When you exercise in hot temperatures, you feel your heart racing, right? This research takes it a step further to understand how exercising in the heat impacts lung diffusing capacity, or DLCO. DLCO quantifies how well gases (like oxygen) transfer from your lungs into your blood for eventual use by working tissues. Data from our first study was published in 2023, and we finished data collection on a follow-up study in 2024. Long term plans involve applying for a grant to continue this work so that we can acquire additional instrumentation to strengthen our results.

Vaughn Baldemor '27 wanted to explore the effect of cold exposure on heart function during exercise. With my mentorship, he designed the protocol using our previous heat study as a template. Further, he added measures of heart rate variability to investigate whether sympathetic outflow played a role, a mechanism we had not yet explored in the lab. Preliminary results following summer 2026 research were unexpected and exciting, and data collection continues this Fall 2026. So far he has presented his findings at a poster session on campus.

Sophie Rivas '27 was curious about the effects of varying levels of estrogen and progesterone during the menstrual cycle on exercise, both in terms of perceived difficulty as well as oxygen delivery and use. Her study involved volunteers tracking their cycle and then performing moderate cycling exercise during both the follicular, low hormone phase and luteal, high hormone phase. With my mentorship, she designed the project, acquired IRB approval, and collected data during summer research 2026. She presented her findings at a poster session on campus.