
Dr. Kirsten Barnes
Kirsten has been a proud member of the CSI Pacific team since 2009. She has the privilege as the current Director, Health and Performance Services to support our amazing team of sport science and sport medicine applied practitioners. As well, Kirsten works directly with our Director, Performance Solutions to enable the best possible performance solutions for our National and Provincial sport programs and collaboratively works with senior leadership on the overall strategy and direction of CSI Pacific. After more than 20 years working in the field of applied sport psychology as a mental performance consultant, Kirsten brings high performance sport knowledge and leadership to her current role at CSI Pacific.
She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Human Performance from the University of Victoria and then completed a PhD in Sport Psychology at the University of Bristol in England. Kirsten competed for Canada in rowing at the 1988 and 1992 Olympic Games. She is a double Olympic Gold Medalist from the 1992 Games and a World Champion from the 1991 Rowing World Championships in both the 4- and 8+.
Kirsten returned to Canada after fourteen years in the UK. In the UK, she worked as a leadership development consultant at Lane4 Management Group and as a sport psychology consultant for national teams such as squash, rugby, triathlon, and badminton, and with several national team athletes in sports such as rowing, cart driving, athletics, swimming and three-day eventing. She also provided support to HQ staff and team management for Commonwealth Games England and British Olympic Association. Kirsten spent time as a board member of the English Institute of Sport (EIS) and later worked as the National Lead, Sport Psychology for the EIS. Since 2008 in Canada, Kirsten has worked with a number of Canadian National Team programs as part of their integrated support team through CSI Pacific and attended multiple International and World Championship events and multisport Games.
Now based in Victoria, Kirsten brings a wealth of knowledge to the Canadian Sport Institute Pacific from her experience as an athlete, academic, and professional.