About The Author:
Garcia Ashdown-Franks received her B.S. in Kinesiology from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education in 2015. She is currently working as a research associate for the Health and Exercise Psychology Laboratory at the University of Toronto.
Ms. Ashdown-Franks has worked on various research projects relating to exercise and mental health. These included studies on sport participation and anxiety, depression and body image. She has also examined the role that type of sport context plays on mental health, such as individual sport vs. team sport, and contact sport vs. non-contact sport. She was also involved in the creation of an exercise intervention to improve mental wellbeing among female university students. Ms. Ashdown-Franks has extensive experience with recruitment, data collection, data entry and data analysis. Her research interests include exercise and mental health, and particularly the role that socioeconomic status and social inequality plays in this relationship.