Melanie Lam
Dr. Lam grew up on the west coast of beautiful British Columbia. It isn't really surprising that she decided to pursue both her MSc and PhD. In 2004, she completed a BA with a Double Major in Psychology and Criminology at Simon Fraser University. And how, might you ask, did she end up in Human Kinetics? During her senior year of undergrad, she worked as a Research Assistant in the PsychoMotor Behaviour Lab under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Weeks. Dr. Weeks had transferred from SFU's School of Kinesiology, and his expertise was in human motor behaviour. After working in his lab for almost two years, he encouraged her to work with Dr. Romeo Chua in the School of Kinesiology at UBC. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Dr. Lam is not only fascinated by the body's general ability to move, but also by its ability to adapt to changes within it (e.g., physical injury, neurological disorder) and the environment. She's curious about how motor behaviour changes in a social context. Perhaps you helped your friend move their couch from one side of the living room to the other. How were you able to predict and anticipate your friend's actions? How is it that two people, physically independent of each other (i.e., two separate neural systems), are able to coordinate their actions as if a single unit? Dr. Lam's research aims to chip away at these questions. She is also striving to better understand how special populations (e.g., Down syndrome, Parkinson's disease) adapt their actions under constrained conditions. You can learn more about her research by visiting her lab website.
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McCann, B., Lam, M. Y., Shiohama, T., Ijner, P., Takahashi, E., & Levman, J. (2022). Magnetic resonance imaging demonstrates gyral abnormalities in Tourette syndrome. International Journal of Developmental Neuroscience.
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Bubna, M., Lam, M. Y., Cressman, E. K. (2022) The role of awareness on motor-sensory temporal recalibration. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 16: 747544.
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McCann, B., Levman, J., Baumer, N., Lam, M. Y., Shiohama, T., Cogger, L., ... & Takahashi, E. (2021). Structural magnetic resonance imaging demonstrates volumetric brain abnormalities in down syndrome: Newborns to young adults. NeuroImage: Clinical, 32, 102815.
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Laforest, J., MacGillivray, M., & Lam, M. Y. (2021). The influence of social context and social connection on visual perceptual processes. Acta Psychologica, 215, 103270.
To view more of Dr. Lam's publications, please visit her Google Scholar page.
