Priscilla M. Clarkson Graduate Scholarship in Kinesiology
Erica Casto (PhD, Kinesiology)
Erica Casto is a biomechanics doctoral candidate in the kinesiology department at UMass Amherst. Erica’s research focuses on investigating how quadriceps muscle function may contribute to altered walking patterns and coordination that may contribute to mobility impairment and joint pathology with age.
My doctoral work focuses on understanding how declines in quadriceps muscle strength often occurring with age may contribute to changes in walking biomechanics with age. A better understanding of the role quadriceps muscles plays in altering movement patterns and coordination of muscle activity can help provide a framework for further work targeting prevention and rehabilitation for age-related gait impairment and joint pathology.
Through your generous donations, The Priscilla M Clarkson Graduate Scholarship in Kinesiology will be pivotal towards successful completion of my dissertation project. The funding will allow me to purchase necessary materials for motion capture and electromyography data collection. Further, this study requires a 3-hour lab visit that can interfere with work hours and requires strenuous lower extremity exercise; therefore, these funds will help diversify my participant population and ease barriers for participant recruitment by providing means to compensate for time and effort in the study.
Skylar Holmes (PhD, Kinesiology)
Skylar Holmes is a biomechanist and doctoral student in the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Skylar has been involved in movement biomechanics research since her senior year as an undergraduate student. Her overarching research interests are to understand the underlying mechanisms in the development of knee osteoarthritis and use evidence-based approaches to develop biomechanically driven interventions that improve mobility. Her short-term career goal is to identify factors related to fatigue at both the whole body and muscle levels that will be amenable to rehabilitation so that mobility can be improved in individuals with knee osteoarthritis.
My plans are to teach and conduct research at a university after I receive my doctorate. I hope to teach biomechanics and anatomy at the collegiate level. I want to become an active contributor in the research community and take what I have learned from my undergraduate and graduate experiences to help promote student engagement in the research community at any institution I work at in the future.
The Clarkson award will support the rigor of my dissertation through its support for efficient recruitment of the defined population and funds to complete the costly data collection procedures.
Thank you for supporting my dissertation research and my development as a researcher. Finishing this project would not be possible without your support.
Brent Momb (PhD, Kinesiology)
Brent Momb is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Kinesiology. After graduation, he plans to continue to pursue research with a post-doctoral fellowship related to skeletal muscle function in chronic disease, moving current work in animals to humans.
This award will help tremendously in funding research related to achieving a Ph.D. in Kinesiology, working to understand the mechanisms of skeletal muscle fatigue at physiological temperatures. The muscle biology lab focuses on understanding single muscle fiber structure and function, and this funding will allow me to pursue research that has not been conducted in human skeletal muscle previously. My interest in this area came about through attempting to understand why people who have chronic diseases or in aging populations, the reason for greater skeletal muscle fatigue compared to health, age- and activity-matched individuals.