Falk College Research Center
The Research Center helps foster a vibrant research community within the College and facilitates collaborative scholarly research inclusive of undergraduate and graduate students.
Falk College faculty members engage in a wide variety of research activities that improve the health and wellbeing of individuals, families, and the community, locally, nationally, and globally. Their fields of expertise include exercise science, food studies, human development and family science, marriage and family therapy, nutrition, public health, social work, sport analytics and sport management.
Funds from federal and state grants/contracts, foundations, the University, and Falk College support faculty research projects. Faculty members collaborate across all schools and colleges and contribute to research institutes, centers and working groups. While the College is diverse in its disciplinary fields and areas of research interest among its faculty, all are committed to studying change and potential for change across a broad array of human needs, aspirations, and institutions; that is, to the study of human dynamics in its widest sense.
The Research Center assists in:
- identifying funding sponsors and collaborators
- internal and external proposal development (including strategy, narrative review, and budgeting) and post award support
- navigating the University sponsored-project system
In collaboration with academic departments and centers or institutes, we sponsor activities including seminars and colloquia highlighting innovative faculty research. Annually, Falk College awards small seed grants for tenure-track assistant professors to support the development of junior faculty’s research programs.
Falk faculty are encouraged to access the Research Center Faculty manual via SU Answers.
Recent Faculty Funded Research
Obesity is a growing epidemic afflicting more than 42% of adults and 20% of the children and adolescents in the United States. Even more critical is that 60% of women are either obese or overweight at the time of conception]….
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is disproportionately higher among low socioeconomic status communities. It is significantly associated with adverse psychosocial factors, rendering it a particularly salient health outcome in refugees who have been exposed to stressful and life-threatening events pre-resettlement and may…
Over two-thirds of adolescents are sleep deprived, and pediatric obesity rates continue to surge. Meta-analytic reviews reveal a connection between poor sleep and obesity, but the mechanisms of this relationship are poorly understood. Eating to regulate emotions may contribute to…
Rett syndrome (RTT) is a developmental disorder caused by mutations to the MECP2 gene. The Mecp2-mutant mouse is an important model to investigate RTT. Improvement of breathing deficits in this model are considered a primary goal in the development and…
There is compelling evidence that highland-native populations in the Himalayas (Sherpa,Tibetans) and the South American Andes (Quechua) are genetically adapted to chronic hypobaric hypoxia. For example, both population groups are tolerant to extreme high-altitude and show impressive physical work capacity…
Early self-regulatory skills, including self-regulation around food and appetite, serve as the foundation for children’s behavioral competence, and thus represent an important target of intervention for behavioral health. One intervention strategy that is particularly promising for promoting self-regulation among young…