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Sungwon Chae, MS, CSCS
Sungwon is a first-year PhD student in Sport Physiology and Performance beginning from Fall 2020. He is from Seoul in South Korea where he earned a B.S. in Physical Education at Hanyang University. At the University of North Texas, he studied Kinesiology as an international exchange student and received an M.S. in Exercise Physiology. He is currently working with the ETSU Weightlifting Team and Club. His research interests include integrating accentuated eccentric loading and cluster set into periodization as well as athlete monitoring for weightlifters and other strength and power athletes. Sungwon's career goal is to work as a sport scientist that can contribute to optimizing periodization and provide athlete monitoring for elite athletes. |
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Abdulmalek Bursais, MS, CSCS
Malek is from Saudi Arabia. He is a former athlete for the Saudi National Tennis Team. He played in the Davis Cup and the Asia Olympic Games, "Guangzhou 2010", with the Saudi Men's Tennis Team. Malek earned his B.S. in Physical Education from King Faisal University, and M.S. in Physical Education with a concentration in Coaching from Indiana State University. He is a third year PhD student in the Sport Physiology and Sport Performance program. He is married and has a son. Malek currently works with ETSU's Tennis Team as a Strength and Conditioning coach. His research interests include quantifying on-field/court workloads through wearable technologies, long-term athletes development, and coach education. |
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Ai Ishida, CSCS, USAW
Ai is a third year PhD student in the Sport Performance program. Originally from Yokohama, Japan, Ai earned his B.S. in Sports Sciences from Waseda University and M.S. in Exercise and Wellness from Arizona State University. During his time in Arizona, Ai served as a Sports Performance intern at Arizona State University and Fischer Institute working with Men’s and Women’s basketball, baseball, lacrosse, softball, soccer, wrestling, NFL combine candidates and NFL. Ai’s research interests include GPS monitoring in sport performance and injury prevention. He is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist through the National Strength and Conditioning Association and as a Sports Performance Coach through USA Weightlifting. |
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Jason P. McCleery, CSCS, TSAC-F, NSCA-CPT
Jason is a third year PhD student. Previously, he worked for Vail Ski & Snowboard Academy in Vail, CO as a strength & conditioning coach for the acrobatic athletes (Freeski, Freestyle, and Snowboard). While in Colorado, he also served as an intern at the NSCA World Headquarters in Colorado Springs. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Exercise Science from Western Illinois University and now works with the Milligan College Women’s Basketball team. He plans to pursue a career in strength and conditioning and to become a professor. |
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Keith Painter, MA, CSCS, USAW-SPL1, NREMT
Keith is returning to ETSU as a first year PhD student in the Sport Physiology and Sport Performance program. He received a B.S. in Exercise Science from Truman State University and an M.A. in Kinesiology & Sport Studies at ETSU. As a former college athlete, Keith developed a passion for strength training and athlete monitoring. He is a periodization advocate and continues to inject those principles into his coaching and his own training as a weightlifter to this day. During his time away from ETSU, Keith has coached athletes in the weight room at multiple levels and in a variety of sports. After graduating, he began working with school-age children teaching them the basic movement patterns of weightlifting, running, jumping, and other athletic fundamentals. He later transferred to the high school level by coaching football and track & field throwers. Keith even had the opportunity to work as an assistant to the strength coach with college football players. Through all of this, Keith has maintained his research enthusiasm by working with the University of Michigan on multiple national studies and hopes to put that experience to use in this program. His areas of interest are related to the effects of volume load on athletes young and old. |
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Luis Rodriguez-Castellano, MExSc, CSCS, ISAK-1
Luis is a third year PhD student in the Sport Physiology and Performance program. Coming from Jayuya, Puerto Rico, he earned his B.S. in Physical Education with a double major in Sports Conditioning Sciences from the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico (PUCPR) in 2009. During his tenure at PUCPR, he was awarded a full scholarship for his role as Assistant Swimming Coach of the Varsity swimming team. His duties were designing the yearly swimming and weight training programs. While working as a personal trainer, Luis earned his master’s in Exercise Science with Specialty in Exercise Physiology from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus (UPR). During this time, he interned at the Center of Sports Health and Exercise Science of the School of Medicine of the UPR and also had the opportunity as a coaching intern with the legendary U.S.A. Olympic Swimmer, Dr. Gary Hall, Sr. at the world-renowned swimming club – “The Race Club”. Before arriving at ETSU, Luis worked as an Exercise Physiologist for Cenegenics Puerto Rico, a preventive medicine program, alongside two Physicians and a Nutritionist. Luis’s previous research dealt with assessing the effects of an alkalizing supplementation on performance and blood lactate after a short-term maximal exercise in trained cyclists. He currently works as a strength coach/sports scientist with the Milligan University Swimming team and is interning with the Men’s Basketball team. His future interests are improving the physical performance of swimmers with sound programming principals. He also seeks to work as a strength and conditioning coach/sports scientist in the NBA. |
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Dylan Suarez MS, CSCS, CPT, USAW-2
Dylan recently completed his master's degree at ETSU and is now a first-year doctoral student studying Sport Physiology and Performance. He grew up in Orlando, FL and moved to Johnson City, TN in 2014 to join the ETSU Weightlifting team. Prior to competing in Weightlifting, he competed nationally and internationally in Martial Arts and Kickboxing and for several years worked as a Martial Arts instructor and coach. Dylan now serves as an assistant coach and the lead sport scientist for the Weightlifting team. His goals are to become a professor of sport science and be able to both conduct research on and work with strength-power and/or combat sport athletes. |
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Kyle Travis, MS, CSCS,*D, ASCC
Kyle is a third-year Ph.D. candidate in the Sport Physiology and Sport Performance program. Kyle holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology with a minor in Chemistry from the University of Southern Mississippi and an Applied Sport Science M.S. degree from ETSU. He is an established CSCS with distinction (CSCS,*D) and an Accredited Strength and Conditioning Coach (ASCC) recognized by the UKSCA. Kyle is part of the sport science staff. He is also the founder, lead sport scientist, and head coach of the Powerlifting Team/The Powerlifting Club at ETSU. His research interests revolve around tapering and peaking, structural and ultrastructural muscle physiology, and periodization and programming for individual strength-power athletes (i.e., weightlifters, powerlifters, track and field/highland game throwers, strongman competitors). |
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Alex Wetmore, BS, CSCS, USATF 1, ISAK L1
Alex is a third year doctoral student in sport physiology and performance. Alex grew up in Indianapolis, IN and completed his undergraduate studies at Marian University. During his time as a student at Marian, Alex was a member of the Knights football team, earning Academic All-American twice and is a two-time NAIA Football National Champion. Alex graduated with his master’s degree in sport science and coach education from ETSU in May of 2018 and began the Ph.D. program the following semester. While on campus, Alex worked with the ETSU Men’s Soccer, Triathlon and Baseball programs as a part of the Strength and Conditioning/Sport Science staff. In addition to his duties with those teams, Alex helped supervise the ETSU weight room. Alex successfully defended his dissertation in August of 2020 and was hired as the Head Strength & Conditioning Coach for Westminster College (Utah) shortly after |
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Alyssa Younker, MS, ACSM EP-C
Alyssa is a third year PhD student in the Sport Physiology and Performance program at ETSU. She completed her BS in exercise science at the University of North Florida. There, she was a DI scholarship Track & Field athlete for all four years of her undergraduate career. After graduation she became a certified exercise physiologist through ACSM. Alyssa received her MS in Exercise Science at the University of South Carolina, concentrating in applied physiology. At the University of South Carolina, she was a research assistant in the Physiology of Exercise & Nutrition laboratory. During her time at South Carolina, Alyssa was also the head teaching assistant for numerous labs such as; Anatomy & Physiology, Physiology of Muscular Activity, and Sports Nutrition. Her long-term goal is to become a professor and researcher in the field. |