Senior Specialist, Laboratory Support, Exercice Physiology

Laboratory Support Coordinator

Make your mark with the Faculty of Health Sciences! Health matters to everyone and we are committed to becoming a nationally and internationally recognized leader in innovative approaches to active living, health promotion, and quality health services. Our success lies in our students and our people. Join us and every day you will have the opportunity to make a meaningful impact as we grow together and make a great faculty even better.

Position purpose:

Under the authority of the Director of the School of Human Kinetics, the incumbent is responsible to coordinate all undergraduate exercise physiology laboratories, to supervise the testing and the adaptation of experiments to the curriculum requirements of the school, to ensure that the demonstrations and tutorials are current and scientifically and pedagogically sound. Instructs senior laboratory technicians, teaching assistants, and students in safe working practices in the laboratory environment.

Oversees and coordinates all laboratory activities within the School of Human Kinetics ensuring efficient operation and compliance with academic standards, occupational Health and Safety, and WHMIS legislation.

Supervises and coordinates the planning and execution of specialized activities, including school visits and Open House Day. Works closely with faculty, students, and external partners to support educational initiatives and objectives. Maintains laboratory resources, supervises personnel, and implements best practices for a productive learning environment.

In this role, your responsibilities will include:

• Laboratory instruction activities: Teaches theory of a course (3 credits - 12 weeks of theory: 3 h lecturing, 2.5 h preparation, 3 h marking). Instructs and teaches senior laboratory technicians, teaching assistants and students in a variety of laboratories (fundamentals of exercise physiology, exercise testing and prescription, and exercise execution) to help them acquire necessary technical knowledge in the discipline. Responds to student/professor inquiries and concerns.
• Laboratory and operations management: Plans and coordinates the day-to-day operation of all course laboratories in both English and French. This includes instructing, training and supervising teaching assistants, and senior laboratory technicians in planning demonstrations throughout the academic year as well as offering remedial instruction to teaching assistants and professors where needed. Coordinates the use of labs for other activities such as school visits and Open House Day.
• Learning materials preparation: In consultation with professors, develops experiments which demonstrate important concepts and ensures congruence between lecture and lab materials. Creates, maintains, updates, and edits laboratory manuals, ensuring consistent formatting, accurate and current technical terminology, in alignment with the curriculum requirements or curriculum changes. Prepares and corrects theoretical and practical exams related to the laboratory component.
• Maintenance of laboratory equipment: Responsible for the operation, maintenance, calibration and troubleshooting of the laboratory's equipment. Performs minor repairs to equipment, and trains senior technicians and teaching assistants to use equipment properly and safely. Ensures the availability and proper set-up as well as maintains the inventory of equipment and supplies needed for each laboratory. Keep track of the equipment use, loans, maintenance and calibration.
• Testing: Oversees the testing of new learning activities/experiments to ensure that they work, meet the intended pedagogical objectives, are feasible with the existing installations and equipment and are repeatable by students according to their level of knowledge of the discipline. Corrects existing learning activities/experiments which are not working properly.
• Health and safety protocols: Provides training and certification for Senior Technicians in First Aid and CPR response. Ensures compliance of all users (senior lab technicians, teaching assistants and students) with health, safety, and security standards during exercise testing and prescription.
• Purchasing and budget planning duties: Participates in budget planning for lab supplies and equipment necessary for teaching labs. Prepares all related requisitions according to the approved budget and creates expense reports and collaborates with the finance administrative agent to reconcile all transactions. Recommends the purchase of new equipment to the Lab Committee, the School Directors, and Computing and Technical Support.
• Software management: Creates, maintains and updates laboratory courses in Brightspace to provide access to electronic information (ex: lab protocols, lab schedules) to students and professors. Manages and trains users on specialized software related to exercise physiology required for running the analytical equipment such as the Moxus software, the Monark Ergocycle Wingate software, the Quinton ECG software, in addition to software required for spirometry and body composition analysis.
• Promotional activities: Collaborates with the Academic Office to coordinate and conduct presentations for all promotional activities (ex: visiting tours, open houses and the University of Ottawa Day, etc). Explains scientific activities or concepts in non-technical terms for the general public.
• Meetings and representation : Participates in meetings with Senior Specialist, laboratory support, Biomechanics, and professors teaching courses with laboratory components to ensure effective coordination of laboratory activities and to address any potential issues.

What you will bring:

• Knowledge of Human Kinetics acquired by university graduate degree (minimum M.Sc.)
• Must be a registered Certified Exercise Physiologist according to the Canadian Society of Exercise Physiology's (CSEP) criteria and must maintain this certification according to CSEP's policies during the tenure of the position.
• Minimum of 3 years' experience in a similar position working in a lab related environment
• Knowledge and extensive experience of laboratory protocols and procedures in exercise physiology, fitness testing, evaluation and prescription.
• Must be able to communicate difficult concepts and procedures in a clear and concise manner
• Comprehensive knowledge of application software such as web site applications, data collection software, databases, spreadsheets, word-processing, etc...
• Good interpersonal skills
• As the incumbent is responsible for ensuring that proposed experiments work in a teaching laboratory setting, ability to integrate existing equipment and installations, teaching and sound scientific methodologies into a learning experience for the students that is congruent with and complements the theoretical content of courses.
• Ability to analyze learning activities/experiments that do not work, identify the problem areas and solve them, all the while maintaining the validity of the experimental work from both a teaching and scientific viewpoint.
• Bilingualism ― fluent in speaking, writing and reading French and English.

Key Competencies at uOttawa:

Planning: Organize in time a series of actions or events in order to realize an objective or a project. Plan and organize own work and priorities in regular daily activities.

Initiative: Demonstrate creativity and initiative to suggest improvements and encourage positive results. Is proactive and self-starting. Show availability and willingness to go above and beyond whenever it is possible.

Client Service Orientation: Help or serve others to meet their needs. This implies anticipating and identifying the needs of internal and external clients and finding solutions on how to meet them.

Teamwork and Cooperation: Cooperate and work well with other members of the team to reach common goal(s). Accept and give constructive feedback. Able to adjust own behaviour to reach the goals of the team.

The University of Ottawa embraces diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We are passionate about our people and committed to employment equity. We foster a culture of respect, teamwork and inclusion, where collaboration, innovation, and creativity fuel our quest for research and teaching excellence. While all qualified persons are invited to apply, we welcome applications from qualified Indigenous persons, racialized persons, persons with disabilities, women and LGBTQIA2S+ persons. The University is committed to creating and maintaining an accessible, barrier-free work environment. The University is also committed to working with applicants with disabilities requesting accommodation during the recruitment, assessment and selection processes. Applicants with disabilities may contact hrtalentmanagement@uottawa.ca to communicate the accommodation need. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.