Professor Asker Jeukendrup

Asker Jeukendrup is a professor of Exercise Metabolism at the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences and Director of the Human Performance Laboratory. Originally from the Netherlands, Asker lived and worked in Austin Texas (University of Texas) for a year and moved to Birmingham in the United Kingdom in 1998.
Asker and his coworkers have performed cutting edge research into the effects of nutrition on exercise performance, recovery and training adaptations. Asker has published extensively (more than 120 papers and book chapters) on the links between nutrition, exercise metabolism and performance. He has also written books on Sport Nutrition and High Performance Cycling, is the Editor of the European Journal of Sport Science and member of the editorial board of several other journals. In 2005 he was awarded a Danone Chair in Nutrition at the Free University Brussels in Belgium.
Asker’s main goal is to perform research at the cutting edge but also to apply this research and translate scientific findings into something that is useful to athletes and in fact every individual who wants to be physically active. Ultimately the research is aimed at helping people to achieve their potential; whether this is being more physically active or winning medals at Olympic Games. He has worked with many top athletes including track and field athletes of UK Athletics, Chelsea Football Club, Olympic swimmers and Tour de France cyclists.  Asker was one of the members of a group brought together by the IOC to formulate a consensus statement on sports nutrition.
Asker is also an Ironman triathlete himself and tries to apply the research findings in his own races. He was GB age group duathlon champion in 2004, won a marathon (San Francisco Golden Gate Headlands) in 2006 and competed at the European and World Championships duathlon, Ironman and Ironman 70.3. His main goal is to qualify again for the World Championship Ironman in Kona Hawaii.

Dr Iñigo Mujika

Iñigo Mujika earned Ph.D.s in Biology of Muscular Exercise (University of Saint-Etienne, France) and Physical Activity and Sport Sciences (University of The Basque Country). He is also a Level III Swimming and Triathlon Coach and coaches World Class triathletes. His main research interests in the field of applied sport science include training methods and recovery from exercise, tapering, detraining, overtraining and sports nutrition. He has also performed extensive research on the physiological aspects associated with sports performance in professional cycling, swimming, running, tennis, football and water polo. He received research fellowships in Australia, France and South Africa, published over 70 articles in peer reviewed journals, a book and over 10 book chapters, and has given over 100 lectures and communications in international conferences and meetings. Iñigo was Senior Physiologist at the Australian Institute of Sport in 2003 and 2004. In 2005 he was the physiologist and trainer for the Euskaltel Euskadi professional cycling team and between 2006 and 2008 he was Head of Research and Development at Athletic Club Bilbao professional football club. He is now Director of Physiology and Training at USP Araba Sport Clinic, Associate Editor for the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, and Associate Professor at the University of the Basque Country.

Professor Timothy Noakes

Professor Timothy Noakes is professor of exercise and sports science at the University of Cape Town. He has run more than 70 marathons and ultramarathons, and is the author of the running book The Lore of Running. In 1980 Professor Noakes was tasked to start a sports science course at the University of Cape Town. From these humble beginnings Noakes went on to head the Medical Research Council funded Bioenergetics of Exercise Research Unit, which was later changed to the MRC/UCT Research Unit for Exercise Science and Sports Medicine. In the early 1990s Prof Noakes co-founded the Sports Science Institute of South Africa, with former South African rugby player Morne du Plessis. In these new facilities his research unit's physiological research has thrived since 1996, producing over 400 scientific articles (and counting) during this time period.
Although Noakes is well known in academic circles for the high caliber of his scientific insight and work, he is perhaps best known for being the first to publish a scientific paper on the condition now known as Exercise Associated Hyponatremia (EAH). He first recognized this condition in a female runner during the 1984 Comrades Marathon, and published his findings in 1985 in the scientific and peer-reviewed journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. Noakes is also known for renewing and elaborating the idea first proposed by the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine winner Archibald Hill that a central governor regulates exercise to protect body homeostasis.
Noakes is also well known for challenging common and old paradigms in the discipline of Exercise Physiology. In 1996 he was honored by the American College of Sports Medicine when he was asked to present the J.B. Wolfe Memorial Lecture, the college's keynote address at its annual meeting. In his presentation Ex Africa semper aliquid novi. (Out of Africa always something new) Noakes challenged the popular held dogma of the VO2max plateau theory. This work lead eventually to the construction of a complex central governor model of exercise in which the brain is the primary organ that dictates how fast, how long, and how hard humans can exercise. Much of Noakes' work over the past 10 years has provided further support for this model. In 2002 he was awarded a Doctorate in Science (DSc), the highest degree the University of Cape Town can award, for his seminal contributions over the years.

Dr David Stensel

David is a Senior Lecturer in Exercise Physiology in the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at Loughborough University where he has worked for last 10 years. Prior to this David worked as a lecturer for six years in the School of Physical Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore where he taught track and field athletics, fitness and conditioning, measurement and evaluation and exercise physiology. Although David is a keen recreational runner his main research and teaching interests concern the relationship between exercise and health. He is co-author (with Professor Adrianne Hardman) of the textbook Physical Activity and Health: The Evidence Explained. The second edition of this book was published in May 2009. The majority of David's research has addressed the influence of exercise on cardiovascular disease risk factors. More recently David has obtained a second research direction examining the influence of exercise on appetite regulation with specific focus on the appetite stimulating hormone ghrelin and the appetite suppressing hormone peptide YY. The findings from this recent ongoing research were featured on the Scientific American website in December 2008. It is hoped that this research will ultimately yield greater insights as well as practical knowledge about the role of exercise in preventing weight gain and assisting weight loss where required. David has obtained research funding from the British Heart Foundation, the Ramblers' Association and from Pfizer Global Pharmaceuticals. He is married with two daughters aged 12 and 10.

Professor Mark Tarnopolskys

Professor Mark Tarnopolsky, is the clinical and research director of the Corkins/Lammert Family Neuromuscular and Neurometabolic Clinic at McMaster University.  He holds a Hamilton Regional Assessment Center endowed chair in Neuromuscular Disorders, and is a Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine.  His research focuses on nutritional, exercise and pharmacological therapies for neurometabolic and neuromuscular disorders.  In addition, he studies the physiological and molecular aspects of mitochondrial adaptation to exercise, aging and the metabolic syndrome.  More recently, his laboratory has been evaluating the role of the mitochondria and intra-myocellular lipids in response to exercise and obesity. He has authored or coauthored more than 170 scientific articles.  He has also lectured widely on neurology (neuromuscular and neurometabolic disorders), nutrition and exercise physiology.  He is on the editorial board of Muscle & Nerve and Associate Editor for MSSE.  He has been Chair of Animal Biology for NSERC (2003-2006) and is on the CIHR Biology of Aging Committee (2006-present). Besides this, Mark has been a succesful endurance athlete for many years winning adventure and running races.

Dr Kevin Tipton

Dr Kevin Tipton received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Zoology from the Univ. of Kentucky and the Univ of South Florida, respectively. He began his doctoral studies at the Florida State Univ. and transferred to Auburn Univ where he earned a PhD in Nutrition. He did his postdoctoral studies on the interaction of nutrition and exercise on muscle protein metabolism under the direction of Dr. Robert Wolfe at the Univ. of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.  Subsequently, he was appointed as an Assistant Professor, Dept of Surgery, University of Texas Medical Branch and on the Scientific Staff of the Metabolism Unit, Shriners Hospital for Children – Galveston. He continued his research on muscle protein metabolism, exercise and nutrition and served as the Director of the Exercise Metabolism Laboratory at the Shriner’s Hospital. In spring 2005, Kevin began as Senior Lecturer in Exercise Metabolism in the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Birmingham.
Kevin’s research has been focused on exercise, nutrition and muscle metabolism in humans. The general goal of the research has been to examine means of increasing muscle anabolism in athletes and exercising individuals as well as those populations that suffer from muscle loss. The studies primarily utilize stable isotopic tracer methods to measure muscle protein synthesis, breakdown and net muscle protein balance in response to exercise and nutritional interventions, as well as the molecular mechanisms of the metabolic responses. He has published over 30 papers in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters and has been invited to speak at numerous international and national conferences.
He is an Associate Editor for the Canadian Journal of Applied Physiology and on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Sports Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism.
His interest in exercise science extends to the application of the science to athletic populations. He was the Sports Nutrition adviser for the Athletic Department at Auburn University and recently served as a Visiting Scientist at the Australian Institute of Sport in the Department of Sports Nutrition and for the International Olympic Committee on the IOC Sports Nutrition Consensus Conference committee. He also has coached and served as fitness and nutrition advisor for amateur soccer and rugby clubs. Whenever uninjured, he still trains for and plays soccer and rugby and runs road races and, with luck, triathlons.