More About Us
Congratulations for choosing to pursue a career in Health and Human Performance here at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. It promises to be a fulfilling and exciting one! As you know, the fields of Exercise Science, Health and Kinesiology play an integral part in the total educational process and wellbeing for all subsets of our population from infants to the elderly. One of the most important responsibilities we face in our profession is to instill in each child and adult, the importance of living a healthy lifestyle, which includes the participation in lifetime sports and fitness activities. This can be accomplished by providing sound programs in Exercise Science, Health, and Kinesiology based on quality instruction, best teaching practices, and the application of current research. To that end, the Department of Health and Human Performance at UTRGV strives to provide you with the training and educational background needed to become a highly skilled and knowledgeable exercise science specialist, health educator, and/or physical educator.
2021 ACSM International, Research, and Foundation Research Grant Awardees
Gabriel Figueroa is a graduate student in Exercise Science under the mentorship of Dr. Yu Lun Tai. Gabriel is a recipient of the ASCM Student Research Award 2021 which is a great honor that speaks of the quality of research. The Charles M. Tipton Student Research Award is awarded by ASCM annually to two students with the two most outstanding research projects of the year. We are very proud of Gabriel with hats off to Dr. Tai for his mentorship and guidance.
Volleyball Intramural Game Between H&K and Exercise Science
Surprise Speaker Cody Calchado the World’s Strongest Disabled Man 2015!
UTRGV Women's Basketball Assistant Coaches Kaylena Andersen and Yannick Denson along with special guest Cody Calchado who was the World’s Strongest Disabled Man in 2015 and runner in 2016 with Health and Human Performance majors in Danessa Peterson’s Biomechanics class.
Exercise Science Student Research
Dr. Murat Karabulut revised the format of one of the classes (KINE 3160 Exercise Testing and Prescription) in order to link scholarship with learning to provide opportunity for students to test their knowledge, discover relationships between health related independent and dependent variables, and gain more hands on experience. In his class, he guides his students to explore the literature and find a unique health issue or problem to investigate. Students also go through online training to learn about ethics, Belmont report, the Federal regulations etc. to obtain necessary knowledge and certification to perform a research study. They perform real IRB approved research studies and present findings of the research studies in local, regional, and national conferences and symposiums.