Kara Stelfox

Following her career as an athlete, Kara focused on providing mental training and biofeedback to athletes up to the World Cup and Olympic levels, using her expertise to help them improve their self-awareness and sharpen skills such as focus, activation control (e.g., managing performance anxiety), and resilience through setbacks.

As R&D Lead for Performance Coaching’s Resilience practice, Kara ensures that our resilience offerings stay on the cutting edge. She is leading the integration of biofeedback into our programs, and works at the intersection of physical and mental resilience to help us give performers in all domains the same advantages as the elite athletes she works with.

Sports in which Kara has consulted include women’s hockey for the National Women’s Team camps, Olympic freestyle wrestling, sprint kayaking, curling, ringette, squash, soccer, equestrian, synchronized swimming, dance, and Olympic lifting.

Kara holds an Honour’s Bachelor of Kinesiology degree in Mind Sciences from the University of Calgary, earning the Faculty Gold Medal at convocation in 2010, and a Master’s degree in Human Kinetics, with a focus on biofeedback in high-performance sport, from the University of Ottawa.

For 12 years prior to becoming an athlete, Kara also studied and performed the classical violin and viola, which is another key source of Kara’s passion for performance psychology. She now combines her academic knowledge with her experience in sports and music to teach people concepts and strategies that are directly relevant to enhancing self-regulation, performance, and resilience.