Exercise Science Graduate Student Honored at International Conference

International Society for Environmental Ergonomics

Nicole Moyen presents her research at the conference in Portsmouth, England.

University of Arkansas graduate student Nicole Moyen won top honors for a presentation she made this summer at the 16th International Conference on Environmental Ergonomics in Portsmouth, England. Moyen is halfway through the exercise science doctoral program in the College of Education and Health Professions and expects to finish in May 2017.

The San Jose, California, native chose the U of A after learning that Matthew Ganio teaches here. Ganio, an assistant professor of exercise science, earned his doctorate from the University of Connecticut, where Moyen's master's program advisor also went.

"I'm really interested in heat stress and thermoregulation, and Dr. Ganio is an expert in the field," Moyen said. "I met him four years ago when we worked together on a field study."

Moyen earned a master's degree in kinesiology from California State University Fullerton and a bachelor's degree in movement science from the University of Evansville (Indiana). She won a travel scholarship to the international conference, which came with the opportunity to give an oral presentation of her research conducted in the college's Human Performance Laboratory.

"At this conference, she presented alongside some of the foremost experts in environmental physiology," Ganio said. "She presented research from our lab on 'Cutaneous Vascular and Sudomotor Responses to Heat Stress in Smokers and Non-smokers.' She won the 'Best Oral Presentation' award."

The research was funded by the Arkansas Biosciences Institute, which is the major research component of the Arkansas Tobacco Settlement Proceeds Act of 2000.

Moyen explained that the study involved looking at responses to heat stress in people who smoke compared to responses in people who don't smoke. Cutaneous vascular response means how much blood flows to the skin, which is one way the body gets rid of heat, she said, and sudomotor response refers to sweating, another way the body dissipates heat.

The study participants were passively heated by wearing a suit with tubes filled with warm water controlled by the researchers.

"We found the smokers had a lower sweat rate compared to the nonsmokers," Moyen said. "However, the smokers started sweating and increased skin blood flow sooner than the nonsmokers. So, overall, the lower sweat rate in smokers would be a disadvantage in the heat, but the earlier start of sweating and skin blood flow would be an advantage.

"The passive heat stress is an artificial environment so we don't know if the findings would lead us to suggest that smokers have greater risk for heat illness when exercising in the heat," she continued. "More research needs to be done."

Moyen plans to start a new study in the spring semester looking at the thermoregulatory responses of obese and non-obese women. The women in the study will exercise so that Moyen can study possible differences in dehydration and heat stress in the two populations.

After graduation, she would like to work at a university, teaching and conducting research.