Meet KPU: Cayley Velazquez

Kwantlen Polytechnic University health science instructor and researcher Cayley Velazquez has spent her career exploring the connections between health, behaviour, equity, and community. 

After completing her post-doctoral fellowship at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Velazquez found herself drawn to KPU — not only for its smaller class sizes, but for the deeper connections she could build with students inside and outside the classroom. 

Since joining the institution in 2017, Velazquez has taught both first and fourth-year health science courses. She attends convocation ceremonies when she can to celebrate her student’s achievements and continues to supervise honours research projects each year. 

Recently, Velazquez was named a Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Race, Food, and Health, receiving $600,000 in federal funding over the next five years to study food security among Black, African, and Caribbean communities in Surrey. 

The role will allow her to deepen her research, expand community partnerships, and explore how cultural, social, economic, and environmental factors influence health outcomes. Beyond research, Velazquez is a lifelong athlete, an engaged youth sports coach, and an avid historical fiction reader. She balances academia with the busy, rewarding chaos of soccer and softball fields.

When did you join the KPU community and why?

I started at KPU in September of 2017. I was working at the Faculty of Land and Food Systems and finishing up my post-doctoral fellowship at UBC, at the time. It was sort of random, I was out in the community and I bumped into somebody who had recently become employed at KPU, and they were talking about the nature of the university and the small class sizes positively.

I thought, “Oh, I don’t know much about KPU” and went online and learned a little bit more — and it turned out that there was a contract posting in health science. So I applied and was successful.

I’ve been teaching at KPU full time since then. I was doing a lot of research at the time at UBC for a few years, and it felt like a time for a switch. 

I’ve been teaching in the classroom before and enjoy working with students, so it was nice to return to that.

What’s your favourite story of your time at KPU?

I like KPU for so many reasons. One of the main ones is related to students is the connection that we get to make with them over their time at KPU. I teach first-year courses and fourth-year courses within our program, so I get to see them at the beginning and at the end. That growth that you get to see is a really cool experience.

One of my favourite things to do is attend graduation every year. I love going to graduation and seeing the sense of accomplishment that students have in themselves, especially knowing where they started and where they end. Seeing them celebrate with their peers and their family is a pretty uplifting experience. 

In the last couple of years, we’ve had two health science students do the commencement talk. One of them called a few instructors out by name, and I was one of them. You don’t know how you impact students sometimes.

The other student who did it was my honours research student, which was really awesome because she’s amazing. It was lovely to see her have that platform. 

What’s something you’d like to say to people new to KPU?

Join something: a committee, a student group, or something you’re interested in. For me, it took a little bit to feel really connected to the KPU community and embedded in it. Once I started to engage in different experiences, my experience at KPU was completely different.

The KPU community is really welcoming. I find that if you need something and people can help you, they will help you. It’s about embedding yourself in that and being comfortable asking, and people will help you. 

I’m from here, but I didn’t go to school here. I played sports, so I was embedded in a team environment and had that connection. For students who don’t have something like that automatically, it’s really great to put yourself into a group where you have people around you and you can ask questions and bounce ideas off. I think it’s really important for the university experience.

What are you working on or doing right now?

With the CRC being recently awarded, most of my time will be spent engaged in research. From that perspective, I’ve got a couple of things on the go. I continue to support and supervise honours research students in our BSc in health science program. 

I usually supervise a couple of students every year, and those projects are driven by the students. They’re quite varied, but they typically are in the health space, health behaviour, and health outcomes.

I’m also working with a colleague of mine to collect the third round of data for a health evaluation and analysis of lifestyle trends and history study. 

We recently published a paper from that data that one of our previous honours students expanded on for her research project. She was the lead author on that, which was really cool.

I’m working with my community partners to expand the scope of CRC right now. We’re looking at collecting data that is more equity-based and examining the different intersecting cultural, social, economic, and environmental factors that are driving food security for the Black, African, and Caribbean community in Surrey.

What’s something you’d like people to know about you?

I’m pretty engaged in youth sports as a spectator and as a coach. On any given weekend, you can catch me either at the soccer pitch watching my three kids play or on the softball field coaching my daughter’s team.

I grew up playing sports, and I actually had a scholarship to play National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I softball in the U.S. when I was in university. I know what sports did for me, the opportunities it gave me, and the life lessons you can learn from it, so I love giving back to young people in that capacity.

I also love to read historical fiction like The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. Most time periods in history are fine for reading, but I tend to gravitate toward the Second World War space.