***************************

Student Ambassadors Serve Kinesiology Department

Krista Sheldahl and Dustin Thorson have worked behind the scenes all year as Student Ambassadors to promote the Kinesiology Department and Iowa State.  “They have performed a variety of functions for the department,” says Carol Cordell, Academic Advisor, “primarily with prospective students and their families either during campus visits or over the telephone.”  They also give tours of the Forker labs and explain some of the upper level Kinesiology classes.
The Kinesiology Ambassadors spend several evening hours calling prospective Kinesiology students who have been offered admission by Iowa State.  They ask if the students have questions about the major, visiting campus or Iowa State in general.  Phil Caffrey, Associate Director for Admissions provides the list of names and his staff members follow up with students as needed, based on the information provided by the Ambassadors.  “And thanks to your Student Ambassadors for doing this project!” says Caffrey.
Krista will graduate in May from the exercise science, pre-physical therapy option of Kinesiology.  Dustin will graduate in December 2009 from the physical education licensure option.  The Kinesiology Department appreciates all of their hard work.  Thank you!

	Krista Sheldahl	Dustin Thorson

***************************

Dr. Sainburg Visits Iowa State and Kinesiology

	Dr. Robert L. Sainburg

Dr. Robert L. Sainburg, Associate Professor of Kinesiology and Neurology at Pennsylvania State University and Co-Director of the Graduate Program in Neuroscience, Huck Institutes of Life Sciences presented a seminar at Iowa State about his research on March 27.  The seminar was co-sponsored by the F. Wendell Miller Endowment Fund, the Department of Kinesiology, and the Interdepartmental Graduate Program in Neuroscience. 

Dr. Sainburg is an internationally recognized scholar in movement neuroscience and motor control.  His research integrates biomechanical and neurobiological principles and techniques to elucidate the neural processes underlying the planning and execution of multi-joint reaching movements and is well positioned at the intersections of biomechanics, neuroscience, and rehabilitation.  His research has been continuously funded by the NIH and other funding agencies since 1996. 

Dr. Sainburg completed undergraduate training in occupational therapy at New York University, M.S. and Ph.D. training in physiology and neuroscience at Rutgers University, and post-doctoral training in neurobiology at Columbia University. He began his academic career as an assistant professor in the Departments of Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, and Exercise and Nutrition Sciences at SUNY Buffalo before moving to his current position at Penn State University.

Dr. Sainburg demonstrates a strong commitment to both undergraduate and graduate education.  Because of his occupational therapy roots, he relates especially well to undergraduate students in kinesiology and other fields who are interested in careers in allied health areas such as physical therapy and occupational therapy. He is an excellent graduate mentor and embraces an interdisciplinary approach to training graduate students and conducting research.  At his request while at Iowa State, Dr. Sainburg met with undergraduate students interested in occupational and physical therapy.  A special session was also devoted to graduate students in Kinesiology.

Dr. Sainburg’s seminar title was, Dynamic Dominance, a model of hemispheric lateralization for motor control.  The program announcement stated, “Recent findings on motor lateralization have revealed consistent differences in the control strategies of the dominant and nondominant hemisphere/limb systems. These findings suggest that the hemispheres might cooperate in controlling unilateral movements, an idea consistent with recent evidence for ipsilateral motor and premotor cortex contributions to arm movement. This idea leads to specific predictions for unilateral sensorimotor stroke: Damage to the left and right hemisphere should result in distinct deficits that depend on the side of the lesion, and that are expressed in the ipsilesional limb. In fact, studies of ipsilesional motor function in stroke patients have indicated that ipsilesional deficits in patients are differentially affected by unilateral stroke, in a manner consistent with our hypothesis. These findings not only support the idea that both hemispheres are necessary for accurate unilateral arm control, but indicate different, but complimentary roles. Taken together, our studies of motor lateralization in healthy individuals and of ipsilesional deficits in stroke patients combine to indicate that handedness is not unique among neurobehavioral lateralizations. Instead, motor lateralization reflects the same type of hemispheric separation of function that has been demonstrated for perceptual, cognitive, and language systems.

Keep up with us at: www.kin.hs.iastate.edu

Back to top