Teresa van der Vossen works as the Lecturer – Exercise and Wellness at UCOL. Her research expertise is focused on strength and conditioning for high-performance athletes.
Teresa explored these subjects during her undergraduate and postgraduate studies. Writing a literature review on sleep monitoring devices used by sportspeople, she noticed there were significant limitations to current research. She also found that sleep was lacking for her as both a high-performance athlete and a full-time student. Teresa was keen to find out more about how she can maximise her performance whilst training and studying.
Her interest became reality when she decided to undertake a systematic review for her Master's thesis (Currently ongoing). "Sleep is absolutely fundamental for cognitive and physiological performance in athlete populations," says Teresa. She is currently investigating sleep questionnaires utilised in high-performance athletes with the aim of better understanding and identifying potential risks. Her aim is not only to improve sleep parameters for athletes but also help fitness professionals who aren't at an elite level but wish to improve their overall health performance.
A competitive Olympic weightlifter (second in New Zealand in her weight class), Teresa spends most of her extra time training, working on her thesis, driving her truck or binge-watching good Netflix series.