Master's student researcher passionate about helping children with stroke

Asha Hollis takes a deep breath, lifts her violin bow into position, and strikes a chord. While she smiles at her audience, Hollis is also thinking of her muscles and her motor abilities — and the lack of them in many young children who suffer stroke at birth. Hollis wants to bring better motor skills to such children, the focus of her research at the University of Calgary.

Stroke at birth affects one in 3,000 children in Canada, resulting in life-long disabilities. Hollis is the recent awardee of one of the University of Calgary’s 2018 Canada Graduate Scholarship (CGS) Master’s awards. 

“When I got the notification that I won the scholarship, I was both honoured and excited,” says Hollis, a Cumming School of Medicine (CSM) neuroscience master’s student who is among 73 graduate students to receive the award. The CGS Master’s program provides funding to students in their early research career and provides them an opportunity to gain research experience.

“Receiving the award enables me to focus on my research and to make the project as successful as it can be,” Hollis says. Under the supervision of Dr. Adam Kirton, MD, Hollis’s research project focuses on the effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation, a non-invasive form of stimulating the brain, on motor learning and neurophysiology in children. Kirton is a pediatric neurologist at the Alberta Children’s Hospital and a professor in the Department of Pediatrics in the CSM. Recently, he was honoured by the Royal Society of Canada as a newly elected fellow in the College of New Scholars and Scientists. He is also a member of the CSM’s Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute and Hotchkiss Brain Institute.

Children in the Kirton lab receive bursts of neuro stimulation which are tested against their motor skills. Hollis is setting up a clinical trial in the lab to check the activity level in parts of the brain that control particular muscles in the body after a stroke. “The trial was a huge team effort from our lab,” says Hollis. “We did a lot of pilot testing and even collaborated with different people to design a kid’s Statstim Cap for the study.”

The Statstim Cap was specially designed by a rehabilitation engineer. “It was fun to see it come together, even custom 3D printing was involved,” Hollis explains. The Statstim Cap is the first of its kind and sends mild magnetic impulses to the brain while allowing kids to move around at the same time.

While studying at the university, Hollis has given back to the community. She advocates for vulnerable populations and more specifically childrens’ health in her spare time. She’s listed in the Alberta Council for Global Cooperation’s Top 30 under 30. Even in her spare time, Hollis is active. She’s a violinist and plays in the UCalgary Orchestra and the Cumming School of Medicine Chamber Quartet. Managing all these activities, Hollis maintains her outstanding student record. Last year, Hollis achieved top marks in her graduate program. She is also part of Leaders in Medicine, a joint physician-scientist training program in the Cumming School, and will start medical school after completing her master’s degree.

“I do what I do because I want to give back to the kids that I meet who are so courageous,” says Hollis, who credits her mentorship for helping hone her skills.  “I have had some of the best mentors and hope to follow in their footsteps one day to become a clinician scientist.”