Congratulations to the winners of the 3rd ISB Sponsored Motor Control Group Student Award

3 July 2021

Congratulations to Ms. Lea-Fedia Rissmann, Master's student in the Sport & Exercise Science for Health and Performance program at the Ruhr-University Bochum (Germany) and to Mr. Matthew Slopecki, Ph.D. student in the Biomechanics of Occupation and Sport Laboratory, in the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education at McGill University (Canada), who were awarded the 2021 Motor Control Group Student Award for their abstract submission.

This is the third edition of the Motor Control Group Student Award sponsored by ISB. The 250 US $ award aims at encouraging the participation of students and young investigators in Motor Control research.

Lea-Fedia Rissmann

Winning abstract: “Corticospinal excitability during and after stretch-shortening cycle contractions compared with pure shortening contractions”

Lea-Fedia Rissmann completed her bachelor’s degree in biology and Sports Science (Ruhr-University Bochum, GER) and is currently a Master's student in the Sport & Exercise Science for Health and Performance program at the Ruhr-University Bochum (GER). In addition, she works as a student assistant at the Department of Human Movement Science.

In her master thesis, she investigates neuromechanical components of stretch-shortening cycle contractions in human plantar flexors, with specific focus on the modulation of cortical and spinal excitability during and after SSCs and how this could potentially explain the enhanced muscle performance during and after SSCs.

Matthew Slopecki

Winning abstract: “Uncontrolled manifold analysis of effects of different fatigue locations on coordination during a repetitive pointing task”

Matthew Slopecki is a Ph.D. student in the Biomechanics of Occupation and Sport Laboratory, in the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education at McGill University, Canada. Matthew’s research generally aims to employ a range of motor variability metrics to improve our understanding of the fatiguing process in differing populations, such as those with pathologies and elite athletes. The presented work was part of a larger collaborative project utilizing motor variability metrics that attempt to quantify variability in the context of motor abundancy in human movement.