Jonathan Smirl
Assistant Professor
PhD - Cerebral Blood Flow Regulation
Contact information
Location
Courses
Research and teaching
Injury Prevention, Sport Medicine & Rehabilitation
- Sport-Related Concussion
- Cerebrovascular and Autonomic Dysregulation
Research interests
Jonathan Smirl specializes in sport-related concussions. He is a cerebrovascular and exercise physiologist, and in 2017 was the first Canadian ever elected to the International Cerebral Autoregulation Research Network (CARNet) steering committee and was re-elected to this position in 2019. His research focuses on understanding the cerebrovascular and autonomic dysregulation which occurs following a concussion and aims to use this knowledge to develop informed exercise interventions which can be used to help aid in the recovery process during both acute and prolonged symptom periods.
Biography
He completed his BSc in Biology at the University of Victoria in 2004 and spent several years working as a swim and triathlon coach throughout Victoria, BC. He re-entered academia in 2008 at the Okanagan campus of the University of British Columbia where he completed both his MSc (2011) and PhD (2015) at UBC Okanagan focusing on cerebral blood flow regulation under the guidance of Prof. Philip Ainslie. After completing his PhD, he was a post-doctoral fellow in the Concussion Research Lab at UBC working alongside Professor Paul van Donkelaar. In 2019, he joined the Faculty of Kinesiology at the University of Calgary as an assistant professor.
Awards
Michael Smith Foundation in Health Research, Post-Doc Fellowship 2019-2020
Innovations in Wellness, Post-Doctoral Fellowship 2016-2017
MITACS Accelerate Internship, 2015-2017
Canadian Traumatic Brain Injury Research Consortium Travel Grant, 2017
UBCO Post-Doc International Travel Grant, 2016
UBCO Dean’s Thesis Fellowship, 2015
Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, 2013-2015
NSERC PGS-D2, 2013-2015
UBCO Graduate Fellowship, 2012-2015
Physiological Society International Travel Grant, 2011, 2015
UBCO Ph.D. International Travel Grant, 2013, 2015
Special UBCO Award PhD Fellowship, 2012
UBCO Ph.D. Tuition Award, 2011-2012
UBCO Graduate Entrance Scholarship, 2011
UBCO TREK Excellence Undergraduate Scholarship, 2009