This website stores cookies on your computer. These cookies are used to collect information about how you interact with our website and allow us to remember your browser. We use this information to improve and customize your browsing experience, for analytics and metrics about our visitors both on this website and other media, and for marketing purposes. By using this website, you accept and agree to be bound by UVic’s Terms of Use and Protection of Privacy Policy.  If you do not agree to the above, you can configure your browser’s setting to “do not track.”

Skip to main content
People Departments Maps Buildings Rooms A-Z
University
of Victoria
Apply Library
Sign in Online tools Sign out
Faculty of Health

Research Spotlight with Kurt Smith

November 27, 2025

Kurt Smith
Kurt Smith (second from left) was part of the high-altitude research expedition team that went to the White Mountains this past summer.

Kurt Smith runs the Cerebrovascular Health Exercise and Environmental Research Sciences (CHEERS) Laboratory located in the McKinnon Building at UVic. An associate professor in the School of Exercise Science, Health and Physical Education (EPHE), Smith’s research focuses on measuring the impact of sex and gender on brain aging and health. Here, he talks about the CHEERS lab, how his daughters have inspired his work, and the importance of student-led research.

Can you tell us a little about your CHEERS lab and what you do there?

I am the principal investigator responsible for the studies performed in the CHEERS lab, which investigates the influence of age and sex on brain artery health. We use exercise and environmental interventions to quantify and explore the mechanisms responsible for maintaining healthy brain blood flow over the lifespan. We can image brain blood flow in the large extra (neck) and intra (brain) cranial arteries using vascular duplex and transcranial doppler ultrasound, respectively.

Recently, we received a $126,000 grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) to purchase a new transcranial doppler ultrasound which allows us to measure intracranial artery function in multiple regions of the brain simultaneously. 

How were you drawn to this area of research and why is it important to understand?

When I began looking at brain artery health during my undergrad and graduate research, it became evident that there was limited cerebrovascular data available on females specifically. I have three daughters and a spouse. Knowing that they might have an increased risk of age-related cerebrovascular diseases from reviewing epidemiological reports provided little comfort when determining that there is limited research exploring the mechanisms responsible. It is the limited mechanistic understanding that  largely drives me to perform the research that we do.

In 2019, when writing my first independent research grant as a tenure-track faculty, most research investigations measuring brain blood flow were typically performed in males. Approximately one per cent (fewer than 54 studies) of the 6,000 studies that had assessed cerebral blood flow (CBF ) since the first human brain blood flow had been measured in 1954 had included female studies.

As an exercise physiologist interested in helping the women closest to me reduce the risk of age-related brain disease, I was inspired to have my research area focus on female brain health. It is worth noting that since 2019 sex and gender metrics in cerebrovascular research has slowly improved. This is on large part due to calls by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) requiring funded researchers to include sex and gender in research design, and journals and societies like the American Heart Association and American Physiological Society, requiring data analysis to be stratified using sex and gender in all research submissions. 

You took a group of UVic kinesiology students over the summer to Guelph and then to the White Mountains, in California, to study how male and female bodies acclimatize to high altitude. Can you tell us more about this trip?

These projects are the ones that I really am passionate about.  Field research, especially to places that have environmental stressors with a beautiful backdrop of mountains and sky, really makes the job challenging, but in an enjoyable type of way.  So, this summer, three principal investigators, including myself and Michael Tymko, from the University of Guelph, Anthony Bain, from the University of Windsor, led an international team of researchers to the high-altitude Joseph Barcroft Research Station at 3,800 metres elevation.

The trip was supported by the White Mountain Research Center and the University of California Irvine after we completed our baseline testing at the University of Guelph in June. The research expedition included a total of 40 researchers and medical professionals from the US, Brazil, Canada and the UK. There were three primary aims of the research expedition, with several smaller studies performing complimentary measures throughout the trip.

What were you studying?

All studies had a primary purpose of investigating the influence of how sex, or more specifically how sex hormones, influence physiological acclimatization to high altitude. We measured biomarkers associated with cerebrovascular and cardiovascular health using non-invasive imaging as well as invasive pharmacological and biological tissues sampling to quantify nervous activity and neural inflammation may influence brain acclimatization.

We also included several behavioral components known to influence acclimatization. These included sleep and nutrition tracking, as well as several cognitive tests and fitness assessments. Student researchers took the lead on several of their own research projects, working alongside faculty researchers, postdoctoral fellows, and medical doctors.

On this trip, the CHEERS lab’s primary focus was investigating if the autonomic nervous system was associated with the incidence and severity of high-altitude headache following ascent to high altitude. This was achieved by exploring acute brain blood flow responses to a “brain freeze” headache.  This study was developed by EPHE graduate students Benjamin Seshadri, a NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship researcher, and Kira Peary, who is also a former Vikes rugby captain.

The best part of this research trip, apart from the beautiful backdrop, is the requirement that all researchers work together as an inclusive and integrative team. Most people form lifelong friendships and set the stage for the next generation of integrative physiology collaborations.

You were once a student who took part in the above-mentioned high-altitude research expedition. Can you tell us more about your commitment to supporting student-led research?

My philosophy is that good research happens when people are passionate about the project, and what really helps develop that passion is when the project aligns with their own career goals.  Many graduate students and postdoctoral researchers have questions related to their lived experience, and I enjoy the challenge of helping them design a research project that is meaningful to them. 

Hopefully, whether it is fun, international research expeditions or challenging laboratory studies in unique populations, students realize that being part of an integrated research team helps them determine whether careers in medicine, physiotherapy, and/or a research job in industry or academia will be part of their future journeys.