Dr. Natalie Durand-Bush is a sport psychology professor in the School of Human Kinetics at the University of Ottawa. She specializes in mental skills training and assessment, mental health, and coaching psychology. As a Mental Performance Consultant for the past 27 years, Natalie has helped athletes and coaches of all ages, sports, and levels achieve their performance and well-being goals. A relentless advocate for the field of sport psychology, she has co-founded and chaired the Canadian Sport Psychology Association. She has also served as the Vice-President of the International Society of Sport Psychology and as the President of the Association for Applied Sport Psychology. Natalie has always been physically active and played different sports throughout her life, favoring softball, curling, and martial arts. As the mom of a daughter living with a mental illness and as someone who has coped with the loss of her parents and husband to cancer, she knows firsthand the importance of mental health and the positive role that sport plays in the maintenance of well-being.

Mikaela ‘Mishi’ Papich is a PhD candidate at the University of Ottawa. Her doctoral research, supervised by Dr. Natalie Durand-Bush, focuses on developing a sport-specific mental health strategy for Tennis Canada. Mikaela completed her Master’s degree in sport psychology at McGill University in 2021. She is also a tennis player and coach who started competing at the age of seven, and her career culminated at Bucknell University, a Division 1 collegiate program, where she competed for four years. As a high performance athlete, Mikaela has first-hand experience with mental illness as well as a back injury that required a spinal fusion. She empathizes with the challenges athletes encounter as they train for athletic success and she is dedicated to ensuring that athletes, coaches, and staff are provided with the necessary care and resources to flourish both physically and mentally.

Link to Gold Medal Profile for Sport Psychology (GMP-SP) research article - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10413200.2022.2055224

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