At the Athlete Health & Performance Symposium, Teamwork Makes the Dream Work
By Sarah Shebek
The College of Health and Utah Athletics have a lot in common—a shared building, shared staff in the athletic training department, and a focus on movement and wellness.
But there are always better ways to collaborate. Two COH faculty who joined in recent years have successfully built partnerships through research to help student-athletes perform better on the field and after injury. Over the last three years, they’ve also worked directly with athletics staff to create a first-of-its-kind symposium to benefit student-athlete health, wellness, and performance.
The Athlete Health & Performance Symposium takes place in April, as a partnership between the COH and Utah Athletics. The two-day event brings together students, faculty, staff, coaches, and professionals from local pro teams and beyond to encourage collaboration and develop highly trained personnel who will support student-athletes.
Peter Fino, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Health & Kinesiology and Stephan Bodkin, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Physical Therapy and Athletic Training, help organize and lead the event.
“Many of our undergraduates come in thinking they want to do something with sports, and this symposium really showcases all the different opportunities to work within human performance and athletics,” Fino said. “Sports and nutrition, biomechanics, athletic training, strength and conditioning, there are many career opportunities that exist in this space.”
The symposium sprang from a collaboration with Anna Cruse, the director of Applied Health & Performance Science for Utah Athletics. After she joined the department in 2021, she started an internship for undergraduate students to work alongside her team in athletics. Together, they collect data and use it to improve health and performance for student-athletes at Utah.
“The Applied Health and Performance Science department at Utah is unique—some schools across the country have sports scientists embedded within individual teams, but there are not very many with departments like ours, though that number is growing” Cruse said. “We started the symposium to showcase what our interns are doing and the opportunities that exist for students who want to work in sports.”
Interested students get into the symposium for free and anyone can submit a poster to present, which makes the event much more accessible than others. The first day of the conference features the poster presentations, as well as keynotes from staff on well-known sports teams, like the Indiana Fever and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee.
Around the time that the Applied Health and Perfomance Science department began, Fino and fellow faculty in the Department of Health & Kinesiology started revamping their undergraduate curriculum to create a Movement Science emphasis area. It focuses on quantitative skills, biomechanics, motor neuroscience , and hands-on experiences with new technologies that are common in research, clinical, and applied sports science settings. The curriculum reaches one of the largest concentrations of students at the University, with department enrollment at almost 1,500 students.
Bodkin already worked closely with athletics thanks to his expertise in return-to-play protocols. He’s also the point person for working with athletics on research proposals and helps determine if the proposals will benefit the teams and student-athletes in question.
“In regard to our mission of advancing undergraduate research opportunities, I think that’s the coolest part of the symposium,” he said. “Our students can present any work they’re conducting, and it doesn’t have to be abstract based, as typically required at conference structured events. It provides them with an opportunity to advance their educational experience and further exposure to research opportunities.”
The symposium has been so successful that the team has added a second day. It’s only open to industry professionals and features another heavy-hitting lineup of keynote speakers, including the Utah Jazz and US Speedskating.
“We’re trying to solve problems as practitioners together in our community,” Cruse said. “None of us are competitors, it gives us all a really cool opportunity to bring forth problems we have and showcase all the cool work taking place.”
Professionals can register for only $35 a day, and continuing education credits are available. The symposium is generously sponsored by Dairy West, Beehive Meals, Rapid Reboot, Momentous, and Hyperice.
“The conversation around student success is really pertinent right now,” Fino said. “This symposium showcases all the work we’ve done together over the last few years to give more students more opportunities. The COH shares a building with athletics, and we have a successful history of collaboration across research and clinical spaces. It’s been great to integrate education more and better serve our students and student- athletes.”
