The federal government’s Canada Research Chairs program invests up to $311 million per year to attract and retain some of the world’s most accomplished and promising minds. Chairholders are recognized to be national and international experts in the fields of engineering and the natural sciences, health sciences, humanities and social sciences. Brock University has 12 active Canada Research Chairs. This monthly series profiles the work, and lives, of Brock’s Chairholders.

Toby Mündel is happiest on a sweltering summer day.

It’s a sentiment stretching back to his childhood in Germany when he frequently found himself sitting among family members and friends in the backyard sauna.

The group would sweat up a storm, then roll around the snow or plunge into an ice-cold pool.

“I hated that part, but I quite liked the heat,” says the Professor of Kinesiology.

Decades later, Mündel is doing a deep dive into thermoregulation. As Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Extreme Human Environments, he studies how the human body regulates temperature under a variety of situations inside and outside the body.

The human body’s thermoregulation system includes the sweat glands, circulatory system, skin and a gland in the brain called the hypothalamus. Among other strategies, the body sweats, shivers and changes where it sends its blood flow to keep itself as close to 37 degrees C as possible.

Mündel’s entry into the field was a bit of a fluke. During his very first week as an undergraduate student at the University of Birmingham in the U.K., he saw a small poster calling for participants for a research study.

“They offered money, and so I said, ‘Yup, I’ll do it.’ And it just so happened that it was a study where you had to cycle in a sauna for one hour for 14 days,” he says. “It was hell; it was horrible. But from that first hook, mainly for money and joy of an ice-cream whilst horribly hot, I got interested.”

His Honours Bachelor of Science, considered to be the equivalent of a master’s degree in Canada, focused on the impact of high intensity exercise on immune function through saliva samples, while his PhD focused on endurance and perception while exercising in the heat.

Mündel began his career as a Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham, where he had earned his graduate degrees. He transferred to Massey University in New Zealand, working his way up to become Associate Professor of Kinesiology before joining Brock in 2022.

Two major events took place during this time that put Mündel on the road to his current Canada Research Chair position.

The first was a conversation Mündel had with the PhD student he supervised. The student decided to return to the U.S. to research how the aging process affects heat thermoregulation, a large population not well studied.

He says that experience challenged him to expand the scope of his research.

The second event occurred much closer to home.

“At the same time, my wife was pregnant,” he says. “We enjoyed all the changes that went on and I took an interest in the birth of our daughter.”

That’s when the proverbial lightbulb went off.

“Most of the research on thermoregulation has been done on men,” he says. “I decided I was going to focus my work on what most researchers ignored or found too difficult to pursue, because women are important and form half of the population.”

Mündel’s work examines the role of hormones, such as estrogen and progesterone, and processes such as menstruation, pregnancy and ovulation in regulating body temperature, especially under conditions of exercise.

Other goals he has in his Canada Research Chair position include studying how thermoregulation affects fasting and how innovative new technologies such as wearable sensors that monitor temperature in real time can detect heat strain early and to protect the body against extreme heat.

He also plans to work with Canada Research Chair Newman Sze to examine molecular biomarkers in blood to determine who might be at greater risk of heat stroke or other vulnerabilities to the heat.

“Being a Canada Research Chair is an incredible privilege: it allows for first-class facilities, supports graduate students and enables me to hit the ground running,” says Mündel, adding he is grateful for his colleagues’ support and the “giants” of Brock’ current and former CRC holders.