College of Health and Human Performance

For the Gator Good - Updates and News

College of Health & Human Performance Faculty, Staff, Alumni and Students... Moving the World Forward.

For the Gator Good - Updates and News

January 2021 - Spring Edition

Read the latest Performance Newsletter | SubscribeSubmit News



HHP Alum Inducted into USA Bobsled & Skeleton Hall of Fame
UF HHP class of 2000 graduate Steve Mesler is among a six-person class of enshrinees joining the USA Bobsled and Skeleton Hall of Fame this year. He is a three-time Olympian, a world champion and part of the four-man sled that won gold at the 2010 Vancouver Games. Read more at teamusa.org > 



Q&A with Sport Management Alum Jay Carter Martin (BSSPM ’17)

The recording artist, songwriter and entrepreneur was profiled on Shoutout Miami. Check out the interview HERE


Kathleen Hupfeld
Congratulations to Kathleen Hupfeld for NIH Grant
A doctoral student in Applied Physiology and Kinesiology, Hupfeld was recently awarded an NIH F99/K00 award to provide two years of graduate funding and four years of postdoc funding to work on aging and mobility research.

Hupfeld was also awarded the Toffler Leadership Award from McKnight Brain Institute. This award recognizes excellence in neuroscience research, outreach and education by doctoral students. Read more >


Congratulations to HHP's International Educator Award-Winning Faculty, Staff and Students

Thank you to the outstanding international and local community at UF and HHP for your commitment to creating a global community and ensuring our world is a better place. Congratulations to the following faculty and staff recognized at the college-level as International Education of the Year Honorees.

  • Senior Faculty: Svetlana Stepchenkova, Ph.D.
  • Junior Faculty: Diba Mani, Ph.D.
  • Staff: Michael Fitzgerald

Congratulations to our students who won 2020 Certificate of Outstanding Achievement Awards:

  • Inje Cho (SPM)
  • David Ma (THEM)
  • Trina Mitchell (APK)
  • Larissa Neuburger (THEM)
  • Ricarda Pritschmann (HEB)

The awards, hosted by the UF International Center, acknowledge the outstanding achievements of our international community. The awards are celebrated each year during UF's International Education Week.



Congrats and Thanks to our University Scholar Program Mentors: Elisabeth Barton, Ph.D., Stephen Coombes, Ph.D., Leonardo Ferriera, Ph.D., and Chris Hass, Ph.D. 
The program allows undergrad students to work one-on-one with faculty on selected research projects. Only 200 student and mentor pairings from across campus are selected to participate. Learn more > 



HHP Postdoctoral Fellow Hayden Hyatt, Ph.D., completed his first full, 140.6 mile Ironman competition this fall. View Twitter post >



New NASA Grant for APK's Rachael Seidler, Ph.D., Wins Funding
. "Recovery Timeline of Spaceflight-Induced Central Nervous System Changes." Includes collaborators at NASA Johnson Space Center, Brigham & Women's Hospital Harvard University, and UNCG. 


HHP APK Post-doc Alum Orlando Laitano, Ph.D., discusses his latest paper investigating the acute phase response to exertional heat stroke in mice.



HEB Professor Robert Leeman Joins Steering Committee for Greater Gainesville Chapter of Equality Florida
Equality Florida is the largest civil rights organization dedicated to securing full equality for Florida’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community. Robert Leeman, Ph.D., is the Mary F. Lane Endowed Professor in the Department of Health Education & Behavior. His research interests are in relationships between various difficulties with self-control and addictive behaviors, particularly alcohol use, though he also has also conducted research on opioid misuse, tobacco use and gambling. He develops and tests new interventions to reduce substance use and prevent HIV. Learn more at eqfl.org >


Recent Publications

Epidemiology of Recovery From Alcohol Use Disorder. Jalie Tucker and Susan D. Chandler
Alcohol Research: Current Reviews | Vol 40 No 3 | Epub 2020 November 12

Brain Network Oscillations During Gait in Parkinson’s Disease. Wang D, Choi JT
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience | 2020 Oct 23 |  Link

Exertional heat stroke leads to concurrent long-term epigenetic memory, immunosuppression and altered heat shock response in female mice. Murray KO, Brant JO, Iwaniec JD, Sheikh LH, de Carvalho L, Garcia CK, Robinson GP, Alzahrani J, Riva A, Laitano O, Kladde MP, Clanton TL. J Physiol. 2020 Oct 9. doi: 10.1113/JP280518. Online ahead of print.  PMID: 33037634

The abnormal firing of Purkinje cells in the knockin mouse model of DYT1 dystonia. Liu Y, Xing H, Wilkes BJ, Yokoi F, Chen H, Vaillancourt DE, Li Y. Brain Res Bull. 2020 Sep 22;165:14-22. doi: 10.1016/j.brainresbull.2020.09.011. Online ahead of print. PMID: 32976982

Parkinson's disease progression in the substantia nigra: location, location, location. Vaillancourt DE, Mitchell T. Brain. 2020 Sep 1;143(9):2628-2630. doi: 10.1093/brain/awaa252. PMID: 32947614 No abstract available.

Towards understanding the effects of spaceflight on the brain. Roberts DR, Stahn AC, Seidler RD, Wuyts FL. Lancet Neurol. 2020 Oct;19(10):808. doi: 10.1016/S1474-4422(20)30304-5. Epub 2020 Sep 16.

Effects of Ibuprofen during Exertional Heat Stroke in Mice. Garcia CK, Sheikh LH, Iwaniec JD, Robinson GP, Berlet RA, Mattingly AJ, Murray KO, Laitano O, Clanton TL. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2020 Sep;52(9):1870-1878. doi: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000002329. PMID: 32175974

Brain connectivity and behavioral changes in a spaceflight analog environment with elevated CO2. McGregor HR, Lee JK, Mulder ER, De Dios YE, Beltran NE, Kofman IS, Bloomberg JJ, Mulavara AP, Seidler RD. Neuroimage. 2020 Oct 16;225:117450. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117450. Online ahead of print. PMID: 33075558

Comparative Efficacy of Angiotensin II Type 1 Receptor Blockers Against Ventilator-Induced Diaphragm Dysfunction in Rats. Hall SE, Ahn B, Smuder AJ, Morton AB, Hinkley JM, Wiggs MP, Sollanek KJ, Hyatt H, Powers SK. Clin Transl Sci. 2020 Nov 22. doi: 10.1111/cts.12916. Online ahead of print. PMID: 33222389

Cortical dynamics of movement-evoked pain in chronic low back pain. Wang WE, Ho RLM, Gatto B, van der Veen SM, Underation MK, Thomas JS, Antony AB, Coombes SA. J Physiol. 2020 Oct 17. doi: 10.1113/JP280735. Online ahead of print. PMID: 33067807

A Novel Method to Understand Neural Oscillations During Full-Body Reaching: A Combined EEG and 3D Virtual Reality Study. Wang WE, Ho RLM, Gatto B, van der Veen SM, Underation MK, Thomas JS, Antony AB, Coombes SA. IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng. 2020 Nov 24;PP. doi: 10.1109/TNSRE.2020.3039829. Online ahead of print. PMID: 33232238


Read more HHP News >