Emily Mailey: Overcoming exercise barriers for working moms
Emily Mailey, assistant professor of physical activity and public health, conducts research in the area of reducing inactivity among a variety of populations, especially working mothers, developing interventions that emphasize the use of individual behavior change strategies and establishing effective support systems. She is also interested in studying the influence of physical activity participation on quality of life outcomes.
Current research projects in the Physical Activity Intervention Research Laboratory include Manhattan Active Moms Study, Fit Minded Working Moms (a web-based intervention) and several others.
She joined the Department of Kinesiology in August 2012. She and her husband Chaz, a clinical psychologist at K-State’s Counseling Center, have a 2½-year-old daughter named Jayda.
She grew up in Mt. Prospect, Illinois and completed her undergraduate education in exercise science and psychology at St. Olaf College then obtained a master’s degree in sport and exercise psychology from Ball State University and a doctorate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in May 2012.
Brandon Irwin: Cyber exercise partners and flying robots
Brandon Irwin’s research examines the use of virtual technology – such as a cyber exercise partner or a Joggobot, a smartphone-controlled helicopter turns into a jogging buddy – in improving a person’s health through physical activity.
Without the cyber partner, participants in one of Irwin’s studies rode the bike an average of 10 minutes. With the cyber-partner, they doubled that.
He is currently developing physical activity interventions that capitalize on the motivating qualities of group exercise.
Irwin, who has a doctorate in psychosocial aspects of sports and physical activity from Michigan State University, is founder and director of the Digital Physical Activity Laboratory (D-PAL). The mission of D-PAL is to understand how physical activity behavior can be promoted in the digital milieu of the 21st century.
An assistant professor of physical activity and public health, he joined the department in 2012.
