As we come to the end of 2023, I have taken some time to reflect on some of the exciting events and activities that were organised by, and involved, staff and students in the PESS (Physical Education and Sport Science) department here at the University of Limerick.
The 2023 year started with a burst of excitement in PESS with the Physical Activity for Health (PAfH) winter training course taking place in January. The PAfH training course was focused on physical activity policy and intervention evaluation. This PAfH course proved a huge success with participants on the course getting to witness excellent presentations and discussions from researchers from around the world including Dr. Peter Gelius (Germany) and Prof Michael Pratt (USA). Participants on the course also got lots of opportunity to network and have one-to-one consultation with speakers.
In the spring time a very interesting PAfH and HRI symposium took place titled ‘Physical Activity is the Reference Behaviour: The Importance of Physical Activity for Muscle and Bone Health’. The symposium included speakers Prof. Craig Sale, Dr. Paul Morgan and the PESS departments very own Dr. Grainne Hayes. All the speakers provided detailed insights into this topic and delivered very thought-provoking presentations.
During the summer a PAfH and HIST seminar titled ‘Scaling up Health Promotion Interventions: A matter of luck?’ took place in PESS. Dr. Femke Van Nassau from Amsterdam UMC delivered an engaging presentation to a large audience in attendance. Dr. Van Nassau highlighted the important strategies that contribute to scaling up interventions.
At the end of the summer a PAfH training course took place which focused on physical activity measurement. Participants of the course experienced interesting discussions around measuring physical activity in special populations. In addition, there was also an interactive device-based lab demo where participants got to see an activePAL device and learn more about setting it up and preparing the device for data collection.
Most recently the PESS department hosted a variety of successful events to celebrate science week. Events included interactive workshops for adolescent school children and a public seminar titled ‘The Science of Health and Happiness as we age’.
Postgraduate students in PESS also got involved in some exciting events throughout the year. A highlight was postgraduate students Patrick Dolan and Aidan Buffey reaching the UL Thesis-in-Three finals! Their participation in the events created great excitement in the PESS department throughout the year. Well done to Patrick Dolan who reached the Thesis-in-Three national final that took place in the Royal Academy in Dublin in mid-November.
These are just some of the highlights of the many events that involved staff and students in the PESS department in 2023. Well done and thank you to all who organised and participated in these successful events.
From a postgraduate student perspective, I feel that attending and getting involved in these events positively contributes to the overall experience of being a student in the PESS department. I highly recommend postgraduate students in PESS to attend similar events in 2024. From my experience I feel that they are a wonderful way to network and get to learn more about research happening here in PESS but also across the world. I can’t wait to see what opportunities are in store in 2024!
Kathleen McNally is a second year SMres student in Physical Activity for Health, in the Department of Physical Education and Sport Sciences, UL. She is supervised by Prof. Catherine Woods, Prof. Elaine Murtagh and Dr. Kwok Ng. Kathleen has a BSc in Public Health and Health Promotion (Atlantic Technological University Sligo, 2021-2022) and a BSc in Health Science and Physiology (Institute of Technology Sligo, 2018-2021).
Contact: Kathleen.Mcnally@ul.ie. Follow on twitter: @Kathleenmcn Research Profiles: Linked-In: Kathleen McNally
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