Dr. Saied Jalal Aboodarda
Dr. Jalal Aboodarda is the Principal Investigator of the Exercise Neurophysiology Lab and an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology at the University of Calgary.
Jalal is a well-travelled and experienced neurophysiologist. Prior to being appointed his current position in July 2019, Jalal received his master's degree in his hometown of Esfahan, attended the University of Malaya for his PhD, then landed at Memorial University and the University of Calgary for postdoctoral fellowships. He is passionate about basic and applied aspects of the neural contributions to exercise. Specifically, some of his current research topics include: exercise-induced pain, supraspinal and spinal excitatory and inhibitory responses to exercise, blood flow restriction training, and how perceptual and physiological responses to exercise can integratively modulate performance.
Email: saiedjalal.aboodarda@ucalgary.ca
Phone: +1 (403) 220-3649
Office: KNB 420, Human Performance Lab
Twitter: @SAboodarda
Current Students
If you are interested in joining our research team, please send an email to Dr. Aboodarda!
Jenny Zhang
PhD Candidate. Jenny has been a part of this lab since 2019, when she completed her MSc investigating muscle mass and fatigue. Her current doctoral work focuses on the neurophysiology of exercise-induced pain and acute and accumulated fatigue. In her spare time, she enjoys swimming, skating, and cheering on the Flames.
Email: mu.zhang@ucalgary.ca
Aaron Pearson
PhD Student. Aaron's background is in quantitative exercise physiology and sports science. His experience includes utilizing wearable technologies to model aerobic and anaerobic fitness, and athletic abilities. His current project examines whether wearable technologies can be used to assess exercise performance in lieu of conventional testing methods. You’ll find Aaron either coding, in the library, or falling off bouldering walls.
Email: aaron.pearson@ucalgary.ca
Keenan MacDougall
PhD Candidate. After a successful athletic career in the CFL and National Bobsleigh Team, Keenan completed his MSc under the supervision of Dr. Brian MacIntosh exploring the force-velocity relationship in animal skeletal muscle models. Now, he is expanding his work to human research to understand how bioenergetic efficiency and the VO2 slow component integrates with fatigue.
Ziba Yousefzadeh
MSc Student. Ziba is currently completing her project whereby she observed the effects of pain on the spontaneous electrical activity of various brain regions using EEG. She likes to spend her spare time with her two energetic and soccer-loving sons, Arshia and Ryan.
Brooklyn Wiggins
MSc Student. Brooklyn completed an honours thesis in the lab and then started an MSc investigating pain and fatigue across the menstrual cycle in eumenorrheic women and hormonal contraceptive users. She is also a CSEP Clinical Exercise Physiologist and teaches exercise oncology classes. In her free time, she enjoys admiring her plants, doing crafts, and enjoying the outdoors!
Email: brooklyn.wiggins@ucalgary.ca
Maria Pricop
MSc Student. Hailing from Hamilton ON, Maria completed her undergraduate degree in Integrated Sciences at McMaster University. Her current research explores interval training programs and blood flow restriction and she aspires to pursue psychiatry. Maria also loves to share her knowledge of strength training and anatomy!
Email: maria.pricop@ucalgary.ca
Sophie Morgan
Honours Student. Sophie is in her final year of a Bachelor’s degree in Kinesiology and first started investigating exercise-induced hypoalgesia and blood flow occlusion in the lab. She is currently completing her honours thesis examining accumulated fatigue and pain during HIIT exercise. Outside of the lab, she enjoys hiking, crocheting, and baking sourdough bread.
Previous Students
Undergraduate Students
Masooma Kashef (Kinesiology)
Eric Anklovitch (Kinesiology)
Micah Grunau (Kinesiology)
Sam Abel (Kinesiology)
Meghan Macphail (Kinesiology)
Tom Chai (Kinesiology)
Delbar Jazayeri (Kinesiology)
Rojan Khoshreza (Kinesiology)
Sam Yeung (Kinesiology)
Mohammed Alzeeby (Biomedical Sciences)
Graduate Students
Zachary McClean (MSc, 2022)