Daniel Viggiani | Scarborough, ON
CURRENT PROGRAM: PhD, Kinesiology
CAREER GOAL: Research/Academia
AWARD: Ross and Doris Dixon Charitable Foundation Graduate Scholarship in Applied Health Sciences
Dan Viggiani’s first love was music, and he spent most of his youth dreaming of a career as a rock musician.
But by the end of high school, he figured he’d better have a “Plan B.” His other interests included athletics and sciences, prompting his guidance counsellors to steer him towards kinesiology at Waterloo.
“It took me a while to settle in, but once I got some research experience, I realized this was something I was good at – and that could really help people,” says Dan.
After a placement in Professor Jack Callaghan’s Spine Biomechanics Lab, Dan became interested in the issue of low-back pain in workplace settings. He wrote a master’s thesis showing that standing desks – often touted as a cure to all-day sitting – can actually increase low-back pain in some people.
Today, Dan is working on his PhD, and his research has expanded beyond mechanical risk factors of low-back pain to include the underlying physiology. He hopes this will lead to better understanding and better prevention.
“I’m truly grateful for this award, particularly for the freedom it’s given me to study something outside of what we usually do in this lab.”
This award supports graduate research in Applied Health Sciences, and is generously funded by a gift left in the will of long-time Waterloo friends and supporters Ross and Doris Dixon. PhD student, Michael Paris (MSc ’17, Kinesiology), also received this award in 2018.
