Faculty Research
Faculty, students, and staff in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health study all aspects of health,
rehabilitation, and human movement across the lifespan. Research Groups and Labs explore many movement-related topics.
Read about kinesiolgy and community health research.
Faculty Research Highlights
Flavia Andrade
Assistant Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
Flavia Andrade's research focuses on the demography of health and aging in Latin American and Caribbean countries
and among Latinos in the U.S.
Read more about Dr. Andrade.
Angela Black
Assistant Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
Dr. Angela Black joined the faculty of the new Master of Public Health degree program at Illinois. Her research explores the
relationship between racial and gender oppression and health, with the goal of illuminating the psychosocial and psychophysiological
consequences of surviving in a racist and sexist society. She is interested in developing culturally-appropriate, family-centered
programs to help African American women who are at risk for and who already have chronic mental and physical illnesses, by focusing
on such modifiable behaviors as coping, role management, and self-care.
Read more about Dr. Black.
Marni Boppart
Assistant Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
Marni Boppart studies the repair process that occurs in skeletal muscle at the cellular level. Through her work, she has
explained the role of the α7 integrin, an adhesion molecule that recruits therapeutic stem cells to injured muscles. She is now
investigating the role of stem cells in preventing sarcopenia, the natural muscle atrophy that occurs with aging. She eventually
hopes her research will lead to an effective intervention to slow down the process of muscle degradation.
Read more about Dr. Boppart.
David Buchner
Professor, Director of Master of Public Health Program, Kinesiology and Community Health
David Buchner has long been interested in the role of physical activity in preventing loss of function in older
adults. He is currently focusing on the health benefits of exercise in women over 80, and how physical activity
affects the physiological response to chronic stress in middle-aged and older Mexican-Americans. The overarching
goal of his research is to keep older adults healthy and to reduce the burden of chronic illness. He is also
interested in how policy and environmental interventions promote physical activity.
Read more about Dr. Buchner.
Kim C. Graber
Associate Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
Kim Graber's research interests focus on different dimensions of pedagogy, specifically how students learn and how teachers create
effective learning environments. She is currently involved in an investigation of school compliance with the Child Nutrition and WIC
Reauthorization Act; the creation of methods and materials for developing meaningful courses, leadership opportunities, and public
engagement experiences for undergraduate students; and an examination of the demographics and work preferences of teacher educators
in the United States. Read more about Dr. Graber.
Diana Grigsby-Toussaint
Assistant Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
Diana Grigsby-Toussaint's research addresses social and environmental factors that impact childhood health and obesity.
She is particularly concerned about the prevalence of Type 2 diabetes in children, and the long-term consequences for both
their quality of life and the health care system. Read more about Dr. Grigsby-Toussaint.
Charles Hillman
Associate Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
Charles Hillman studies the relation of exercise to brain health and cognition across the human lifespan. Like many scholars
in this area, Dr. Hillman initially focused on older adults. For the last seven years, however, Dr. Hillman has been investigating
how exercise promotes cognitive health and function in children, and is the first scholar to do so from a cognitive neuroscience
perspective. He studies both transient and long-lasting effects of exercise on the brain, and has observed exercise-induced
increases in the allocation of attentional resources, faster cognitive processing speed, and structural changes in the brain,
underlying better performance on cognitive tasks. Dr. Hillman hopes his work will lead to interventions that positively impact
school performance while reducing rates of inactivity and obesity among children. Read more about Dr.
Hillman's work.
Melissa Littlefield
Assistant Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
With a joint appointment in English and Kinesiology, Melissa Littlefield works to bridge gaps between the sciences and
humanities. Her current research focuses on the history of and current trends in the neurosciences, particularly lie detection.
Her book, The Lying Brain: Lie Detection in Science and Science Fiction (forthcoming from University of Michigan Press 2011)
examines the evolution of lie detection from the early 20th century to the use of fMRI, or functional magnetic resonance imaging.
She is also currently co-editing a book on the interactions and intersections among the neurosciences, the humanities, and the
social sciences. Finally, she is working on a third book about metadisciplinarity and the forensic sciences, which examines the
way that metadisciplines, such as the forensic sciences and kinesiology, are constructed.
Read more about Dr. Littlefield.
Rob Motl
Associate Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
Rob Motl investigates the physical activity behavior in persons with multiple sclerosis (MS). The goals of his research are to
quantify physical activity behavior in people with MS, to understand the major variables that affect physical activity behaviors, to
elucidate the consequences of physical activity, and to promote physical activity among people with MS. He and Department of Kinesiology
and Community Health colleague Edward McAuley are currently piloting the Internet Physical Activity Intervention in MS, or In-PhAIMS
Project, a 12-week online program that encourages people with MS to become more active, and helps them develop the skills they need to
maintain and increase levels of physical activity. Dr. Motl hopes one day to open an exercise clinic on campus where people with MS could
work with him and graduate and undergraduate students to design individualized programs to help them cope with the disease.
Read more about Dr. Motl.
Steven Petruzzello
Associate Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
In his research, Steven Petruzzello examines the role of exercise, encapsulated along a continuum from low-to-moderate (walking,
cycling, running, for example) to vigorous (including competitive swimming and running) and physical activity performed in extreme
environments, such as firefighting, on such psychophysiological outcomes as brain activation, basic affect, fatigue and energy,
anxiety, and depression. Read more about Dr. Petruzzello.
Ian Rice
Assistant Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
Ian Rice's research focuses on rehabilitation science, with an emphasis on interventional studies. He is particularly interested in
combining motor learning theory with the ergonomic principles of wheelchair configuration to maximize the quality of the match between
people with disabilities and mobility technology. Ultimately, he'd like to improve the quality of life of people with disabilities and
minimize secondary health conditions and social and psychological barriers that negatively impact their lives.
Read more about Dr. Rice.
Andiara Schwingel
Assistant Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
Andiara Schwingel's research interests focus on how cultural, national, and international factors impact the process of growing
older around the world. For the last 10 years, her work has examined the effects of lifestyle on health and chronic disease. Working
with experts in the area of aging convinced her to pursue investigations into helping people increase not only the length of their
lives, but also the quality and independence of their older years. She co-directs the Aging and Diversity Lab, where she is investigating
how to promote health in older Latino populations in rural and urban Illinois. Read more
about Dr. Schwingel.
Jacob Sosnoff
Assistant Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
Jacob Sosnoff's research focuses on the influences of aging, chronic illness, and disability on motor control. He has examined the
relationship between oral muscles of the face and manual dexterity, and is currently investigating factors that contribute to shoulder
pain in wheelchair users. Read more about Dr. Sosnoff.
David Strauser
Associate Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
David Strauser investigates aspects of personality development and how it relates to employment, community involvement, and psychological
well-being among people with cognitive and psychiatric disabilities. His recent research examines these outcomes among young adult brain
tumor survivors. In his multiphase study of 18- to 30-year-old adults, Dr. Strauser is investigating how the age of diagnosis relates to
the development of effective work behaviors, and how it impacts the way brain tumor survivors view their ability to succeed in the workplace.
Read more about Dr. Strauser.
Synthia Sydnor
Associate Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
Synthia Sydnor brings a different perspective to her work in kinesiology and community health, one that is rooted in the humanities.
As a cultural theorist, she is interested in philosophical questions concerning humankind and the meaning of life in a broad historical sense.
She is currently working on a treatise about the nature of sport and believes that her unique understanding of ritual and play will help create
a holistic understanding of the use and function of sport.
Read more about Dr. Sydnor.
Kenneth Wilund
Assistant Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
People with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) have among the highest rates of death from cardiovascular disease due to vascular calcification.
Kenneth Wilund is investigating the effects of exercise and diet on comorbidities in people with CKD. He hopes to identify a multi-faceted
therapeutic intervention that inhibits the progression of kidney disease and its related cardiovascular complications.
Read more about Dr. Wilund.
Amy Woods
Associate Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
Amy Woods pursues two lines of research. One area focuses on the career development of physical education teachers.
She is interested in the factors that lead some physical education teachers to maintain their enthusiasm for the field and
to continue to grow throughout their careers. She is also studying some who are pursuing National Board certification. Her
second area of research focuses on school-based physical activity. Through her studies, Dr. Woods hopes to gain more insight
into activity patterns during recess, and to promote more activity. Read more Dr. Woods.
Jeff Woods
Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health
For more than 20 years, Jeff Woods has been studying how exercise affects the immune system. He has
amassed a number of impressive results, and made outstanding contributions to the literature on physical
activity, inflammation, and the immune response. Dr. Woods was selected to be the 2009 King James McCristal
Distinguished Scholar in recognition of his many significant achievements. His McCristal Lecture focused on
one of his recent studies on the effects of cardiovascular exercise on the effectiveness of flu vaccines in
older adults. Read more Dr. Woods.