Athens, Ga. – Three University of Georgia College of Education graduate students were recognized for their research at the annual meeting of the Southeast chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine, making UGA the first university to capture more than two awards at the SEACSM in one year.
The students—Michael Southern, Melissa Erickson and Terence Ryan—won three of the six highly competitive awards, enduring two levels of judging and a separate evaluation. The students, all majoring in exercise science, are advised by Kevin McCully, a professor in the department of kinesiology.
Erickson, a first-year doctoral student from Augusta, won second place in the doctoral division for her research examining the mitochondrial response after endurance electrical stimulation training in persons with spinal cord injury.
Ryan, a third-year doctoral student from Palm Bay, Fla., won the third place prize for doctoral research for his work on reproducibility and methods to evaluate skeletal muscle and mitochondrial function.
Southern, a first-year master’s student from Greenville, S.C., won the best research poster at the master’s level for his work assessing the reproducibility of skeletal muscle oxidative function using near infrared spectroscopy.
In addition, McCully was elected president of the SEACSM and will serve a three-year term.
SEACSM is a chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine.