Brandenburg named Director of new School of Kinesiology

Dr. Jason Brandenburg has been named the new Director of the School of Kinesiology at UFV. Along with the new school, Jason’s new position will take effect on September 1, 2020.

Currently, Jason is the Department Head and an Associate Professor of Kinesiology here at UFV.

Jason holds an undergraduate degree in Physical Education from the University of Alberta, as well as Masters and PhD degrees from the University of Victoria (Kinesiology and Physical Education).

His first academic position was at Northern Illinois University (NIU; Kinesiology and Physical Education). After five and a half years, Jason left NIU and came to UFV. He spent eleven years as a teaching and researching faculty member before taking on the role of to Department Head. Some of his other previous work experiences include working with professional ice hockey, junior ice hockey, national women’s basketball, UFV women’s basketball, junior rugby, and free style skiing teams.

When asked what projects he is most proud of, Jason says, “Currently, I am proud of the collaborative research project that Dr. Cynthia Thomson, Dr. Iris Lesser, Dr. Luisa Giles, and myself have underway to look at the impact of physical fitness levels on COVID-19 symptom severity. I believe the findings will be very impactful for the general public.”

Jason’s areas of interest for research and teaching fall under the area of exercise physiology. For research, the last three to four years he has been involved in research projects to examine if supplementation with polyphenol-rich fruit – such as blueberries – has an ergogenic effect on endurance performance and if it affects the physiological responses to endurance exercise. He says, “This research has received three years of competitive funding, allowed me to work with numerous students within the KIN program, and allowed me to collaborate with different faculty members within the KIN department.”

Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, Dr. Alastair Hodges, is excited to work with Jason in his new position. “Jason has a very strong track record of teaching excellence, high-quality student-engaged research, and institutional service. This experience and his commitment to the Kinesiology program and the communities it serves will be most valuable in his role as the first Director of the School of Kinesiology.”

As Director, Jason is excited about working closely with colleagues to make the student learning experience in Kinesiology and Health Science as meaningful and valuable as possible. He works diligently to ensure that when students complete their KIN degree, they are extremely well positioned for what comes next. He hopes to do this in part by building new relationships and partnerships in the broader community as well as UFV.

“One key to our goals is establishing authentic and meaningful experiential learning opportunities. To do this, we need to foster our current community connections and create new relationships within the community. We have many extremely talented students within Kinesiology, and I am looking forward to collaborating with the Fraser Valley community further.”