Dr. Stephen Wright joined the HLI as a new Principal Investigator (PI) in May, 2025. He completed his training in exercise and circulatory physiology, and now researches the mechanisms of how the lungs and heart adapt to functional changes across the health spectrum and life span. More specifically, he focuses on how one’s heart and lung work together, and how exercise capacity changes throughout life under different health conditions.
Research Focus and Scientific Vision
What is the focus of your research?
I focus on how the heart functions, how it works with the lungs, and how changes in the function or health of one organ affect the other. This involves studies of how heart and lung function change during exercise, and how interactions between these systems, at an organ level, influence how much blood the heart can pump and how much exercise or activity people can perform. My research also focuses on how heart function changes across the lifespan in healthy or unhealthy aging(for example, during the development of heart disease). I’m also interested in how heart function in health and disease impacts lung function.
What are the big questions that you want to answer?
At the acute/organ level, I want to understand how the whole heart works. Historically there has been a lot of focus on left ventricular function. That makes sense because the left ventricle is the most accessible heart chamber to study, and is the most directly related to cardiac output and oxygen delivery, so problems in the left ventricle are very impactful. However, the heart consists of interlinked muscular bands that form 4 inter-dependent chambers, and each of them can have an important influence on overall heart function. Usually, the heart can generate enough cardiac output that even when people have problems in their right ventricle or left atrium, they do okay at rest. However, impacts may be felt during exercise. And if problems in those chambers occur in addition to left ventricular dysfunction, the impact can be severe.
Looking at the bigger picture, when someone has a heart or lung problem, I want to understand the cascade of events that ultimately leads to their cardiac output being inadequate and the person feeling limited in their daily activities. If a gear in a watch gets damaged, it has an impact on all the other gears it interfaces with, which ultimately impairs the overall function of the watch. I’d like to understand how big problems like heart failure or COPD limit people’s ability to exercise, and what parts of the system we can put back into place to help people function and feel better.
What sets your research apart from others in our centre? And conversely, in what way do you think your work is/will be complementary to what is being done in the centre?
We have groups in our centre looking at many different aspects of the intersection of heart, lungs, and exercise – for example, exercise and immune function, or pulmonary physiology and breathlessness, and how physical training affects diseases. I think I bring a deeper cardiac function perspective. Ultimately, the heart is a muscular pump, and I focus on how the heart fills, how it ejects, and what influences those two functions. My interests in and understanding of exercise and pulmonary physiology allow me to meet people where they are and find mutual interests and solve problems in overlapping areas.
Training Background and Pathway to an Academic Career
Can you tell us about your training?
Most of my studies were at the University of Toronto. I did my undergraduate degree in Kinesiology, and then my master’s in exercise science. At that point, I was studying heart function with ultrasound in endurance-trained athletes. I became really interested in heart function, more so than exercise performance, so I jumped tracks from exercise science to medical science.
I did my PhD studying heart function invasively, working in a cardiac catheterization lab, which was a really fun experience. After having spent seven years on campus in the athletic centre, moving over to a hospital was very different. I got exposure to the clinical world. During my postdoctorate, I finally broke the UofT orbit and came out west to UBC’s Okanagan campus. I worked with Professor Neil Eves there, which was an opportunity to learn about pulmonary physiology. I spent six years at UBCO, looking mainly at how breathing impacts heart function, how that interaction changes as people age, and whether it changes the same way in males and females.
Was there a turning point in your career?
I wouldn’t say turning point, but there were definitely impactful points. For example, I’d been interested in cardiovascular physiology since the third or fourth year of my undergraduate, but towards the end of my master’s degree, I really became fascinated by the heart. I felt like I wanted to put everything else on hold to learn more about clinical cardiovascular physiology.
Another important moment was during COVID, because it would have been an easy time for an off-ramp. Everything was hard, especially doing human research. However, it became clear that I cared about what I was doing enough to bash my head against the wall for two years to make things work, to find ways to stay productive, and to answer the questions that I could.
So I suppose, there weren’t really turning points in my education, but reiterations that I was enjoying what I was doing.
“Of course, there are hard days in everything, but for the last 15 years, I have woken up pretty much every day excited to do what I do.”
Was becoming a PI something you wanted from the start?
No, it was not. None of this was my original plan. I originally planned to study engineering. But I got into health sciences instead. So, I did a year in health sciences and then transferred into kinesiology. I then planned to be done with university in 5 years to become a gym teacher, which, of course, didn’t happen. By the middle of my kinesiology degree, I was interested in physical therapy and spent two placements in clinics. And then, right at the end of my undergrad, I realized that although I found physical therapy interesting, the experiences I had had weren’t something I could see myself doing on a daily basis.
I then decided to try doing research as an undergrad for a year and completed my honours thesis. I liked it enough to do my master’s degree, after which I was still enjoying research, so I did my PhD. Towards the end of my PhD, I started to realize that this could be my long-term plan. Since then, over the past seven years, I’ve set myself up more and more to prepare for an independent investigator position.
That being said, looking back, all the things that I was interested in at some point are actually still part of what I do. For example, I look at heart function and hemodynamics through an engineering and physics lens. My departmental affiliation is with physiotherapy. And my long-term goal is to understand what is going wrong in people’s systems so that we can develop treatments and exercise training approaches that help individuals feel better. All of my previous experiences shaped where I ended up in the end, but not necessarily by design.
Words of Advice for Trainees
If you were to talk to someone about to enter grad school or start a postdoctoral position, what advice would you give them?
“I give this advice to all trainees: before starting something, whether it’s your master’s program, or especially a PhD program, do your homework.”
Understand what you’re getting yourself into and make sure that it’s something that is a good fit for you and something that excites you. I find that some trainees will take an opportunity just because it’s there, or it’s good, but not necessarily because it’s the right opportunity for them. However, it is really important to do your homework and learn about your supervisor and the lab that you are trying to work with.
I’ve been very fortunate to have had extremely good experiences in my journey. But those aren’t entirely by chance – I researched every opportunity that I had ahead of time to make sure – as sure as possible – that it would be a good experience.
What should trainees look for in such opportunities?
To me, the best opportunity is an overlap between work that is intrinsically interesting to you, and important to others, in a positive environment. Especially for PhD students, I hope your work is interesting enough that you will get out of bed and go do it, even on the hard days. That being said, it should also be important to society, so that your supervisor will invest time and effort into the work, and so that journals will publish it. And then the third important point is finding a research centre, group or lab that can do the work and that cares about where you want to go and how they can help you reach your goals, whatever they might be.
Would you elaborate on the importance of finding a good supervisor?
There is a lot of overlap between supervisors who are successful and supervisors who want to help you succeed, but not always. Do your homework – great supervisors are proud of their trainees and will be happy for you to talk to their current or former students before you sign on. They care not just about how you can benefit their project, but understand where you want to go and how they can help you get there.
I was my PhD supervisor’s first grad student, but I talked to her residents and her staff, and they were all overwhelmingly positive about her. When I was interviewing with her, she was transparent that, as a cardiologist, she was not sure she was the best person to get me, an exercise physiologist, where I wanted to go. I replied that I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go yet, but that I wanted to understand heart function. She agreed to do whatever she could to support me. Over the next 5 years, we established a fruitful collaboration and a plan for my next steps.
“Think carefully about what interests you, what is interesting to other people, and find a good person who will care about your success to help you get where you want to go.”
Beyond the Lab
What do you do outside of research?
In the summer, I spend a lot of my free time mountain biking. In the winter, I snowboard in Whistler. I started snowboarding on a tiny little hill in Ontario. That was actually part of the original draw to move out to BC. Well, to be honest, I have less time for these hobbies now, but it’s easier to get out and a lot more fun when I do. And I’ve had the chance to start doing more backcountry split boarding and touring and things like that. BC opened up possibilities that I couldn’t do well or easily in Ontario, so that’s been fun.