PERC - Key Persons
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- Pharmacology Graduate Student
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- Vice Chair, Department of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine / Professor, Pediatric Cardiology / Director of Pediatric Electrophysiology
Annamarie Stehli, MPH, earned a master's degree in public health at UC Berkeley, assumed the role of a statistician in the Department of Pediatrics in 2002. She has since contributed to a wide range of projects related to children and families affected by developmental disorders. These included three National Institutes of Health-funded multi-site longitudinal studies, the CHOC-UC Irvine Neurodevelopmental Programs (A First 5 Initiative of the California Children and Families Commission), and interdisciplinary research with programs and investigators in genetics, neuroimaging, clinical trials, education and public health.
In 2015, she joined PERC,where she provides analytic support for study design and grant development, outcomes reporting, and manuscript preparation.
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- Director, UC Irvine Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic / Professor of Surgery and Biomedical Engineering, UC Irvine / Principal Investigator, Laser Microbeam and Medical Program ( LAMMP )
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- Assistant Clinical Professor
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- Senior Research Associate Pediatric Functional Genomics Laboratory
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- Associate Vice Chancellor for Clinical and Translational Science / Director, UCI Institute for Clinical and Translational Science
Dan M. Cooper, MD, is recognized for his transformative efforts to uncover the molecular mechanisms of exercise that affect children's health. Cooper, who is board certified in pediatrics and pediatric pulmonology, has conducted NIH-funded research for more than 30 years. This unique combination of clinical expertise and robust research experience places Cooper in an ideal position to guide and mentor young investigators. His projects are designed to develop platforms to translate research discoveries that will ultimately benefit children's health.
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- Professor, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, UC Irvine Henry Samueli School of Engineering / Professor, Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology, UC Irvine School of Medicine
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- Professor, Chemistry, School of Physical Sciences
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- Professor of Psychology and Social Behavior, Pediatrics and Public Health / Director, UC Irvine Institute for Interdisciplinary Salivary Bioscience Research
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- Associate Professor, Departments of Surgery and Biomedical Engineering
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- Manager
- Manager and Scientific Advisor PERC Molecular Laboratory
- Molecular Biology Lab Manager
As PERC's laboratory manager, Fadia Haddad, PhD, supervises all molecular assays for the center's research. She has more than 30 years of experience developing and performing molecular assays to study gene function, transcriptional regulation and the effect of exercise/activity/inactivity, growth and the endocrine system on genomic and epigenetic molecular mechanisms in the tissue/cells. Haddad's main mission at PERC is to adopt new laboratory technologies to advance exercise-as-medicine for children's health. Using cutting-edge technologies and tools, she ensures that sample collection and processing protocols are performed according to highest standard procedures.
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- Associate Professor of Global Health, Emory University Global Diabetes Research Center Director, Exercise Is Medicine Global Research and Collaboration Center
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- Immunologist
- Flow Cytometry Program Leader / Director, PERC Community Education and Outreach
Frank Zaldivar, PhD, is an immunologist who leads the PERC flow cytometry program. He also directs the Biospecimen Handling and Storage Unit at the UC Irvine Institute for Clinical and Translational Science. With a background in immunology and hematology, he has used flow cytometry for 17 years to evaluate how exercise in growing children affects circulating immune cells. Flow cytometry is the cornerstone of any immunology laboratory exercise, including at PERC.
Zaldivar has published extensively with PERC team on growth and exercise in children. His vision is to use flow cytometry to explore children's immune systems and to determine how exercise can improve health and prevent adult diseases, like atherosclerosis and cancer.
Greg Adams, PhD, conducts primary research into the cellular and molecular processes that help tissues adapt to changes in functional demands. A major theme of his work has been the modulation of the adaptation of skeletal muscle in the presence of changing signals received via the circulation (e.g., hormones, growth factors and cytokines) and the presence non-muscle cells that contribute to the immediate environment of the muscle cells.
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- Director, High Resolution Respirometry Core, UCLA / Associate Professor, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
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- Adjunct Professor, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA / Technical Director, Rehabilitation Clinical Trials Center, Harbor - UCLA Medical Center
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- Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine / Clinical Psychologist, Center for Autism & Neurodevelopmental Disorders
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- Assistant Clinical Professor
Through a telemedicine platform at PERC, Jen Jen Chen, MD, streams live exercises to children with cystic fibrosis (CF), a population that is less inclined to be active and exercise regularly. The program motivates these children to exercise, which can result in positive health benefits. It also helps Chen assess the feasibility of this type of program in the everyday life of a CF patient. Her research incorporates biometric monitoring with accelerometers and heart-rate monitors, as well as exercise and physical activity assessments, to evaluate patients' fitness and habitual physical activity levels. Chen soon will complement her clinical and research skills with an advanced degree in data science. Her bioinformatics insights will add an important perspective to PERC's study of exercise as medicine for children.
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- Professor, Department of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine / Medical Director, Center for Autism & Neurodevelopmental Disorders
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- Clinical Research Coordinator
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- Assistant Professor, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, UC Irvine School of Biological Sciences
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- Assistant Professor, Dance, UC Irvine Claire Trevor School of the Arts / Co - Director, I - Move, UC Irvine Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center
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- Professor Emeritus, Physiology & Biophysics, UC Irvine School of Medicine
Baldwin's research has focused on cardiac and skeletal muscle plasticity in response to physical activity and inactivity. During his career, he published more than 225 peer-reviewed manuscripts, textbook chapters and leading review articles concerning physical activity and inactivity. His academic distinctions include the 1995 APS Edward Adolph Award, the 1998 American College of Sports Medicine Southwest Chapter Achievement Award and the 1999 NASA Public Service Medal for Space Biology Research.
Baldwin also received the 2006 APS Exercise and Environmental Honor Award, the 2003 NASA-NSBRI Award for space science research, the 2006 NASA Public Service Medal for Advisory Service to the Administrator, and the 2011 ACSM Honor Award for Research. He served as chair of the NASA Life and Microgravity Sciences Advisory Committee and as a member of the NASA Advisory Council.
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- Assistant Clinical Professor
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- Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, UC Riverside School of Medicine
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- Professor, Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences, UC Irvine / Director, Research Institute in Virtual Environments and Computer Games
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- Research Professor, UC Irvine School of Social Ecology / Director, Evaluation and Pilot Studies, UC Irvine Institute for Clinical and Translational Science
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- Professor, Pediatric Cardiology, Department of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine
Armstrong graduated from Loughborough with BEd and MSc degrees and earned his PhD and higher doctorate (DSc) at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. He has received honorary doctorates from Coimbra University in Portugal (ScD) and Brock University in Canada (LLD). Armstrong's research won the first (and to date only) Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher Education to be awarded for research in sport and exercise medicine. The Queen's Anniversary Prize, awarded for "world-class work which is of outstanding quality and importance to the nation," was presented by the queen at Buckingham Palace.
Armstrong has authored/edited 16 books, contributed more than 350 book chapters and peer-reviewed papers, and has made keynote presentations at conferences in 44 countries. He is a fellow of the British, European and American Colleges of Sport Medicine/Science and has served as chair or member of numerous international committees focused on the promotion of children's physical activity, sport, health and well-being. An active sportsman in his youth, Armstrong represented England in national leagues as a teenager and played professional soccer for 10 years. He remains a sad but optimistic supporter of Newcastle United despite the fact that they have not won a domestic trophy since 1955 and were relegated from the Premier League in 2016.
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- Clinical Research Coordinator
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- Associate Professor, Departments of Nutritional Sciences, Pediatrics and Immunobiology University of Arizona
Ronen Bar-Yoseph seeks to better understand the kinetics of oxygen consumption in healthy children and in children with different clinical conditions. His research project begins the process of systematically identifying the best protocols to use for children and young adults. Through oxygen consumption analysis, he strives to better understand how children's bodies cope with physiological challenges that arise. This research could lead to improved and more accurate fitness assessment both in health and disease. Bar-Yoseph is also a consultant for the UC Irvine Cardiopulmonary Center Clinical Exercise Laboratory.
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- Executive Director, UC Irvine Child Development School / Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, UC Irvine School of Medicine
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- Clinical Study Coordinator
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- Medical Scientist Training Program
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- Founder and Executive Director, Pediatric Exercise and Genomics Research Center
As a molecular biologist and exercise physiologist, Shlomit Radom-Aizik, PhD, seeks to open new avenues of research in the molecular transducers of physical activity, focusing on the genomic and epigenetic response of circulating leukocytes to exercise. In her role as executive director of PERC, she oversees a team of research associates, exercise technicians, trainers and molecular laboratory technicians who have successfully studied and trained hundreds of healthy children and adolescents in prescriptive exercise, as well as children with conditions including obesity, asthma, leukemia, congenital heart disease and spina bifida.
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- Project Manager of IXercise, PhD Candidate Networked Systems, Information and Computer Sciences