Category: College of Applied Health Sciences

Department of Speech and Hearing Science rose from a humble start

March 09, 2023 | Bruce Adams

In 2023, SHS celebrated its 50th anniversary. The articles below highlight the key people and research that shaped SHS into the strong program it is today.

Dr. Severina Nelson (left) was a pioneer in the field of speech therapy. (photo courtesy University of Illinois Archives)

As humble beginnings go, it would be difficult to top that of the Department of Speech and Hearing Science at the University of Illinois.

In 1938, Dr. Severina E. Nelson repurposed a closet in Lincoln Hall to start an outreach program providing speech therapy. She began by assisting a student with some articulation difficulties. Sharing an office with colleagues and unable to find a private room, Nelson said, “Finally, the janitor volunteered to donate his mop closet so that I could set up a speech therapy lab. He moved to the basement.”

If that were all there was to it, Nelson would go down in campus history as one of the more determined, innovative, and resourceful professors at Illinois and as a founder of what, in 1973, became the Department of Speech and Hearing Science (SHS).

But there is more to Severina Nelson, and SHS, than that.

“Nowadays, our culture is notoriously rough on the dedicated person with a cause, especially a woman,” wrote a group of students to Nelson upon her retirement in 1964. “It is true that all new concepts only get recognition after someone has spent years being persistent and farsighted until finally, the disbelievers are made uncomfortable and become believers. You’ve been a woman with a gleam in your eye, and thank heaven, you never became a casualty of our system.”

Nelson earned her B.S. in 1918 and her M.A. in 1923 in English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She began her professional life as a high school teacher in Iowa, coming back to Urbana-Champaign in 1920 as an associate instructor in the Division of Public Speaking in the Department of English. After earning her M.A. degree, she pursued a career teaching interpretive speech. She was an engaging speaker, giving countless readings for campus groups, on tours across Illinois, and on radio shows. This led to her co-authoring a best-selling speech textbook with Charles H. Woolbert in 1927: The Art of Interpretive Speech (with a fourth edition still in press in the 1960s).

In 1932, Nelson was elected president of Sigma Delta Phi, a national honorary women’s dramatic and speaking fraternity. Fittingly, it was Nelson who introduced aviator Amelia Earhart during her March 21, 1935 appearance on campus—two years before Earhart’s disappearance. Nelson had built a profile as a director of dramatic productions, including those for the Women’s League, the annual Homecoming “Stunt Show,” and the Hillel Players.

Nelson earned her Ph.D. in 1938 in Speech Pathology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and then did post-doctoral work at the New York Medical College. The work Nelson began by helping college students with speech difficulties received funding and was then extended to community members. In 1938, she brought clinical practice at the University of Illinois into existence by establishing its speech clinic, serving as its director from 1939-59 and as a professor of speech from 1941-64. Some of Nelson’s early research in speech disorders focused on stuttering. She published three seminal articles from 1939-45 in the Quarterly Journal of Speech and The Journal of Pediatrics, on the role of heredity in stuttering, and in the Journal of Speech Disorders, on stuttering in twin types.

In 1939, the Daily Illini described Nelson as “one of the most popular instructors in summer school,” noting that “her office is different from the usual. Here you open the door and find yourself looking into a full-length mirror. Vanity isn’t the reason for the mirror’s being there. She finds it very useful in her speech correction work. Just during the past year, the speech department has made great advances in this work, and much of it has been under Miss Nelson’s supervision. Patients are studied and classified according to their type of speech defect, then they are turned over to students in speech correction classes for help.” (Please see Editor’s Note below regarding terminology use in historical records) Most of the student therapists were women whom Nelson supported as the faculty advisor to the campus chapter of Zeta Phi Eta, the national women’s speech sorority.

By 1940, Nelson had secured a $2,000 grant to support her clinic and extensive office and clinical space in Gregory Hall, where individuals with cerebral palsy, hearing disabilities, and cleft palate received therapy. She also had established an educational program in speech therapy at the University of Illinois, with four years of undergraduate coursework and one year of graduate study. From 1943-1944, as the chair of a state legislative committee, Nelson delivered 50 to 75 speeches throughout Illinois to win passage of the committee’s bill to provide supplemental funds for local clinical efforts. With the onset of the World War II, veterans were returning with “organic and psychological disabilities.” The clinic’s funding from the farsighted bills in the Illinois legislature was augmented by federal assistance to veterans. Twenty-seven nationwide colleges and universities received this funding, notably clustered in the Midwest around the University of Illinois, including Indiana University, Northwestern University, the University of Michigan, and several branches of what would become the University of Wisconsin system.

The demand for speech and hearing specialists was such that Nelson wrote to her department head in 1945 that the University of Illinois Speech and Hearing Clinic was competing against Army and Navy hospitals to recruit therapists for work in the Champaign and Urbana school districts. By 1946, there had been 16 master’s theses recorded in Speech and Hearing Science.

In 1950, under Nelson’s leadership and advocacy the clinic moved to the Lorado Taft House on campus (though, as she wrote in a letter, Nelson was convinced the University planned to demolish the building.) The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that “her enthusiasm, plus a brisk business-like air, are reflected in the rest of her efficient and enthusiastic staff.” A newsletter describing “Dr. Severina Nelson’s informative, vivid, and impressive account of the Illinois Speech Clinic” to the Urbana Rotary Club in January 1955 noted that “Professor Nelson filled her talk with case histories … all interesting. Urbana Rotary played a large part in sparking the state’s program—a program which for some years has been one of the best in the Union.”

When Nelson stepped down as director of the speech clinic in 1959, it had 10 full-time therapists. She resumed full-time teaching in speech pathology and oral interpretation, and by then, had advised more than 125 graduate theses. With her national renown, she was often requested as a speaker by groups and organizations across the country. After retiring in 1964, Nelson moved to Dallas and in 1978, received Honors of the Association from the Illinois Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

Contributor: Cynthia Johnson Parsons

Editor’s Note: As in many fields, perspectives and terminology in speech and hearing science (also called communication sciences and disorders) have evolved over the years, away from those appearing early in the historical record. For example, our focus has shifted away from correcting a person’s speech defects toward improving the intelligibility of their speech and enhancing the effectiveness of their communication with others.

Share on social

Tags:

Related news

CHAD symposium returns with thanks for pilot grants

March 03, 2023 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Pilot grants reignite Chad Symposium, fostering research collaboration and innovation

KCH Associate Professor Naiman Khan’s presentation was titled “Role of Omega-3 Lipid Metabolites in Obesity and Cognitive Function” (Photo by Lisa Bralts)

The first Center for Health, Aging, and Disability (CHAD) symposium since 2017 was a celebration of the research accomplished with the help of the Pilot Grant Program.

Three researchers from the College of Applied Health Sciences—Naiman Khan, an associate professor in Kinesiology and Community Health; Brian Monson, an assistant professor in Speech and Hearing Science, and Sharon Zou, an assistant professor in Recreation, Sport and Tourism, made a point of thanking CHAD’s grants for helping launch their studies.

Khan, whose presentation was titled “Role of Omega-3 Lipid Metabolites in Obesity and Cognitive Function,” said CHAD’s funding was vital to his work.

“CHAD was really helpful in us starting a new line of engagement of research,” he said. 

CHAD director Jeff Woods, AHS’ associate dean for research, said to date, 38 pilot grants have been awarded since CHAD was launched in 2010, with $860,000 awarded to AHS researchers for pilot research. Woods described CHAD’s role as “work at the bookends of medicine … with the goal of improving people’s lives.”

“CHAD pilot grants are really important for junior faculty,” Zou said.

And the payoff has been well worth it, Woods said, citing the return on investment as approximately $16 in external funding to $1 in CHAD funding. 

Zou’s presentation was titled “Exploring an Efficient and Equitable Entrance Fee for Public Lands: A Community-based investigation in the Indiana Dunes National Park.”

“I study how people have fun,” Zou said, explaining that it was vital for public parks and other tourism industries to build a sustainable revenue model and not to rely on decreasing funding from state and federal sources. 

The primary purpose of Zou’s study was to “understand visitors’ and surrounding community residents’ perceptions of Indiana Dunes National Park user fees to inform a fee structure that balances revenue generation and equitable access.”

During and after the COVID-19 pandemic, Zou said, “parks saw explosions of people visiting.” While that was great for parks in terms of revenue, it also led to increasing operation costs at a time when government funding for these sites is being reduced.

“The specific goal is to find out how visitors see the park fees, and are they fair?,” Zou said.

The RST researcher said her preliminary findings indicate there was no consensus from study participants on what “fair” means, and that tension between fairness principles partly explains the longstanding controversy and debate on public land user fees.

Khan’s presentation focused on how poor lifestyle choices can predict an early onset of dementia, noting that obesity worldwide has increased threefold since the 1980s. The KCH researcher said his research, in conjunction with Aditi Das of Georgia Tech, suggested that the a deficiencyin the hormone dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA)—which has been reported to have beneficial effects on obesity, diabetes mellitus, and serum lipids in animals—was associated with individuals with a body-mass index (BMI) of 25 or higher, which is classified as obese.

“BMI is inversely connected to cognitive function,” Khan said. “Only in obese individuals do we see DHEA increase in circulation.” Khan said his preliminary results found:

  • Circulating Omega-3 metabolites were higher among persons with higher weight status and the levels were associated with degree of fat mass
  • Circulating metabolites inversely associated with cognitive function
  • Only observed among persons with overweight and obesity
  • Selectively associated with hippocampal function
  • Implications for memory function

Khan said his overarching goal was to “develop effective lifestyle approaches to improve cognitive function.”

SHS’ Monson discussed his study called “Capturing Prenatal Auditory Experience.”

“If there was a pregnant woman in this audience, that baby would be hearing my voice, and perhaps making judgments,” he said, drawing laughter from the gathering. “How do we know? Because full-term newborns come to the world with memories of what they’ve heard, including the mother’s voice.”

In utero, Monson explained, was a unique acoustic environment. When preterm infants are delivered, they are placed into incubators, which rapidly changed the sound profile, he said. The consequences of those changes include increased risk for sensorineural hearing loss, auditory neuropathy, language and speech developmental delays, auditory attention deficits and auditory processing disorder.

Monson’s study involved a group of pregnant women wearing a LENA listening device twice a week during the third trimester, while the device was placed into cribs of very preterm infants at Carle Foundation Hospital three times a week through their stay in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

“Fetuses are getting 2.5 hours a day of speech exposure vs. 32 minutes a day for very preterm infants,” he said. “It’s an alarming difference to me.”
NICU infants may incur a deficit of about 150 hours of speech exposure over the course of the preterm period, he explained.

One of the possible mitigation strategies for very preterm infants could be to provide meaningful targets (about three hours a day of speech exposure) to optimize auditory exposures in NICU settings.

“The maternal heartbeat is never turned off in utero,” he said. “The maternal heartbeat is never turned on in NICU.”

Following the CHAD Pilot Grant success stories, Wendy Rogers, the Shahid and Ann Carlson Khan Professor of Applied Health Sciences, talked about the work of Collaborations in Health, Aging, Research, & Technology (CHART).

CHART’s mission is to enable successful aging through:

  • Fundamental research
  • Advanced technology development
  • Education of researchers, developers, healthcare professionals, older adults
  • Guidance for policy decision-making
  • Translation of these efforts to positively affect the lives of older adults

CHART was the first research theme of the College of Applied Health Sciences and boasts the development of the McKechnie Family LIFE Home, an interdisciplinary research facility and simulated home environment that helps promote community engagement, industry partnerships, healthcare collaborations and faculty innovation.

Also part of the symposium was the introduction of a new AHS research theme called CARD (Collaborations in the Advancement of Research on Disability), led by KCH Associate Professor Laura Rice and KCH Professor John Kosciulek. CARD is focused on enhancing the health and quality of life of people with disabilities—through research that addresses critical gaps in disability-related knowledge and outreach that engages individuals with disabilities. 

CARD’s short-term goals include:

  • Develop a collaborative working group
  • Develop communication strategies
  • Establish a steering committee of stakeholders
  • Develop and implement outreach and engagement events

Longer-term goals include:

  • Host a bi-annual research symposium
  • Develop a “toolkit” for UIUC faculty to support the performance of disability-related research in the Champaign-Urbana area
  • Respond to disability-related funding opportunities
  • Establish a competitive program to provide supplemental funding to support ongoing disability research among junior faculty
  • Host a seminar series with external experts
  • Establish a research training program for students registered with DRES interested in doing research
  • Support the development of new research registries and/or expansion of current registries

The first CARD meeting is set for March 22.

In kicking off the symposium, AHS Dean Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell said CHAD was “one of the biggest attractions” of her decision to come to Illinois and lead the college.

“When I thought about CHAD, I thought it’d be interesting to lead a college that has this kind of momentum to it, and I’ve been proven correct, year after year,” she said. “CHAD provides students with real-world engagement, and plays an absolutely critical role in their professional development.”

Woods agreed.

“We’re helping put the next generation of scientists into the field.”

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

Tags: , , , , , ,

Related news

Boppart research to boost astronaut fitness on NASA’s mission to Mars

Dec. 15, 2022 | Jenna Kurtzweil

Harnessing the power of cells could be key to preserving astronauts’ fitness in low-gravity conditions.

From left, chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Hyun Joon Kong, kinesiology and community health professors Nicholas Burd and Marni Boppart, psychology professor Justin Rhodes, and chemistry professor Jonathan Sweedler are gathered at Freer Hall.

Exercise looks a little different en route to the Red Planet, so Professor Marni Boppart got creative.

Boppart and her colleagues at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology received $1 million from the Translational Research Institute for Space Health, a NASA-funded institute, to explore the regenerative power of cells in space. Their research will help protect human health aboard Orion, the spacecraft destined to ferry astronauts from the Earth to the moon and Mars.

Because of the Earth’s mass, our daily movement is generally sufficient to keep our muscles in fine working order. Astronauts soaring through space are not afforded the luxury of gravitational pull.

“Astronauts can lose up to 20% of muscle mass after just two weeks, and 1-2% of bone mineral density every month. The longer the space travel, the greater the deterioration of tissues and physiological systems in the human body,” said Boppart, a professor of kinesiology and community health studying the science of exercise at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Before joining the university, Boppart specialized in high-altitude health hazards as an officer and aerospace physiologist in the U.S. Air Force. Her current research in the College of Applied Health Sciences focuses on the molecular underpinning of muscle loss and gain. She hopes to develop cell-inspired strategies for recovering strength in circumstances — like spaceflight — when movement and mobility are limited.

When TRISH invited researchers to explore new ways to protect astronaut health and performance by enhancing the human body’s own maintenance and cellular repair abilities, Boppart seized the opportunity. Her project reimagines interstellar fitness with a cellular flair. The institute was scouting for strategies to protect astronaut health during long-duration space exploration missions, including NASA’s ongoing Artemis program, which will set up a sustainable presence on the Moon and prepare for future missions to Mars.

The Artemis program’s chosen vessel is the spacecraft Orion, which launched unmanned from the Kennedy Space Center in November. At the top of the vessel’s formidable to-do list is ferrying the first woman and first person of color from the Earth to the moon, followed closely by establishing humanity’s first long-term lunar presence and eventually trekking to the Red Planet.

Square footage is limited on Orion, which assumes the trifold identities of dormitory, dining hall, and control room all in one. The spacecraft is understandably bereft of the specialized resistance and endurance equipment that astronauts have access to on the International Space Station.

“But even the most intense [exercise] protocols performed in space are not sufficient to overcome the negative impacts of microgravity,” said Boppart. “Alternatives to traditional exercise, ideally based on exercise principles, are required.”

Astronauts are the target population for this funded study, but the result could potentially be used to prevent, maintain, or treat a variety of conditions associated with (muscle) inactivity and disuse, including aging, disability, or even disease, which would be exceptionally fulfilling.

Marni Boppart

Professor of Kinesiology and Community Health

With an approach fit for space travel, Boppart’s proposal turns our traditional understanding of exercise on its head — or rather, inside out. Instead of defining exercise by heavy footfalls or flailing limbs, she’s focusing squarely on the cellular relay underway within our muscles.

Honed by relentless evolution, our cells have yet to catch on to the concept of exercising for fun. When we lift heavy weights or engage in rigorous activities, our cells react with a well-intentioned stress response, deploying a battalion of chemicals into the bloodstream to boost our body’s ability to survive future threats. If a weight that once seemed too heavy becomes manageable with time and training, you have your overprotective, stressed-out cells to thank.

These chemical payloads don’t navigate the bloodstream’s harsh terrain on their own. Some are wrapped in a protective lipid layer called an extracellular vesicle, named for its pickup and delivery routes that transfer restorative chemicals from cell to cell.

Boppart believes that the extracellular vesicles our bodies generate after exercising, and the chemicals they contain, can trigger the restorative effects of exercise — even when no exercise has taken place.

“When we exercise, it’s not only our muscles that benefit, but all tissues, including the brain and skin. Our TRISH-sponsored work will directly test the ability of extracellular vesicles released after exercise to protect human health in space,” Boppart said.

The broad aim of Boppart’s study is to use extracellular vesicles generated naturally by volunteers on Earth, or even artificially, to replicate the restorative effect of exercise in astronauts, essentially enabling their muscles to engage in post-exercise recovery without ever having to lift a space-suited finger.

“Astronauts are the target population for this funded study, but the result could potentially be used to prevent, maintain, or treat a variety of conditions associated with inactivity and disuse, including aging, disability, or even disease, which would be exceptionally fulfilling,” Boppart said.

Her interdisciplinary collaborators at the Beckman Institute include: Justin Rhodes, a professor of psychology; Taher Saif, a professor of mechanical science and engineering; Jonathan Sweedler, a professor of chemistry; and Hyun Joon Kong, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering. UIUC professor of kinesiology and community health Nicholas Burd is also a co-investigator.

Research for the project titled “Design of an extracellular vesicle approach to protect human health in space” is expected to begin in October 2023. The $1 million award will be dispersed over two years. This study is funded by the Translational Research Institute for Space Health at Baylor College of Medicine. TRISH is funded by the NASA Human Research Program. The award was administered through the TRISH Biomedical Research Advances for Space Health solicitation.

Tags: , , ,

Related news

Illinois inducted into U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee Inaugural Team USA Collegiate Impact Award Class of 2020

Dec. 01, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Illinois was one of four schools inducted into the inaugural class

Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell, left, represented AHS and DRES at the Hall of Fame induction

The University of Illinois was on Tuesday inducted into the Team USA Collegiate Impact Award Class of 2020. The induction by the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee honors the top-performing schools represented on Team USA at the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020. Illinois was one of four schools inducted into the inaugural class, which was recognized during the Team USA Collegiate Recognition Awards as part of the National Football Foundation’s 64th Annual Awards celebration in Las Vegas. 

“It’s an incredible honor for our student-athletes—our Paralympians—to be recognized as members of the inaugural class for the Team USA Collegiate Impact Award,” said Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell, dean of the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign. “The dedication—and resulting accomplishments—of our athletes, coaches, and others cannot be understated. I’m so proud of this team.”

Team USA Collegiate Impact Award Class of 2020

In Tokyo, 122 U.S. Paralympians and 475 U.S. Olympians competed collegiately during their journey to Team USA. Together they hailed from 223 schools across the country. The inductees into the Team USA Collegiate Impact Award Class of 2020 together helped lead to the success of 20 U.S. athletes at the Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 and 70 U.S. athletes at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. These four schools had 52 athletes bring home medals for their school communities and country. The Class of 2020 is comprised of:

  • Paralympic Gold Award: University of Illinois; 20 U.S. Paralympians and nine U.S. medalists.
  • Olympic Gold Award: Stanford University; 35 U.S. Olympians and 19 U.S. medalists.
  • Olympic Silver Award: University of California, Los Angeles; 21 U.S. Olympians and 14 U.S. medalists.
  • Olympic Bronze Award: University of Florida; 14 U.S. Olympians and 10 U.S. medalists

“The collegiate athletics system is essential to growing and keeping sport strong in our country,” said USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland. “Athletes who competed collegiately were the foundation of Team USA’s success in Tokyo and Beijing. We’re excited to honor the leaders who foster these sport opportunities and support student-athletes on campus.”

At the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo—the most recent Summer Games—athletes who train at the University of Illinois won 11 individual medals, while team sports, such as men and women’s wheelchair basketball, also took home medals.

  • The first-ever U.S. Paralympic gold medalist was a former Illinois student, Jack Whitman, who won the gold medal in archery at Rome 1960.
  • Disability Resources and Educational Services Founder Dr. Tim Nugent was inducted into the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Hall of Fame in 2019 for his contributions as the father of accessibility.
  • Paralympian stars such as Jean Driscoll, Linda Mastandrea, Tatyana McFadden, Daniel Romanchuk, Susannah Scaroni, Steve Serio and others all trained at Illinois.
  • Wheelchair track coach Adam Bleakney is a three-time U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee Paralympic Coach of the Year and a Paralympic medalist himself.

More information about the Team USA Collegiate Recognition Awards—and about Team USA’s collegiate footprint in Tokyo—can be found online at TeamUSA.org/CollegiateImpact. More information about Illinois’ Paralympians can be found at https://ahs.illinois.edu/taxonomy/term/60 or at disability.illinois.edu/athletics. 
 

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

Share on social

Related news

KCH’s Richards gets Fulbright to complete project in Australia

Nov. 29, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Kevin Andrew Richards

Kinesiology and Community Health Associate Professor Kevin Andrew Richards has received a Fulbright Specialist Program award from the U.S. Dept. of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

Dr. Richards will complete a project at the University of Canberra in Australia that aims to exchange knowledge and establish partnerships benefitting participants, institutions and communities both in the United States and overseas through a variety of educational and training activities within education.

He is one of more than 400 U.S. citizens each year who share their expertise with host nations through the Fulbright Specialist Program. Fulbright Specialist Program winners are selected based on their academic and professional achievements, demonstrated leadership in their field and potential to foster long-term cooperations between institutions in the U.S. and abroad.

For more information on the Fulbright Specialist Program, visit https://eca.state.gov/fulbright.

Editor’s note:

To reach Kevin Richards, email karichar@illinois.edu.
 

Share on social

Tags: ,

Related news

Q&A with RST student Emily Jordan

Oct. 22, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Vince Lara at the University of Illinois spoke with RST student Emily Jordan about her academic career, her Joan Braswell Scholarship, her work with the NJACC tournament and why she chose RST.

VINCE LARA: All right, so Emily, the first question I wanted to ask you is what made you choose the University of Illinois?

EMILY JORDAN: Well, originally, back in 2020, when I was about to graduate with my associate’s degree, I went to Danville Area Community College, where my associate’s is from. My original plan, before COVID hit, I went and visited three different schools, and the U of I was one of them just because I actually only live about 45 minutes away from campus, so I grew up coming over here coming the games and stuff all the time. So I was already kind of familiar with everything. I just wanted to see what the actual school was like.

So when I visited here originally, I was thinking I was going to major in communications because that’s what my associate’s is in. So when I did my visit over here, I actually spoke with a communications advisor, and I told her what I wanted to do and everything, and she actually redirected me to RST, which is where I’ll be graduating now. So that’s how it ended up. I realized that it was a good fit for me. I’m familiar with it over here. I could live at home, save money, and everything like that, so that ended up being why I came over here.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, and that answers the second question I had for you, which was why RST? And RST does have some similarities to communications. So when you were looking into RST at first, what really appealed to you there?

EMILY JORDAN: I guess I wanted something that was very people-based. I feel like I need communication with people all the time. I don’t see myself working at a sit down job. I need that interaction and everything. And so when I looked into RST more, after discussing different options with that communications advisor, I kind of figured out like, OK, these classes look really appealing to me, it all seems really enjoyable and something that could lead me to a really strong career, and it’s focusing on something that I really want to do, and more sport-based.

Communications is like a big bubble, so it’s really wide, and that’s why you can kind of go different routes with them. So that’s why I wasn’t sure what it was like over here, but I realized that RST encompassed a lot of things that I wanted to learn about and kind of navigate through as I got my bachelor’s degree.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, that’s a good point. And you talked about it being a big bubble, but it’s interesting that I noticed recently– part of the reason I’m having Emily on the podcast is that she won the Joan Braswell Scholarship at the RST scholarship ceremony, and as part of that social media post that we did over here, it mentioned that you wanted to be an athletic director. So I wonder how you made that leap from a communications associate’s degree to RST to now thinking about that as a future career?

EMILY JORDAN: Well, I took a class last semester, in the fall of 2021, and actually, that was my first semester physically on campus because my junior year, when I transferred here, everything was online. So when I came over here in person as a senior last semester, I was kind of worried and intimidated a little bit– a big school and everything. But once I got settled down in the classes and stuff, I felt comfortable in everything.

But one of the classes that I took was Dr. Welty-Peachey’s class. It’s RST 430, and it’s a Sport and Development class, and that was probably one of my favorite ones I’ve taken over here. It talks about how we can use sport as a tool to kind of help develop athletes and develop different parts of life as well as helping athletes be better in the sport that they want to be in.

And I think that kind of opened my eyes as to, OK, I think I have a passion for trying to fix the problems that are within sports because obviously, everything has issues and flaws, but I think that that’s where I found my passion was that I want to keep, especially, kids and youth and high school athletes involved in sports just because I know all the benefits that come from playing and participating in them.

So that’s kind of where I learned like, OK, I feel like, as an athletic director, I could help navigate athletes into the routes that they want to go in and steer them in the right direction and resolve those problems that are taking place as of today. And that’s kind of where I learned that being an AD might be a good fit for me.

VINCE LARA: I’m curious about what or who inspired your love of sports.

EMILY JORDAN: So I’m the youngest of my family. I have two older brothers, and I grew up watching them play sports. They played soccer, a little bit of football, a lot of basketball, track, baseball a little bit, so I just like grew up watching them play everything and, of course, as a younger little sister, you want to do everything that your older brothers or siblings are doing.

So that’s kind of how I got into playing T-ball as a little kid, and then that grew into softball, and then I played soccer just like they did and ended up playing school volleyball, and I ran a little bit of track and played basketball like them. So that’s kind of where it stemmed from. I mentioned before, too, we would always as a family come over to the U of I and watch basketball games and football games. So I kind of just grew up playing them and being around them all the time. We talk about it all the time still today. So that’s kind of where that all stems from.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, that makes sense. And recently, you were an announcer for the Men’s National Junior College Athletic Association Division II basketball tournament. How did that come about? Did you express interest? Did someone seek you out? Tell me how that came together.

EMILY JORDAN: When I was at Danville Area Community College, I took some college classes, like dual credit classes, in high school, so I was already familiar with DACC. And then when I graduated high school, that’s where I finished my associates at for that remaining one year. And one of the classes I took was like a media production class, and the assistant professor I had, her named Laura Hensgen, and she’s kind of in charge of the media department there and everything, and DACC has hosted that tournament, the championship portion of the tournament for– I think it’s been 29 years, I believe. So they’re very familiar with it and everything.

So they have broadcasters and the radio and the livestream come out and everything, and there was myself and another student in her class at the time that was interested in media broadcasting, media stuff, sports in general, and she just asked us if we would be interested in doing it, if that would be a good opportunity to expand our horizons a little bit and get us some experience and everything. So I’m not going to lie, I was a little intimidated just because it’s a big setting and everything, but myself and the other student ended up doing it that first year of 2020.

But then, of course, COVID happened, so that season got cut short. And then when I actually came over here to the U of I my junior year, she asked me to come back, even though I wasn’t a student at DACC anymore. She asked me to come back and commentate again, and so I did it with that student there that following year, as well as I did it with my dad too. So it was really cool to do it, come back and do it, and do it for a full season because I didn’t get that opportunity before. But that’s kind of how it all got started and everything.

VINCE LARA: You said you did it with your dad. Is your dad a broadcaster?

EMILY JORDAN: Yeah, so I live over in Vermilion County, and one of the radio stations, he will do some high school basketball games here and there. And they’ve asked him to do that tournament, the NJCAA tournament there, so he did that one with me. We’ve actually called some of the Vermilion County high school basketball tournament games together too, so it’s been really fun to have that experience with my dad too because, obviously, that doesn’t come around too often, but it was really a lot of fun to do it with him as well as with that teacher at DACC and the other student at DACC.

VINCE LARA: Sure, and DACC being, of course, Danville Area Community College, just for our listeners’ context there. So the obvious next question to you is why not pursue sports media because it seems like you’re really passionate about it and your dad is involved, and so why not go that way?

EMILY JORDAN: Well, I think it goes back to that class that I took last semester. I think that the media world obviously is a huge part of today’s society and how we function and everything, how we get our information, and spread information, and stuff like that. I think it’s a super unique job. Originally, I wanted to do social media or marketing for a team of some sort. That was my original thought.

But I think I was passionate about it too, and broadcasting I enjoy and everything, but I think that where my– I want to get like a lot of fulfillment out of what I do, so I think that helping athletes in some way, making sure they stay involved in sports and, like I said, fixing the issues that are in the systems right now, I think those are really important so we can see the same participation levels throughout time and everything.

And I feel like I’ll get the most fulfillment out of doing something like that versus doing a sports media type job, I would say, just because that I know I’d be helping more people in that way. Not that sports media, obviously, is any– isn’t bad or anything, but I just think I would get more fulfillment out of helping athletes and stuff like that.

VINCE LARA: Sure. Have you had a chance at all to spend any time with Josh Whitman or kind of shadow him?

EMILY JORDAN: No, but I’m going to be doing my internship as part of– I’m not sure if you know, but the RST internship we have to do as part of our degree work requirement– this summer, I will be doing it under the athletic director and the media productions person Laura as I mentioned before. I’ll be working under them this summer at DACC as well. So that’ll be, I think, a really good interesting time for me and kind of allow me to see what it’s like being an AD, so I’m really looking forward to that as well.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, that’s terrific. And I think to wrap up I’d like to just ask, what would you tell other students who may be in a similar situation that you were at the end of your associate’s degree about RST, and how would you recommend the program to them?

EMILY JORDAN: I would say, when I was getting ready to transfer and I was looking at the schools I was looking at, the U of I seems massive. I mean, that was my initial thought, and what I told my parents and everything, but there’s 50,000 to 60,000 kids that come here, and it just seems so big and everything.

But when I actually came here and visited campus and stuff and saw that it’s like you know broken down into colleges and then your major and everything, I think that it helped it be more appealing to me, and also made me feel more at ease and comfortable with coming here, especially since it is so big. But in all honesty, I still feel like I’m kind of going to a community college. I’m not traveling across campus for classes or sitting in super big classes with 100 to 200 kids or anything like that. I really feel comfortable here knowing that I’m in the right major, and then with RST, I think that you’re going to get a lot of experiences out of being in that major.

It’s not necessarily a lot of book work. Obviously, there’s things you take from text and apply it to real life, but I think it’s more real life scenarios that you learn hands-on and in the classroom that can help you further on in your career. So I think that’s why it was so eye-opening for me and really attractive to me to come to RST because I felt that I would get the most out of majoring in this major. So it just felt like that. It felt comfortable, it felt right, and it just, like I said, would be an awesome experience for anyone, I think, who’s interested in this kind of work.

Tags: , ,

Related news

A Few Minutes With … Jacob Allen

Site Header Image

Jan. 04, 2021 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

AHS media relations specialist Vince Lara speaks with Jacob Allen, an assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health, to discuss his research on how diet, exercise and stress influence the gut microbia community.

Transcript

VINCE LARA: Hi, and welcome to another edition of A Few Minutes With, the podcast that showcases Illinois College of Applied Health Sciences. I’m Vince Lara, and today, I’m speaking with KCH Assistant Professor Jacob Allen about his research on how exercise, stress, and diet influence gut microbial communities.

So I’m talking with Jacob Allen, who is a new addition to the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health. And, Jacob, I notice from your CV that you had done your undergrad and master’s at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. And yet you left Chapel Hill, which is a lovely place in which I lived for a while, for Chambana, which we’re covered in snow this morning. Tell me, what made you do that? What prompted your move here?

JACOB ALLEN: That’s a good question. Well, so I did my bachelor’s in exercise science with a minor in biology. And coming out of undergrad, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do– surprise, surprise, a little bit young. But I was interested in exercise physiology, and so I decided to stay on and do a master’s program in the Exercise Physiology group at UNC-Chapel Hill.

And I did my masters in working with breast cancer survivors, where we looked at how exercise affected inflammatory markers in these patients that were coming off of breast cancer treatments to see if exercise could reduce some of the systemic inflammation they experienced. So that was my foray into exercise. And then because I was looking at inflammatory markers, these proteins called cytokines in the blood, I started getting interested in immunology.

And at the time, and still is, Jeff Woods, Dr. Woods here at University of Illinois, was prominent and one of the few exercise immunologists in the field. So I figured if I was going to study exercise and study the immune system, I should probably go get a PhD with somebody that knows what they’re doing. And so I looked up Jeff’s name and gave him a call.

And that’s what started my process of moving to Champaign to do my PhD in 2013 to look at exercise and the immune system. And so I came to Illinois, and I took off from there, where we started to look at both the immune system, but also the microbes in the gut and how the microbes affect the immune system. So I guess it was more of a career path that took me from Chapel Hill, where it’s a little bit warmer, to Champaign, Illinois.

VINCE LARA: Right, yeah, absolutely. And then the opportunity to work with Jeff obviously is a big part of it.

JACOB ALLEN: Right, yup, it was, definitely.

VINCE LARA: Yeah. So you talked about how your research focuses on exercise and diet and how they influence gut microbiota. What led you to study that? Usually there’s some sort of inspiration to what a researcher decides to study. Was there something in your early life that led you to look into that?

JACOB ALLEN: You know what? I wish I could say there was some beautiful epiphany I had or something like that. But I can’t really tag it to anything specific. I’d say I’m interested in questions that we don’t understand, and that’s probably why I did biology.

And when I started in Jeff’s lab, there was this emerging topic of the microbiome and these trillions of microbes that live in our gut that we still don’t know exactly what they do. And so it kind of just spiraled into studying it. Again, like I said, I was an exercise scientist looking at how exercise affects breast cancer survivors.

And it got me interested in the immune system. And then being interested in the immune system led me to study the microbiome. And what we know now is that the microbes in our gut are really important for training the immune system and establishing the immune system, and then in many inflammatory diseases, affecting the immune system. And so the study of the microbes tied in directly with my interest in immunology. And so that’s how I got to studying the gut microbiota.

VINCE LARA: How granular can we get in terms of, if you change one food, if you stop eating one food, can you determine how that affects the gut and how it affects disease?

JACOB ALLEN: That’s a great question. Number one, I’ll say, it depends– depends on the food. We know a lot about– relatively a lot– about certain types of food with regards to the microbiota. One of them is dietary fiber and something that our lab is interested in.

So fiber comes in different forms, but in one of the forms, it’s a soluble, fermentable fiber. And what that means is that it can reach the colon, where most of the microbes are. And the microbes use that fiber as food, as a sugar source.

And so what we know is that by feeding the microbes with this fiber– and again, there’s various types of it– we can change the microbiota quite extensively. What’s still not understood is how different types of fiber feed the microbiota differentially. And does that matter for our health?

And what’s important is that once the microbes get a hold of these– this food type, this fiber– they can degrade it into these bioactive molecules that then affect our immune system. So we’re still trying to understand that process of how the microbes feed off of these– off of our diet. What type of metabolites do they produce? How does that change the microbial communities? And then how does that all affect our immune system and our health is our interest in our lab.

VINCE LARA: What you’ve said is that you wanted to provide a new perspective on environmental conditions and microbiota. Is that tying into what you’re looking into?

JACOB ALLEN: Exactly. You know, our lab is named Integrative Microbiota Lab. And the reason for that is that I think that in science, we’re really good at isolating things and tying down to what we call a mechanism, which is really important. And that’s part of our lab, too.

But in especially humans, as we walk through our daily life, we’re doing all sorts of things. We have different exercise patterns. We have different levels of psychological stress. And that’s another component of my lab, is looking at how stress affects the microbes as well.

And then obviously, we all have different dietary patterns. And so trying to tease out those factors and how they regulate the microbiome in a daily life is the purpose. And my long-term goal of my lab is to look at these individual environmental factors in isolation. And then long-term, how are they all together affecting the microbes in the gut?

VINCE LARA: Can you tease out things like physical stress versus mental stress? Or is that something that you even can separate?

JACOB ALLEN: Another great question. There’s debate among this in the field of how to define stress in humans. And obviously, it’s all based off of the experience of the person.

But we can measure certain biomarkers that correlate heavily with stress. So we know some classical pathways that are activated by psychological stress– the hypothalamic pituitary axis, which ultimately results in the release of a glucocorticoid called cortisol, which I’m sure many are familiar with. And so we can look at levels of cortisol in the blood, but also, more long-term, elevations of cortisol in things like hair roots and stuff like that to see if these individuals are experiencing acute levels of stress, which we all experience, or if they’re experiencing stress on a chronic level on a daily basis, where we see this long-term elevation of hormones associated with stress.

So the short answer is it’s complicated. But we can at least get somewhat of a diagnostic of how stressed people are or individuals are based off of some of the hormonal responses we see in the blood and other tissues.

VINCE LARA: Interesting. You know, you recently received a grant along with Jeff Woods to study age-related dysbiosis and physical resilience. What can you tell me about that project? I mean, first of all, what’s age-related dysbiosis?

JACOB ALLEN: Yeah, so first, the word “dysbiosis,” for those that don’t know, is essentially a broad term to suggest a disrupted microbial community in the gut. And so there’s various forms of, quote, “dysbiosis.” But what we know is that if the community of microbes in your gut is healthy, it usually is fairly stable and goes through similar– has similar patterns amongst individuals that stays fairly stable over time.

What we see with, quote, “dysbiosis” is that those communities become less stable and less even. So you sometimes get what we call pathobiont species that expand in the gut. And these are potentially bacteria that might induce some negative consequence on our immune system or other components of physiology. And so that’s what we term– what we call dysbiosis. And what the age part is that there’s accumulating evidence that aging, getting older, might contribute to some form of dysbiosis.

And what we’re studying with this grant– so it’s a one-year grant funded by the NIH that will hopefully extend into a longer grant– is to see how antibiotic exposure affects the microbiome in aged populations. And there’s a couple of reasons for this. One of them is that aged individuals tend to consume antibiotics more extensively because they’re experiencing more sickness as they get older. And so we want to study it on that level.

And number two, obviously, these antibiotics affect the microbiome. And so we want to see if a, quote, “aged microbiome” responds differentially to antibiotics versus a young, healthy microbiome. And so to test this, we’re using first, a preclinical model, which is a mouse model, to test these hypotheses.

And tying it in, we think that those microbes, if we disrupt them in old animals, there’s going to be consequences both within the gut, but we also think that is affecting their physical resilience– so how well they perform on particular tasks such as exercise tasks. And so that’s our hypothesis going in. And of course, we don’t know the answers yet, and that’s why we’re running the studies.

But we think that the aged animals will respond differentially to the antibiotics and maybe not recover as well. And that might lead to some potential issues with how they move and how they respond to challenges. So that’s the purpose of the grant, if that makes any sense.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, absolutely. How symbiotic is the relationship between exercise and gut health? Does one influence the other more?

JACOB ALLEN: Yeah, that’s a great question. So some of my PhD work showed that exercise changes the microbiome. And it increases some beneficial metabolites that we think are health-promoting.

And one of them is called a short-chain fatty acid that initiates some overall anti-inflammatory and beneficial effects on our tissue. Now, whether it’s, quote, “good” or “bad,” I think we still need to figure out. There’s definitely changes with exercise and the microbiome. But again, trying to delineate the long-term effects and whether it’s good or bad is still up for debate and up for what we need to investigate with our science.

Your other question– does gut health affect exercise? And I think that that’s another open question in the field. Is there some gut-brain signaling that affects motivational behavior to exercise? And that really has not been investigated at all to my knowledge. So I think you bring up a good point. And it’s something we don’t know quite yet.

VINCE LARA: Yeah. You mentioned that you’re hoping that this grant with Jeff is going to be a long-term grant– multiyear. But researchers always have to look to the next thing, right? And so I’m curious what you’re working on or what your next big project might be.

JACOB ALLEN: Yeah. There’s a couple. Currently, I did some work that was independently funded at the end of my postdoc that I was able to take with me to start my lab here in Illinois, focused on some of the stress effects on the microbiome. And so we’re currently, in the lab, really interested in how the microbes interact with the cells that line the gut, called epithelial cells.

And what we found is this really intricate interaction between the gut microbes and these epithelial cells. You think of it as like a tit for tat. As the epithelial cells, which are our cells that line the gut, produce some molecules, they change the microbes. The microbes then feed back and change those epithelial cells.

And what we found is that stress, for some unknown reason, really changes the profile of these epithelial cells. And we’re not sure why yet. But what the evidence is pointing towards is that those changes in epithelial cells with stress is really driving the microbial changes that we see in the gut, and potentially in negative ways.

And so we’re trying to understand that process in a little more detail in our lab currently. So that’s the next frontier where we’re focused. And then we have some other focuses, too, particularly with exercise.

And going back to the integrative portion of it, we’re interested in how exercise and dietary fiber interact to modify the microbiome. We know that both in isolation change the microbiome. But really, not a lot of work has been done with a focus on how the interaction of diet and exercise might change the microbes and what that might mean for our health. So that’s another focus of the lab currently as well.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Jacob Allen. For more podcasts on Illinois’s College of Applied Health Sciences, search A Few Minutes With on iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Radio.com, and other places you get your podcast fix. Thanks for listening, and see you next time.

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

Share on social

Tags: , ,

Related news

Dr. Husain Named McCristal Scholar

June 08, 2022 | Anna Flanagan

Fatima Husain uses magnetic resonance imaging in her research.

Dr. Fatima Husain, professor of speech and hearing science, has been named the 2022 King J. and Marjorie R. McCristal Distinguished Scholar in the College of Applied Health Sciences, the most prestigious recognition of scholarly achievement given by the College. The award presentation and McCristal Lecture will take place on August 16, 2022, as part of the AHS Fall College Meeting.

Dr. Husain joined the Department of Speech and Hearing Science as an assistant professor in 2008. She earned her PhD in cognitive and neural systems at Boston University and joined the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, part of the National Institutes of Health, first as a post-doctoral fellow and then as a research fellow.

Dr. Husain uses a combination of computational modeling, brain imaging experiments, and behavioral experiments to research hearing and speech perception, as well as the disorders associated with them, such as hearing loss and tinnitus. Through this multi-method approach, she is able to simulate auditory and speech perception in the brain. The modeling enables her to make predictions that can be tested using behavioral and imaging tools, ultimately facilitating the evaluation of existing therapies and the proposal of novel treatment methods. She is the director of the Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience Lab.

The King James McCristal Scholar Award was established in 1988 to honor King McCristal, dean of AHS from 1961-1973.

Share on social

Tags: ,

Related news

 

 

Andrew Bender appointed director of operations at Chez Veterans Center

June 02, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Andrew Bender served in the U.S. Army and reached the rank of lieutenant colonel (Photo provided)

Andrew Bender has been hired as Director of Operations at Chez Veterans Center, effective July 1.

Bender, who served in the U.S. Army and reached the rank of lieutenant colonel, comes to Chez from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Career Center, where he has been serving as the associate director for operations and strategic initiatives. Prior to coming to Illinois, Bender worked as a workforce development manager for the McLean County Chamber of Commerce, and an operations manager and learning and development manager for Amazon.

“I am humbled and deeply honored that AHS has given me the privilege to join the Chez Veterans Center team,” Bender said. “I embrace the opportunity to continue my service supporting the men and women who have given so much to our nation. I cannot wait to come on board and work with the fantastic AHS and Chez team to create a better place for our veterans and military-affiliated students.”

Bender steps into the role that has been served for the past four years by Dr. Reggie Alston, the associate dean for academic affairs in the College of Applied Health Sciences.

Bender also served as the chair of and professor in the Department of Military Science at Illinois State University’s ROTC program. In his time in the U.S. Army, Bender served in a variety of administrative roles, most recently as the Chief of Staff/Deputy Commander of the Joint Communications Unit at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.

Tags: ,

Related news

Alumni Spotlight—Kelsey Beccue

Alumni of the College of Applied Health Sciences have myriad career options thanks to the tremendous diversity of programs. We periodically will put the spotlight on an alum to find out what they’re doing now, what experiences they had and what AHS means to them. This week, we talk to Kelsey Beccue, an RST alum who is development manager for the Urbana Park District.

Q: Why did you pick AHS?

A: Choosing AHS was primarily a function of it being the home of my preferred major—Recreation, Sport, and Tourism.

Q: Which professors had the most impact on you?

A: This is kind of a toughie, but I’ll go with Professor (Cindy) Wachter. I was in the second semester of my sophomore year and still undecided. I had registered for a host of classes, attended them all my first week and promptly dropped them and registered for new ones. One of the classes I registered for was an Intro to Recreation, Sport, and Tourism class taught by Professor Wachter, and I LOVED IT! Once I was in there, I felt like I finally had some sense of direction and selected RST as my area of study. I still had some figuring out to do career-wise, but was finally taking classes that resonated with me.

Q: What course did you most enjoy?

A: I can’t remember the official course title anymore, but I did take a recreation programming class with Lori Kay Paden that was outstanding, and a great “real world” type of experience.

Q: Did you enter AHS knowing your career path, or did AHS help you decide?

A: I definitely did not know my career path when I headed into AHS, but with help from my RST advisor, I got a push in the right direction. When I first came into RST, I thought I wanted a concentration in Tourism Management, but after working through things with my advisor, it became quite obvious that Recreation Management was the right direction for me, and that set me on the course that brought me to where I am today.

Q: Did your AHS experience lead to your current job?

A: Yes—thanks required internship!

Q: What is your current job?

A: I am currently the Development Manager at the Urbana Park District.

Q: What was your favorite on-campus experience?

A: I worked in the concessions division of the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics during college, and getting the opportunity to work the different sporting events was really cool. I attended a lot of sporting events I might not have attended otherwise. The football game days were fun, too. Long, but fun—great crew to work with! Seeing Sara Bareilles perform at Foellinger with some of my best pals ranks highly, too!

Q: What would you say to recommend AHS to a prospective student?

A: I’d say that it’s a great college—it’s smaller so you don’t get lost in the crowd as much, and the faculty and advisors are great!

College of Applied Health Sciences
110 Huff Hall
1206 South 4th Street
Champaign, IL 61820
(217) 333-2131