The Capstone Conference is the annual showcase of new research from students in the Department of Occupational Science & Occupational Therapy’s Master of Occupational Therapy (MOT) program. The conference is an opportunity for the MOT graduating class to present their year-long research projects.
This year’s theme was ‘Unity Through Diversity: Inspiring Occupational Belonging’
Keynote Address: Dr. Tal Jarus
Centred in her own experiences of intersectional identities, Dr. Jarus’s speech highlighted that we are only achieve unity because of diversity, not in spite of it, and reminded us that ableism enforces and reinforces isolation. To foster a plurality of voices, she included recordings by CAOT JEDI Practice Network co-chair Dr. Hiba Zafran, accessibility advocate Susan Mahipaul, and Kaarina Valavaara (Dalhousie University), as well as quoting from and playing audio recordings from Metis OT and Teaching Assistant Justin Turner, and 4th year Intergrated Sciences student Dami Mabadeje.
Dr. Jarus left us with the powerful quote from Maya Angelou, the American memoirist, poet, and civil rights activist, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better”. With life experience and OT education, she mused that we may feel we have achieved the first part – and now, we need to do better – together.
After concluding her address, Dr. Jarus received a standing ovation.
Community Speaker: Holly Reid, and Faculty Speaker: Dr. Laura Bulk
This year’s Community Speaker was Holly Reid, a graduate of our MOT program and a doctoral candidate supervised by OSOT Associate Professor Dr. Suzanne Huot. Holly’s speech used the different but connected threads of a Métis sash as a visual metaphor diversity as the basis of unity, describing both how our own, individual identities are comprised of varying threads and how the individuals within a community make it whole. Holly’s speech was followed by Dr. Laura Bulk’s address as this year’s Faculty Speaker. Dr. Bulk shared her unique perspective as a graduate of our MOT program, an alumna of the Rehabilitation Sciences program supervised by Drs. Tal Jarus and Laura Nimmon, and now an OSOT Assistant Professor of Teaching. She spoke of her personal journey and of the sense of belonging which all of us can foster.
Holly Reid with Dr. Ben Mortenson and Jeff Boniface
Corresponding shoe envy!
Student Presentations
Projects were based on an extraordinary wide-range of topics, including:
- adaptive clothing
- facility support dogs
- climate action toolkits
- migration-informed food-related occupations
- driver education programs
- services for children with developmental coordination disorder
- transitioning into the community following traumatic brain injury and traumatic spinal cord injury
- immigrant employment in the platform economy
- a group-based intervention for fatigue among people with MS
- neonatal intensive care
- screen time management for children with autism
- outdoor play, recreational activities, and adaptive exercise
- community and connection in distributed learning
- virtual reality and motor imagery in rehabilitation
- self-regulation and self-management
- visual notetaking, social prescribing, and increasing student placements
- culturally safe practices in OT education
- pressure injuries and the use of 3-D printing for burns
- peer support within a youth services network
- diversifying health professions
- return-to-work after psychological trauma
- foundational OT skills
- perspectives on decriminalizing the use of drugs
To read the full list of projects and a summary of each, including methods and findings, please see the UBC Capstone Conference website.
Celebrating a successful conference
I just wanted to thank all of you for your efforts in making the 2024 Capstone Conference such an amazing success. Sometimes conference themes seem hollow, but in this case I feel like the theme of Unity Through Diversity was honoured throughout the day.
Huge kudos to all of the soon to be OT students for the last 15 months of work they have devoted to their research studies. I was extremely impressed by the caliber, breadth and depth of research you carried out and this was echoed by everyone I met throughout the day!
Dr. Ben Mortenson
Department Head
Heartfelt congratulations to the Class of 2024 – you did it!
