Professors Caroline Fusco, Michael Hutchison and Daniel Santa Mina were recently promoted to Full Professor and Professors Ashley Stirling and Doug Richards have been promoted to Full Professor, Teaching Stream.
The recent promotions of five Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education faculty members reflect the admirable achievements of these highly-respected educators and researchers.
Their promotions reflect the professors’ exemplary achievements across the university’s core areas of academic endeavour. They have shown sustained excellence in teaching and mentoring, research, scholarship, creative professional activity and impactful leadership.
On behalf of the KPE community, I extend wholehearted congratulations to Professors Caroline Fusco, Michael Hutchison and Daniel Santa Mina, who have been promoted to Full Professor, and to Professors Ashley Stirling and Doug Richards, who have been promoted to Full Professor, Teaching Stream.
- Professor Gretchen Kerr, dean of KPE
Caroline Fusco
Physical Cultural Studies
Promoted to Full Professor
Professor Caroline Fusco’s work is reshaping how we think about physical activity, sport and movement within broader social, spatial and ecological systems. Her work spans the geographies of health and sport, analyses of gender, sexualities, the body and the ecological dimensions of physical culture. It brings together rigorous ethnographic, qualitative and spatial methods to question conventional assumptions in kinesiology and physical education. She led the “The Change Room Project,” which challenged heteronormative locker-room practices and earned her the Faculty’s Award of Excellence in Integration and the University’s Excellence Through Innovation Award. She has secured competitive research funding, has a diverse range of publications and supervises a robust portfolio of graduate research exploring queer, more-than-human and environmental aspects of physical culture. In teaching and mentoring, she guides a diverse cohort of MA and PhD students whose theses are advancing our understanding of critical inclusivity and belonging in sport, leisure and physical activity. Throughout her career, Fusco has continued to learn about, and share with others, what it means to act from an anti-oppression personality as a scholar and what kind of values, ethics and decisions are required if we have a desire to live differently in sport and in the world.
Michael Hutchison
Sport Concussion
Promoted to Full Professor
Michael Hutchison’s research focuses on sport-related concussion, rehabilitation and injury prevention, with particular emphasis on structured and progressive exercise as a therapeutic intervention and an objective marker of recovery. He has also published extensively on recovery patterns and the use of biomarkers – blood and neuroimaging – to help better understand the pathophysiological changes following concussion. In professional hockey, Hutchison’s contributions have helped shape the policies and player-safety protocols that govern how concussions are evaluated and managed across the NHL. He has supported the development of evidence-based rules, educational initiatives and best practices designed to protect player health. As director of the David L. MacIntosh Sport Medicine Clinic’s concussion program, Hutchison oversees athlete-centred care that prioritizes safe return-to-play decisions. As a professor, he is committed to training the next generation of clinicians and researchers and translating scientific insights into improved sports-medicine practice.
Daniel Santa Mina
Exercise & Cancer
Promoted to Full Professor
Professor Daniel Santa Mina explores the role of exercise in various clinical settings, including how it improves health outcomes for people with cancer, people who are undergoing surgery, and those with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. He has developed numerous clinically-integrated exercise and rehabilitation programs and conducted research into how they can be optimally implemented in various hospital and community settings. Through his research, he has identified and advanced ways in which kinesiologists can complement medical and other rehabilitation professionals to address the complex needs of people with chronic disease. Through these roles and programs, he has created numerous training opportunities for the next generation of scholars, guiding MSc and PhD students interested in applied clinical exercise physiology.
Doug Richards
Sport Medicine, Biomechanics and Health
Promoted to Full Professor, Teaching Stream
Professor Doug Richards’ career has combined clinical practice, dynamic teaching in undergraduate, graduate, and clinical programs, and research in sport-related concussion and injury biomechanics. As medical director of the university’s David L. MacIntosh Sport Medicine Clinic from 1989 to 2021 and team physician for elite sports organizations such as the Toronto Raptors and Canada’s national women’s basketball and men’s and women’s beach volleyball teams, he helped set new standards in athlete care and injury prevention. His research has largely centred on concussion, with an added interest in the biomechanics of injury. In addition to his sport medicine and biomechanics courses offered through KPE and Arts & Science, he teaches a course on physical activity and healthy lifestyles that has been praised for engaging students across many disciplines. He has received awards for his clinical and post-graduate teaching. Through this blend of excellent teaching, applied professional leadership and scholarly research, Dr. Richards has delivered sustained impact in kinesiology and sport-medicine education.
Ashley Stirling
Sport Psychology; Vice Dean, Programs
Promoted to Full Professor, Teaching Stream
Professor Ashley Stirling’s research on athlete welfare, emotional abuse in sport, coach-athlete relationships and the psychosocial aspects of high performance athlete development has had a significant impact on our field. She is recognized for developing conceptual frameworks and scales to measure maltreatment in sport contexts, advancing the safeguarding agenda. In teaching and curriculum development, she has pioneered experiential and work-integrated learning in kinesiology and physical education, and her Practical Guide for Work-Integrated Learning has become a widely cited resource in higher education. As KPE’s Vice Dean, Programs, her sustained leadership – from launching new undergraduate and graduate programs to broadening student support initiatives – has positioned her as a driving force in shifting sport psychology and physical-activity education toward greater equity, inclusion and student-centred design.