I am the proud father of one daughter (age “almost 5″) and another baby girl who is 7 months. My partner and I make our home in St. Paul, MN. My day (and sometimes night and weekend) job is as a tenured faculty member (associate professor) at St. Catherine University here in St. Paul (it’s nice to be able to bike to work). At St. Kate’s I serve as the chair of the Nutrition and Exercise and Sciences Department and also co-direct a collaborative research lab, the Women’s Health Integrative Research Center. Life keeps me busy.

Having earned my doctorate from Kent State in exercise physiology I have been teaching now for 11 years (completed my undergrad at St. Olaf and master’s degree at St. Cloud State prior to the doctorate). Time flies when you are having fun. Several years ago I read Brian Wansink’s wonderful book Mindless Eating and have been engaged in research around why we eat ever since. My team currently has several projects going on in relation to why we eat and why we exercise.

Aside from asking alot of “why” questions as they relate to food and exercise, other research areas include the influence of massage therapy on stress, food intake, and weight. I also conduct fitness tests on elite athletes and not so elite athletes (ie people just like me).

Each day I watch my daughters and wonder how their environment shapes their eating and activity habits. We know that it does.