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The University of Victoria is home to a handful of hardworking graduate students doing trailblazing work in their field. In this series, CFUV correspondents sit down with UVic graduate students to learn more about the work they do in a conversational setting.
hello, you're listening to the Beyond the jargon podcast on CFUV 101.9 FM. Before we begin, I'd like to acknowledge with respect to Lekwungen speaking peoples on whose traditional territory, the university and CFUV stands, and the Songhees, Esquimalt and Wsanec peoples whose historical relationships with the land continued to this day. I'm a guest on this land. And I'm extremely grateful for the experiences and the life it has given me while I've been here. Welcome to the show. My name is Sam Kaiser. I use he him pronouns and I'm a master student studying music technology. In the final semester of my studies, my research is mainly focused on the implications of the growing popularity of immersive audio formats on popular music. This is the fourth and final episode of the 10th season, and I'm super excited to get back into it for any new listeners. Here's a quick little rundown of what we do on the show beyond the jargon exists to give a platform to graduate students of UVic so they can discuss their research and accessible and non formal way. I've interviewed graduate students from various faculties at different points in their academic careers, asking them about their research topics, their experiences as grad students and what their future plans may be. Today's guest is Sophia Mr. Angelo. My
name is Sophia Mr. Angelo. I'm a first year Master's student here at UVic. I'm doing my degree in kinesiology through EP and EP is exercise, physical health and education. Pretty sure that's what is that? So that's
the entire department. That's the entire department. Okay, so what else is included under that banner? Kinesiology,
it's kinesiology, like health education, a lot of people do biomech physiology just kind of things that are covered under kinesiology kind of encompasses all of that.
Cool. So Kinesiology is kind of like the larger banner underneath.
It's an, it's an umbrella term that like, we'll cover all of those things as they relate to human movement and activity. So anything sport or exercise related, looking back to those topics, so yeah,
and what brought you to UVic, or to Victoria.
I mean, UVic specifically, was just, it was mostly a location thing for me. I'm from Toronto. So I wanted to kind of experience the west coast a little bit. And I needed a bit of space for me to develop as an individual. And I was like, heard all these great things about Vancouver Island. And so I was like, Okay, I'm gonna come check it out. And also like, you've it kind of ticked my boxes for being like, a smaller campus where I could get more like one on one attention. And also like research here is supposed to be good. And as far as I've experienced is, so that was kind of my main driver also, just like looking at my supervisors kind of areas of interest and my own from my undergrad, it kind of linked up quite well. So yeah, yeah, I'm
glad to hear it. So you were coming from Toronto. Were you studying in Toronto as well?
Yeah. So I did my undergrad at the University of Toronto. It's just like a four year. It's technically a bachelor of science, but it's called a beacon. But they just wanted a little special name for sure.
I think I Queens we also had a Kinesiology degree. That was a beacon as well. Yeah, I
think it's like qualifies as the same thing.
Okay. Yeah. Just like another another cute little name for Yeah. For exactly science degree. So you kind of mentioned that your supervisors goals, and the research that you've heard at UVic is really good. Was there anything else about the programs specifically at UVic? That really appealed to you I was
mostly looking for through like a Research Lens, if I'm being perfectly honest with you, like, masters, especially thesis based masters, as you know, are more like, focus research. Like I wasn't I wasn't drawn to anything in specific if I'm being perfectly honest with you. It was mostly location, research potential. And
you mentioned your supervisors, areas of interest, what what are those areas of interests that appeal to you? So
initially, it was kind of in like, neurophysiology he was I was I liked kind of the stroke rehab area. And I initially came to him looking at that, and then we kind of switched directions and went into more like pain science, which is still based in neurosis. So that's kind of where I'm like, linking my interest into the study that we're currently like exploring. But that was kind of my initial driver for coming here was like being able to work with him in from like a rehab focused area
for this rehab. Focus. Did you find that you started getting interested in this in your undergrad? Or where did that interest come from?
So my undergrad was pretty like sparse doubt. I didn't know what I wanted to do for like the first couple of years and I think that's pretty normal for a lot of people when I hit like, I did an extra year in my undergrad because I'm I was like, so so unsure. And I took a couple of courses on like motor control. Neurofen is like neuroplasticity stuff and the changes in pathways and like modulatory mechanisms that our bodies use to like, regulate how we feel and how we act is something that really resonated with me and I wanted to kind of like move forward in and then also just kind of get back to fears because that's something that I've obviously like spent a lot of time doing. So yeah,
sure. So fears just meaning like physical activities, physiology. Okay. So physiology is a
study of the human body. Yeah. Okay. Geology is the study of the human body. Correct. And Kinesiology? is a study of human movement, human falls into kind of that area.
Sure. Okay. I don't think it ever really made that distinction. In my head. Obviously, I've heard the terms like physiology and kinesiology before, but I never really thought about what those terms really meant. Separate to each other, and how they connect, obviously. Yeah. And then so you're talking about these pathways to like, that's part of the nervous system. That's part of like the whole body system or
so yeah, I mean, physiology is like encompassing the whole body and all the systems. And it's like talking about all of your different systems. neurological pathways are obviously part of the nervous system. And I don't think it's a great idea for me to go into nervous system function, because I'm sure I'll say something incorrect. Sure, yeah. Very, very complex. And there's a lot of different factors that play into how someone circuitry works and things that can cause disruptions or dysfunctions and how that can link back to like pathology and presentation of symptoms that I find really interesting. And that's kind of where my interest lies, and like looking at how our symptoms or like interpretation of stimuli can be modulated. And that kind of link back links back into like the pain study that we're going to be doing. So
I try my best to like, understand this as we're going as well, but I will if you need me. We're still we'll go. We'll get back into that later. But what I'm curious about first is let me dial it back a little bit, thinking more about transitioning from your undergrad to your graduate degree. Yeah. How was the application procedure for your program here? Was there anything interesting about it
or difficult about it, I would say not nothing that like really caught me off guard, it was a pretty typical application process. I think, for me, I reached out to a whole bunch of places, as I said, I was trying to like throw, like cast my net pretty wide. I wanted, I was I don't know, it was kind of like, trying to figure out where I wanted to go. I applied to like places in the states in the UK. And like in Canada here. And for you, Vic, I think it was just like a basic application with like a personal statement and some references, which is pretty straightforward. So none of that really caught me off guard. I think it was, as I said, like, mostly just a location thing that ended up driving me this way. So sure,
yeah. And you mentioned, you had an idea of your supervisors interests, there. Was that during your application process, okay.
Yeah. So during the application process, obviously, for master's degrees that are supervised, you have to find your PII before, apply and be like, okay, so I had to reach out to them prior to submitting my application. And just be like, Hi, I'm interested in the area that you do research in, like, Would you be interested in having a master's student or supervising me, and then they have to get back to you and tell you that that's okay. Having that verbal exchange or email, exchange, whatever it is, and then ideally, you'd meet with them and get like an official permission to use them as your tentative supervisor for your application. I think that was like the most different thing, but I think that's pretty standard for PhD and masters like degrees anyways. So that was like the main Yeah,
difference for me, it is different. Yeah. Like just comparing it to like an undergraduate application. I did the same thing. Yeah, I had to find my supervisor, reach out to him. And first ask, Would you be willing to take on a master's student? Yeah. And then also, like, just making sure that the interests are aligned enough at least, so that you're both getting something out of it? Right. Like you're both getting some Yeah, exactly. As you're getting the work, like you're getting the research, but then your your supervisor is also gaining a student who is they can show up on their CV as well. And it can also help with some of their products as well. Yeah, exactly.
So there has to be a mutual understanding for sure. And that was definitely like a different thing. For sure. Just the Masters applications in general. Similarly,
yeah, it is it is different. But it is nice, because this is also someone you're working with for like two years, at least. Right? So it's good to also establish if you feel like you can work with this person for a couple of years. So you've kind of talked about this a little bit to like, how different your undergraduate degree was to graduate degrees so far, especially because it's a thesis based program that you're in right now. And you're saying that your undergrad was quite a bit more sparse? Is that the biggest difference that you think like it's a lot more focused now or what would you say? It's
more was more focused, I took a lot of courses in my undergrad because again, didn't know what I wanted. So I spread myself quite thin, I think and wanted to like, try everything do everything. And I think that was, I don't know so much if was a mistake, or if it was just like, I don't know, something my younger brain wanted to complete at that point. But I think definitely the major difference now is just how specific like my area of interest is, compared to what it was before. And I think that just obviously Courseload. And, like, just the work is different. I'm doing much more writing than I've ever done before, which is nice, because it's definitely like improving my writing. And I think that that's a good thing moving forward. For me. There's much more exams and undergrad, I've taken like, two exams and my grad degree, which was a surprise and anything you have to take any so yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like the major differences is kind of like the format of the courses and just the work that I actually have to do. Obviously, there's a lot more like, communicating between me and like other moving parts now than there were as like an undergrad student. Yeah, for sure. That's like the main differences. Yeah, it is,
it is really different is also a lot of like, when you're not stretched, then I suppose you're able to spend a lot more time thinking about your own individual work. Oh, yeah,
absolutely. I think the quality of work is also increased as far as like being able to apply most of your attention to something versus having to kind of try to give as much as you can. When you have nothing left.
You mentioned this, I think one of the first times we met, we played on a soccer team together. And you said that the program at UVic is quite small. It's very small, how large? or how small, is it?
I don't, I don't know the actual number. But like, u of t is like, hundreds of 1000s of students. Sure. Here in the grad program, I think maybe there's like 30 to 50 of us. Yeah, even like PhD and Master's students combined. And EP, I'm not sure about the undergrad program yet. Like, just, yeah, so much smaller, like it's so much smaller. My undergrad year had about 350 students in it. Yeah, in Canada, that's a very small program for sure. For U of T. So coming here and having like the smaller class sizes, it's very different. But I don't think it's a bad thing. It like, I'm not really the person to like go up to the prof and talk to them. But everyone, like all the props, I've had know my name, which is weird. Like that's a new experience for me that I've never had before. And I think it's kind of helping me to open up to asking questions more, because I'm very like, for sure, do it myself. But I definitely need to reach out and like ask for help more. So I think that's helping me do that. Totally.
Yeah, like in a seminar format. You're kind of forced to talk a lot. Exactly. It's not even really just asking questions to the professor. It's like they're asking you questions. They're having you involved in the discussion? Yeah. Which Yeah, I can imagine is a pretty big change. I sort of noticed a change from my first and second year to my third and fourth year where I had more seminar courses in my third and fourth year. And then now very, like much smaller courses. But yeah, I can't really imagine going from because I'm sure like, you probably took some biology classes or larger kin classes where almost everybody in your year was in it at the same time. Yeah, I
originally took a whole bunch of like, pre med classes because I wanted to do veterinary school. I got a lot of exposure in vet med decided I didn't want to be a vet because they live hard. Like yeah, for sure. It's difficult. So anyways, I took all those classes for that purpose, mostly. So I did get a lot of exposure to massive like 800 900 Student classes where you literally are just a number, and nothing else. It was awful. Like it was it's just it's really hard to feel like you're supported in that environment. And that doesn't happen so much here. So that's a nice thing. I think, again,
I don't think it's possible to even think about doing a master's program with that many people because everybody has their research topic that is usually, like you said, related to the supervisors topic, and that supervisor needs to be helping out all the time. Like they need to be a lot more engaged. It's interesting to I guess, your your supervisor is really engaged in your work, but from my experience, too, they also give you a lot of room to work independently. Yeah, these are busy people too. Obviously. It's also just a big learning moment to kind of have someone so invested in the work that you're doing. But also like, you're still having to reach your own individual goals independently. Right. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. It is. And yeah, big, big change from an undergraduate sort of format. Oh, yeah. I'm curious about your small pro. So in your year, how many kids students are there? Here?
Yeah. I literally have no idea.
But of the 30. That's everybody combined, right? Yeah. So maybe like 10,
maybe 10. Maybe like, I'm, I was talking masters and PhD students together for sure. And I don't know who is in one year, so probably roughly like, two eight to 10. Yeah, it's
a tad. Wow. Like, it's
a very small,
very small. Yeah. And do you? Do you take many classes with these other people in your first year,
there's so there's a couple required kind of elective or required, like, obviously, research methods you have to take you just like quantitative or qualitative, specific class, I took quantitative but then there's also seminar courses. Sure, I was unable to take the seminar course last semester, but obviously, I'll have to take a next year. But in those classes, it's been like 15 ish people.
That's a spread of that's a spread. Sure.
But there's also people that I know are doing master's degrees I haven't seen in a single class, so they could be in there like second year, and I have no idea. So true.
Yeah, they can be like, even in the third or fourth year, it's finishing up to nose. That's what's interesting, too, about grad school like you don't really, I always meet new people like, Oh, yeah. You've been here the whole time.
Yeah. So I would estimate 10 to 10 ish people.
Have you been exposed to their research at all?
A little, I am teaching for a physiology lab. So I know a couple of the other grad students that are doing like more kind of physiology based work. Sure. I know a couple that are doing like, some psychological behavior studies from one of the classes I'm taking now. I know a couple of the pi's. But it's pretty like, general still, yeah,
you're also in your first year to write. So I'm not sure how your structure like the structure of your degree is. But have you spent much time with your individual research as of yet or it's still sort of in its planning and burgeoning sentence? Yeah. That's a huge fish. Yeah. So
we're working on getting ethics completed and submitted, hopefully in the next like two ish weeks. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. And
we have to wait. Yeah, you have to wait. It's a such a long process. I did the same thing. I did some listening tests, which were shouldn't really be ethical questions with them. But because we're testing people, like we have to get an ethics proposal. And I'm sure that it's a lot more of an involved process when it comes to kinesiology and physiology and things like that. Yeah. Well, pain research and research, I'm sure. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Do you want to talk maybe a little bit about the ethics process? How it's been so far for you? Because it's sort of in Sorry to interrupt, but it's sort of an individual experience to people who are doing this kind of research? Yeah,
so my ethics experience so far has been, it's been pretty smooth. Like we've, we kind of used like an old rough, this, this whole product that we're doing was kind of like a brainchild of my PI, from like years ago. So we kind of brought it back and reformatted it with some updated literature, we felt the background out and we went over, like what we would do in terms of procedure. And we've kind of just been passing that document back and forth, editing, revising, editing, revising, to get it to a completed Stage. I think it's almost there now. But it's it's just been a back and forth toss between them. And I, and it's been not too bad. That's good. It's a lot of writing. But it's it's I think it's been good to kind of familiarize myself with the process itself. There's also some like supplemental documentation we have to provide because of the complexity of the study, but yeah, it's been it's been pretty, pretty good. I
would say I yeah, like I said, I know, it's a pretty tedious process with a lot of writing. And there's just many sections. I have to keep filling so many sections. Yeah, totally. Yeah, there's a lot of things that you don't consider that you would have to kind of enter for an ethics proposal. But yeah, they're very, very thorough. Yeah. Which is obviously a good thing to protect both yourself as a researcher, but also the people that you're Yeah, you have to cover all your bases for sure. The research totally, we can talk about your research a little bit. I know it's still in his planning phase. And there's still things that you can't talk about, but that's totally fine. Could you just broadly talk about what maybe what your PII was originally investigating, and how it kind of you're bringing it to now?
Definitely, we're kind of looking at how pain responses can be modulated and contextually influenced by different props basically, and we want to see if we are able to change how someone is perceiving pain based on kind of in different, different contextual circumstances, if that makes sense. Interesting.
Yeah, I understand. But I think because there's no specifics that you can talk about, those are the specifics that I'm interested in. I know. Yeah. Which is super fair. I'm trying to be like really vague, totally fair. And I won't, I won't push you on it. But I will ask one thing. Yeah. I'm curious about when you talk about the experience of pain. Obviously, pain is a it's all in your brain, right? It's your brain reacting to different parts of your body that are injured or under like under attack or something like that. In this research, are you focusing on a specific kind of pain? Or is it are there are many different types of pain that you're looking at? We're gonna
focus on I think tactile pain. So it's like, a stimulus where you'd have like, an indent it's not it's not going to be burning or cold or anything. It's like, purely physical like it's yeah, like, purely it's tactile is the right word. Yeah. Like like pushing, pushing. Yeah. Push instead of like, yeah, things like using, some people will use like, like something that would elicit like a spice response. So like hot pepper, that is considered a type of pain. If you were to apply like something that would cause like a burning sensation on you. Okay, that's technically a different type of pain. So is like a menthol. So those trigger different nociceptors in the skin? Interesting, then what a tactile stimulus would if that makes sense. Yeah. That's what we're looking at. So
just tactile nothing else. Yeah.
Focusing on tactile cool
and is also feel free to stop me if we're ever going into territory that we can't talk about. But this tactile pain, are you focusing on a certain part of the body or different parts of the body, palms, palms, bottoms
of feet?
So because those are very sensitive, yeah, so
those have the most number of sensory receptors interested in the whole body? That's why we're so easily able to discern between two things.
Last question about this research. Yeah. When you say prompts, does that mean like different types of pressure or like different conditions? Conditions? Okay. So that could Yeah, like that could mean many things. I suppose. That's okay. That's totally fine. That's okay. That's okay. No, I can imagine these prompts are a big part of what you're studying, like, you're changing the prompt. So then you see what the result is exact. So and you probably don't
want manipulation that we're doing and we just want to like, see how that changes the outcome. That's for sure. The structure and I think that's pretty basic and research. And I'm not, yeah, see weird territory by saying that no, for
sure. Yeah. And I definitely don't want to get you in trouble or anything. But I was just curious about just kind of what those broad things
like in trouble. I just like, I don't know. Yeah, totally
fun. Yeah, super, super fine. I'm sorry. I said that was my last question. But I guess what I'm curious about is what are the applications for this research in the future? Do you think? Or what kind of research groups or categories are you intending to kind of submit to and I guess, contribute to pain
science kind of journal areas, I think rehab is going to ideally have like educational implications for allowing people to have kind of more real world application for understanding pain perception for their own pain, perception. Sure. That's kind of like the main goal is to make it more of like an ecologically valid way to examine how people can experience pain. And I think that that will be important for like rehabilitation techniques, and for just people being able to kind of take autonomy over their own health care.
That's what I was curious about, just like, what is what are the real world applications for this kind of research? And I think you answer that well, just like understanding pain, and how we experience pain a little bit more. Exactly. Yeah. Amazing. What do you think is a common misconception about your field or your research?
Common misconception? I think that people tend to, over over generalize the pain experience and that there aren't like so many multitudes of factors that affect someone's perception of pain. It's not really straightforward at all. And there's a lot of different things that can cause someone to feel more feel less, that go beyond like physical factors like mental state, genetic predisposition, like things that existed or exist kind of outside of the field of physiology.
So yeah, I guess that there's generalizations about pain.
Yeah, sure. So people Yeah, people tend to generalize the pain experience and that I think, has an impact on how people interpret their own pain. So definitely being able to like look at all the different factors and understand that they all play a role. And like not just thinking that there has to be like damage to have pain, like people need to understand that's not necessarily what's happening. Yeah, that's
a totally interesting statement about that doesn't have to be damaged to be pain, because I think we do automatically assume that like, in order for somebody to hurt, somebody has to break, right? Like, your skin has to break your board has to break. But in many cases, that's not that's not what happened. It's
not completely true in the research, but a lot of the general pop has that kind of idea in mind when they're having like a painful sensation. Sure. And there is like study that shows that it's not, they don't equate to each other like pain and damage, but it's not something that's been kind of shown in a way that a lot of people will take into actual like, understanding when considering their own experience.
It's interesting. Yeah, I think maybe there's like a social aspect of that to like, 100% like, oh, like, I'm tough. Like, it doesn't hurt because nothing, nothing is broken. Like, yeah, I'm totally fine. But yeah, super, super interesting. Yeah, I know. You're just started. This is your first year. I guess it's finished. The first year is finishing up. Second semester. It's finishing up. Yeah. So congratulations. That's awesome. We're almost halfway through. I know. What do you think will be next for you after this? If you don't know.
I'm not 100% Sure. To be perfectly honest with you. Like, I'm trying to see how me and research kind of resonate with Sure. If I'm being completely honest. I am interested in like, clinical kind of clinical work. So whether that's kind of going and being like just doing a PhD doing like more research or clinical research. I'm also interested in like, medical school, but you know, everyone's interested in medical schools. And yeah, so just things I'm considering right now. For sure. Yeah, 100% sure in either direction.
Totally. I mean, a year ago for me, I had no idea and I still don't really know exactly what I'm doing Oh applying to jobs and things but I had a totally different idea of what I wanted to do about a year ago. I think my second year was really where I kind of found what I really enjoyed in this field. I was gonna ask you this right at the start and I totally forgot we're in a radio station right now so we can talk about music What are you listening to right now? Like what is what are you really really enjoying listening to right now? Like what genre of music genre or artist or even just a song I have to pull my phone? Yeah, sounds good.
I don't know. I was like feeling like rare Americans for a while like old like kind of grungy Panic at the Disco nice classic. There's some weird ones on here though. Like LeGrande, Do you know what that is? No. Okay. Them
LeGrande.
I literally like it's so random. Sure. It's hip hop rap. That's what it says on Oh, cool, but I wouldn't qualify it as that fair enough. Like also this like weird Beyonce.
What a new song. What is this country song is number one country song in the world strange.
already made myself tired of it. Those are kind of my current current. I go Yeah, I have some weird choices and music that sometimes I just like listening to movie soundtracks. Yeah, perfectly honest with you Sure How to Train Your Dragon has like a super fire. Yeah, I should listen to that. They have a super fire. It's all like orchestral. So. So good. Cool. Awesome. Awesome. Anyways,
well, thanks so much for being on the podcast. Yeah, no
problem. Thank you for having me.
Thanks again to Sophia. This was a super interesting final episode this season. And I feel like I've learned a lot about how we can classify pain and the depth of what pain really is and how it can be reactive to different prompts and situations. Like I mentioned at the start of this episode. This is the last episode for the 10th season and beyond the jargon. I've had a great time being the hostess here. And I've learned a lot from my fellow graduate students from a wide range of departments and research focuses. If you're interested in more beyond the jargon episodes, or any other podcasts from us, you can check out cfuv.uvek.ca for our podcast archive. Thanks again for tuning in. This has been beyond the jargon on CFUV 101.9 FM for the final time this season. My name is Sam Kaiser, and thank you very much for listening