Sciences Lectures

Inaugural Professorial Lecture from Ken Hodge of the School of Physical Education. The lecture was entitled "Sports Psychology: It's the thought that counts." The IPL was delivered on Tuesday 17th of April 2012.

The Geoff Baylis lectures are a joint initiative between the Otago Botanical Society and the Department of Botany, University of Otago. This lecture was presented by Associate Professor Daphne Lee, a paleo-botanist. The title is "Palms, Podocarps, orchids and proteads: the contribution of new fossil plants from Otago and Southland to our understanding of NZ's vegetation history." The lecture was given on the 16th of September 2009.

Professor Sir Peter Gluckman is Chief Science Advisor in the Office of the Prime Minister's Science and Advisory Committee. He delivered this special lecture at University of Otago, outlining priorities for science in New Zealand and in a broader context. The lecture is entitled " setting Priorities for Science" and it was delivered on Tuesday 24th April 2012.

Emerging technologies for performance enhancement, Damian holds a joint appointment within the School of Sport and Exercise Science / ISEAL Victoria University, and the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) where he is responsible for the provision of quality research for both institutions. Damian was appointed as the inaugural AIS Skill Acquisition Specialist (2002) a role dedicated to providing Australian coaches with an evidence-based approach to skill development.

Consistent with many other disciplines of sport and exercise science, Skill Acquisition practitioners now have more sophisticated technology at their disposal for both the measurement and development of skilled performance than ever before. Despite claims boasting refined measurement sensitivity, real-time feedback performance, and enhanced interactivity and fidelity, the relative efficacy of such tools is poorly understood.

Held, September 2011.

Emerging technologies for performance enhancement, Cathy is a Professor at the School of Psychology, Queen’s University Belfast. Having obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh, she went on to take up a post-doc at the Sports Science Faculty, Marseille, France. It was here that she first encountered virtual reality. In a project funded by Adidas she was the first person to use this technology to simulate and understand the perception of curved free-kicks in soccer. Since joining QUB in 2005, she has built an immersive interactive VR lab where she is continuing to use this technology to study decision making in sport.

Keynote abstract

Virtual Reality Technology: How can it help us understand decision making in sport?

Virtual reality provides the perfect adjunct to study perception/action and decision making in sport. It is in essence a sophisticated interactive and immersive human-computer interface where a sensory environment (visual, haptic and/or acoustic) is simulated by a computer and is controlled by the interactive behaviour of the user. It is a versatile methodological tool that gives the experimenter complete control over complex environmental conditions and allows for an in-depth analysis of the user’s behaviour.

Held, September 2011.

Disciplinary technologies, Jim is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, University of Alberta, Canada and Director of the Canadian Athletics Coaching Centre. A sport sociologist and coach educator, his research examines coach effectiveness and the social construction and historical formation of coaches’ practices through a Foucauldian lens.

What Coaches Do: Problematizing Planning and Practice

“Being a coach” largely revolves around the practice of planning what athletes need to do in training to improve and develop their potential. Three components of training that coaches control, and that greatly influence athletes’ capabilities, are the training spaces used, the monitoring of time, and the organization of exercises. The consideration of these elements, and their impact on athletes’ progression and capacity for performance, derive from Michel Foucault’s analysis of technologies of discipline. In this talk I will examine Foucault’s conceptualization of discipline and it effects on athletes’ bodies, as well as how coaches can enhance their understanding of planning and athlete development by problematizing what they have their athletes do.

Held, September 2011.

Disciplinary technologies, Andrew graduated from Queen's University in 1974. Currently Chief of the Division of Prevention and Rehabilitation at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, he is a Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa. In addition to his clinical responsibilities, Andrew has been extensively involved in sports and sport medicine for many years. Currently he is the President of the Commonwealth Games Association of Canada, has served as a physician at eight Olympic Games and has been the Team Physician for Canada's National Men's Basketball Team since 1978. A member of the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame, Andrew served as Chair of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport from its inception until 2003.

Enhancing Sport Performance: Character, Culture, Coaching or Chemistry?

Attempts to enhance sport performance have traditionally reflected an accentuation of skill, a burnishing of sport-specific tactics, and an augmentation of ‘fitness’. A contemporary challenge in sport is to distinguish those enhancement strategies which are seen as in keeping with established norms of sport practice, and those which are viewed as transgressing a standard of ‘appropriate sporting behaviour’. The programmes designed to curb performance-enhancing drug use are intended to address such a challenge. Sport is practiced in accordance with rules and norms that are ultimately arbitrary. Those vested with responsibility for the preservation of ‘fair play’ apply rules that can also be seen as arbitrary – their approaches represent an application, in part, of the “disciplinary technologies” – but which seek to ensure safety, fair-play and enduring public support of sport.

Held, September 2011.

Technologies of the body, Gregor was a research scientist at the University of Calgary, Faculty of Medicine, for 16 years before, in 2008, becoming an Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary’s, Program in Community Rehabilitation and Disability Studies. Currently, he is also a part-time Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa in Canada. In addition, Gregor is a Distinguished Scholar in the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University, USA and Adjunct Faculty in the Critical Disability Studies at York University, Canada; the President of the Canadian Disability Studies Association and Chair of the Bioethics Taskforce of Disabled People's International.

Un outil, une machine ce sont des organes, et des organes sont des outils ou des. Machines (1). (Tools and machines are kinds of organs, and organs are kinds of tools or machines; translation from (2)).

Science and technology products and changing social concepts and values trigger continuously new sport and influence existing sport in general and the Olympics, Paralympics, and their relationship in particular by among others changing expectations of athletes, officials, spectators, sponsors and governments.

Held, September 2011.

Technologies of the body, Grant Gillett is a Professor of biomedical ethics at the University of Otago. He is also a neurosurgeon and worked in clinical practice until 2006. He studied medicine at the Auckland Medical School and also completed a Masters degree in Psychology. He became an overseas fellow in Neurosurgery at The Radcliffe Infirmary and then completed a D.Phil at Oxford University and was appointed fellow of Magdalen College in 1985.

Cyborgs are human-machine complexes with prosthetic abilities. Where the enhancements remediate a defect we are prepared to acknowledge their value but where they seem to create an unfair advantage over others we feel disturbed. How good can a person be before a compensation for their disability makes them differently abled being in quite another sense. We accept and even welcome enhancement of natural abilities in officials but direct advantaging of competitors is quite another thing. Why – when does good preparation and careful optimisation of ability cross a boundary and why do we care? A range of ethical arguments will be examined to see which, if any, give us a plausible and defensible line to take on this issue.

Held, September 2011.

Discover the Otago phenomenon for yourself and come along to free public lectures in Auckland and Wellington on a range of relevant and challenging issues that affect so many New Zealanders.

Held July-August, 2011.