Two AES students receive grants from the New England Chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine

Applied Exercise Science majors Kaylee LeCavalier ’14 and Chad Lyons ’15 were recipients of the 2014 New England American College of Sports Medicine (NEACSM) Undergraduate Research Experience Grant for their individual research projects.

During the Spring 2014 semester, LeCavalier and her classmates from an environmental physiology course taught by her research advisor Lara Carlson, Ph.D., FACSM, traveled to Iceland to collect data for an investigation of the impact of acute anaerobic training on circulating leukocytes and salivary immunoglobin A (s-IgA), and to examine whether immune responses differ between a warm or cool exposure.

LeCavalier’s project complements Carlson’s previous work examining changes in peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) populations and transcription in response to resistance exercise training, and identification of key transcriptional changes in PBMCs that may play a role in altering peripheral tissues in response to resistance exercise.

Carlson was awarded approximately $14,000 from AboGen Pharmaceutical towards the immune response data collection in Iceland, as the project complements an ongoing research project for which she and Ed Bilsky, Ph.D., UNE vice president for research and scholarship, were funded from AboGen Pharmaceutical for a saliva and white blood cell isolation validation. UNE Motion Analysis Lab Manager Michael Lawrence, M.S., participated as a co-research advisor for LeCavalier’s project.

Lyons completed a research project to investigate if towing a weighted sled produced greater propulsive ground reaction force and increased lower limb muscle activation during a sprint start. Towing weighted sleds is commonly used to increase sprint start performance in the strength and conditioning community, but there is little scientific evidence validating the practice.

Lyons worked in the Motion Analysis Lab with Lawrence, whose previous work has focused on biomechanics during resistance exercises. Carlson also served as a co-research advisor for Lyons.

About the University of New England

The University of New England is Maine’s largest independent university, with two beautiful coastal campuses in Maine, a one-of-a-kind study abroad campus in Tangier, Morocco, and an array of flexible, accredited online degrees. In an uncommonly welcoming and supportive community, we offer hands-on learning, empowering students to make a positive impact in a world full of challenges. The state’s top provider of health professionals, we are home to Maine’s only medical college, Maine’s only dental college, a variety of other interprofessionally aligned health care degree programs, as well as nationally recognized programs for marine science degrees, natural and social sciences degrees, arts and humanities degrees, and business degrees.