinstein began competing in the U.S. Figure Skating Association (USFSA) events. She competed for several years as a singles competitor but found her true passion was in pairs skating. By May 2013, she had partnered with Jacob Simon, and in their first season together, they won the pewter medal (fourth place) in the Novice level at the 2014 U.S. Championships. After this competition, Weinstein and Simon were named to Team USA and sent on several international assignments to compete at the Junior level on behalf of the United States of America.

At the 2015 U.S. Championships, the team earned another pewter medal, this time at the Junior level. Around this time, U.S. Figure Skating approached Weinstein and Simon about moving to Colorado to train at a more elite facility. Her partner, a senior in high school, planned to either go to college or to Colorado to train.

“At 14, I was put in a position where ‘Do I want to do this for a living? Am I willing to give up a normal high school life, a normal kid life for this?’ And I made the decision, ‘Yes, it is worth it to me,” she said.

Weinstein and Simon—without their parents—moved to Colorado Springs to train at the Olympic Training Center. Skating was the top priority, not school.

“College wasn’t necessarily on my agenda. I wasn’t looking at colleges,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking about college. I was thinking about getting through high school, and I was thinking about my skating career.”

That career began to bloom. Coached by Dalilah Sappenfield and Drew Meekins, Weinstein and Simon won the junior silver medal at the 2016 U.S. Championships and were named to the U.S. team for the 2016 World Junior Championships in Debrecen, Hungary. The pair finished ninth overall in Hungary.

“That was definitely the highlight of both of our careers,” she said. “The season following was a tad difficult due to being a female, you start going through body changes. There is a lot of emphases and talk about body and eating.”

Around that time is when Weinstein first thought about kinesiology, although she didn’t know what kinesiology was at the time.

“I would say that was when I got my first pique of interest in physical therapy,” she said. “I have never been someone who had been injured. I had known so many people who had been off the ice with injuries. And I just was super lucky. I had never been injured. (But) when I moved to Colorado, and we were training at a more elite level, I started to feel a lot of impact on my knees.”

Reluctantly during that successful 2016 season, Weinstein started seeing a physical therapist.

“I hid the fact that my knees hurt,” she said. “I hid the fact from my coach. I hid the fact from my parents. And then finally the pain became too much. My right knee was my landing knee, and I was just wincing every single time I landed.”

Friends and colleagues advised her to see a physical therapist, “but I thought going to a physical therapist meant I was weak. I did not want to see one, which is interesting because now I am starting to become a physical therapist.”

That year was a turning point in many ways for Weinstein.

She and Simon were under pressure to stay certain sizes, and Weinstein especially felt “under a microscope” as she went through puberty at age 16. The Olympics, she realized, likely would not happen. Then 2017 became a year of change as she and Simon broke up—both professionally and romantically—and she decided to leave Colorado, where she felt mistreated by Sappenfield. Weinstein was one of several skaters to file complaints against Sappenfield with the United States Center for SafeSport, leading to Sappenfield’s suspension in October 2021 pending further investigation.

Weinstein ended up moving to Aliso Viejo, Calif., to train and rediscover her love for figure skating. But she also discovered something else.

“It helped me realize as much as I love this and as much as I am the person I am today because of skating, I’m ready to move on to something else,” she said.

That something else was physical therapy. A physical therapist who was treating her in California recommended applying to San Diego State; her father was convinced she needed to apply to more than one school, and she chose the University of Illinois, her dad’s alma mater. She got into both and chose San Diego State, but the temptations of the Southern California lifestyle made it challenging to stay academically motivated, Weinstein admitted.

But that changed when she transferred to Illinois.

“I’ve made Dean’s List every semester here,” she said. “The choice to come here, in particular, had a lot to do with proximity because I had been away from home since 15. And when I was in college at San Diego, I just realized it was way harder to be away from home in college.”

Weinstein, who will graduate in May, knew graduate school was the next step, but also knew she didn’t want to leave Illinois again. There are seven accredited DPT programs in Illinois, four in the Chicago area, close to home. She applied to Rosalind Franklin, Midwestern University, UIC, and Northwestern University, with UIC her top choice.

“I’d love to be in a big city,” she said, explaining her decision. “I’d love to not have to make all new friends again because I had to do that for San Diego and then again coming here to Illinois. Yes, UIC was my top choice, and I did get in.”

Weinstein knows a long road remains to complete her doctorate. But she knew the kinesiology program itself was no cakewalk.

“I will never forget sitting at my very first lecture and the advisor at San Diego (State) coming in and looking around the room and saying, ‘Most of you will not get into grad school. Honestly, a good portion of this room will probably not even be a kinesiology major next semester. This is a really hard major, and you will not achieve your dreams.’ And every semester that I made it through, I would just thank my lucky stars that I made it through,” she said.

After she completes her DPT program, Weinstein definitely has an idea of which populations she’d like to work with.

“I got into this as an athlete. And if I had the ideal situation that could come about for me, I would love to be a PT for a sports team. I would love to go watch practices, learn why injuries are happening, learn how to prevent them in specific regards to one specific sport.”

If not athletes, she’ll turn to another passion: children.

“I have always loved kids. I was the girl, who at 10 years old, was being driven to babysit. I adore kids. And if I could somehow go into (pediatrics), that would be my other dream. I feel like it would be awesome as a PT to work with girls that are around the same age as I was when things started kind of getting messy. And I can be there as somewhat of a guide to let them know the rights and wrongs of when someone’s talking about their body and body image and eating and eating disorders and depression. I do think that I could definitely make a huge impact as a PT for all people, whether athletes or not.”

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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Chittenden Symposium is truly a family affair

April 18, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Hope and optimism emphasized by speakers at Chittenden Symposium

KCH Dept. Head Kim Graber, left, with Bill Chittenden and Wendy Rogers, right (Photo by Michelle Hassell)

The theme of the 2022 Chittenden Symposium is Human Factors for Health Technology. But the heart of the event is really a love story.

The Chittenden Symposium, which returns in 2022 after a five-year hiatus, is a collaboration of the Dept. of Kinesiology and Community Health (College of Applied Health Sciences) and The Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering (The Grainger College of Engineering).

The symposium is the vision of William and Carol Chittenden, who long supported research combining engineering technology and health, including aging and later-year quality of life issues. For the Chittendens, their support of the University of Illinois is borne of their experiences on campus. William, a member of the College of Engineering Hall of Fame, graduated from the College of Engineering in 1951. During his time on the Urbana-Champaign campus, he met Carol, a Kinesiology major. It was the beginning of a lifetime of love that spanned more than 65 years.

“I think they just felt that the university added so much to their lives that they wanted to give back, pay it forward,” said Bill Chittenden III, William and Carol’s son. “And that’s how (their support of Illinois) got started.

The idea to support KCH and ISE made perfect sense, Bill said, given his father’s engineering expertise and his mother’s kinesiology studies.

“I think it started, really, as my dad supporting the engineering college,” he said. “And then my mom, given her degree, wanted to help her college. And then at some point they thought they could make a bigger impact by combining their resources to develop and support the interdisciplinary work between those colleges.

“As far as Health Sciences goes, my mom was truly fascinated with the human body. Her detailed knowledge of human anatomy, which she learned at Illinois, was often a topic of conversation. I think that was the impetus for focusing on Applied Health Sciences.”

Bill said the symposium serves another purpose: providing an opportunity for students and faculty to further develop and utilize their communication skills.

“It had a lot to do with my dad’s belief in the importance of strong communication skills. He was an excellent writer and speaker, which are strengths not always found in technical fields,” Bill said. “It was important to him that engineers and people with other technical backgrounds be good writers and speakers, so they are able to communicate technical subjects and ideas effectively to a wider audience. The interdisciplinary feature of the symposium is designed to encourage people to hear different perspectives.

Those different perspectives will be on full display in this year’s symposium. It is headlined by keynote speaker Emily Patterson, a professor at The Ohio State University. Dr. Patterson’s topic is “Enhancing innovation by incorporating human factors engineering into allied health research.”

Four faculty members will make presentations, with two each from KCH and ISE.

  • Abigail Wooldridge, ISE: Designing digital health technology to support care transitions in hospitals
  • Manuel Hernandez, KCH: Advances in Wearable Technology for Fall Prevention
  • Avinash Gupta, ISE: Role of Human Computer Interaction in the Design of eXtended Reality (XR) based Training Environments in the Healthcare Domain
  • Ken Wilund (KCH): Technology Applications for Promoting Behavior Change in Hemodialysis Patients

A discussion will follow the presentations, and then attendees will have the opportunity to tour the McKechnie Family LIFE Home, which Bill Chittenden said he was eager to see. Directed by Dr. Wendy Rogers, a professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health, the McKechnie Family LIFE Home includes a simulation of a two-bedroom home with garage where research and development will take place, and meeting and office space to support the research activities.

For the Chittendens, the symposium is only one of the opportunities they’ve created through their more than 30 years of support for the University. They created the Carol Chittenden Scholarship, awarded annually to an undergraduate student in the Kinesiology and Community Health Department; and the William Chittenden Fellowship, awarded annually to a graduate student in Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering. They also sponsor an award for best graduate thesis relating Engineering and Applied Health Sciences.

Now, they are hoping this event becomes a source of inspiration for participants that lead to solutions to problems. “The goal is primarily to inspire participants, get people together to exchange ideas, see what others are working on, and make connections in the field. You get people thinking about how they can make a difference and get new ideas on ways to do that. Technology is moving so fast. And I think the goal of the symposium and the financial support is really to get technology and the benefits it brings moving even faster.”

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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Alumni Spotlight—Marilyn Adibu

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Jan. 10, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Alumni of the College of Applied Health Sciences have myriad career options thanks to the tremendous diversity of programs. We periodically will put the spotlight on an alum to find out what they’re doing now, what experiences they had and what AHS means to them. This week, we talk to Marilyn Adibu, a KCH alum who is now at IT consultant.

Q: Why did you pick AHS?

A: I chose AHS because it provided me with the academic and professional knowledge and skills to pursue my career opportunities.

Q: Which professors had the most impact on you?

A: The professors who had the most impact on me were Dr. (Susan) Farner and Dr. (Reggie) Alston (my advisor).

Q: What course did you most enjoy?

A: I enjoyed my Health Administration, Rural Health (Special Topics), Introduction to Medical Ethics, Health Services Financing, and Community Health Organizations.

Q: Did you enter AHS knowing your career path, or did AHS help you decide?

A: AHS helped me decide. I also joined a program called I-LEAP.

Q: What was your favorite on-campus experience?

A: One of my favorite on-campus experiences was going to sports games (wrestling, volleyball, hockey, etc) as well as attending the AHS Alumni Speaker Series.

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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Alumni Spotlight—Jamaal Rahman

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Dec. 21, 2021 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Alumni of the College of Applied Health Sciences have myriad career options thanks to the tremendous diversity of programs. We periodically will put the spotlight on an alum to find out what they’re doing now, what experiences they had and what AHS means to them. This week, we talk to Jamaal Rahman, a KCH alum who now owns and operates Burke Mill Chiropractic in Winston Salem, N.C.

Q: Why did you pick AHS?

A: I chose AHS because the program looked great! I loved the size of the program and it was very relevant to my career path which is chiropractic.

Q: Which professors had the most impact on you?

A: I would say Dr. (Marni) Boppart was one of my favorite professors at U of I period and Amy O’Neill was the best advisor that I’ve ever had. She was so great in my journey in the college.

Q: What course did you most enjoy?

A: That seems like forever ago, but I loved all of Professor Boppart’s classes and most labs!

Q: Did you enter AHS knowing your career path, or did AHS help you decide?

A: I knew that I wanted to be a chiropractor and decided on kinesiology as my major later due to the above reasons.

Q: Did your AHS experience lead to your current job?

A: My AHS experience gave me more of a thirst for knowledge. To this day I still continue to be a student of how the body works, moves and heals so that I can help every patient who steps in my clinic.

Q: What was your favorite on-campus experience?

A: I loved being around my peers all day. Labs were great! Who wouldn’t love working out for class! I still remember doing the VO2 test in class. Great memories.

Q: What does AHS mean to you?

A: AHS was the start of my career and helped further establish my passion for my field and bettering musculoskeletal help for my patients. Thank you, U of I and AHS!

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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Alumni Spotlight—Ariana Mazza Bensyl

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Dec. 09, 2021 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Alumni of the College of Applied Health Sciences have myriad career options thanks to the tremendous diversity of programs. We periodically will put the spotlight on an alum to find out what they’re doing now, what experiences they had and what AHS means to them. This week, we talk to Ariana Mazza Bensyl, a KCH alum who now works as a Physical Therapist in Northbrook School District 28.

Q: Why did you pick AHS?

A: Being active in sports growing up fostered my interest in exercise and how the body works. I knew going into college that I wanted to be a Physical Therapist. When I was looking into colleges, I was looking for one that provided me the opportunity to get a great education and prepare me for PT school. The College of Applied Health Sciences offered Kinesiology as a program of study, which fit my PT path. I was confident the curriculum would prepare me for getting into PT school, as well as the academic demands of PT school.

Q: Which professors had the most impact on you?

A: One person that most impacted me was my academic advisor, Amy O’Neill. She encouraged me to challenge myself and work hard to attain my goals throughout my time at the University of Illinois. Amy also brought the idea of completing the Physical Education Teacher Licensure program to my attention. I completed the Pedagogy track within Kinesiology and I really enjoyed it. Dr. Amy Woods was one of my professors who saw a lot of potential in me and pushed me to be a better teacher. Another professor that had an impact on me was Mary Carlton. She had such passion and excitement for what she was teaching that it made learning exciting!

Q: What course did you most enjoy?

A: I really enjoyed my Injuries in Sport class. Learning about injuries, how to tape an ankle, preventative care and emergency care was cool! Especially for a kid who had her ankles taped throughout her high school sports career. I also really enjoyed Psychophysiology in Exercise & Sport.

Q: Did you enter AHS knowing your career path, or did AHS help you decide?

A: I did enter AHS knowing my career path. I knew I wanted to go to PT school, but I thought I wanted to work in the sports world of physical therapy. When I was doing my student teaching, I learned that physical therapists could also work in the school environment. This opened my eyes to a different path within physical therapy that was interesting to me and has actually taken me to my current job.

Q: Did your AHS experience lead to your current job?

A: Yes, it did lead me to my current job. My time in AHS prepared me to get into and be successful in PT school. I have received my doctorate of Physical Therapy from Northwestern University (’14) and am currently a PT in Northbrook School District 28. I have been able to combine the love of education and teaching that I learned from my time in AHS with my passion for physical therapy.

Q: What was your favorite on-campus experience?

A: I was part of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority during my time on campus. Creating so many memories and lifelong friendships with my sorority sisters really made for many favorite on-campus experiences. Not necessarily an on-campus experience, but an experience related to my time in AHS, was meeting my husband. A colleague I met while doing my student teaching introduced me to him. He is a fellow AHS ’11 graduate! We have talked about how we were probably in some of the same intro KIN classes our freshmen year but didn’t know it!

Q: What does AHS mean to you?

A: The University of Illinois is such a big university and being part of AHS made it feel smaller. The professors and academic advisors in AHS really created an environment where I felt they wanted me to succeed. AHS means being part of a community that truly cares about their students.

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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