Dr. J. Timothy Lightfoot is currently the Debbie and Mike Hilliard Endowed Professor of Kinesiology and the Executive Director of the Sydney and JL Huffines Institute for Sports Medicine and Human Performance at Texas A&M University. Dr. Lightfoot received his Bachelors and Masters degrees from University of Louisiana Monroe and his doctorate from the University of Tennessee. He completed a research consultantship with the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at Kennedy Space Center in the Biomedical Laboratory and then a three-year National Institute of Health postdoctoral research fellowship in the Division of Physiology at Johns Hopkins University. He was an Assistant and Associate Professor at Florida Atlantic University for 6 years (two years as Department Chair), and a Professor at the University of North Carolina Charlotte for 14 years, 9 years of which he was Chair of the department. Dr. Lightfoot has published over 85 scientific, peer-reviewed articles on the genetics of daily physical activity and exercise endurance, as well as the physiological response to high-G exposure and hemorrhage and thus far has had ≈ $3 million in external funding from the National Institutes of Health and Department of Defense to conduct research on the genetics of physical activity. His lab also has a unique interest in the physiological responses of athletes in a variety of non-traditional venues such as auto racing and in musicians. His research has been featured in numerous general media outlets including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Time.com, National Public Radio, the Rush Limbaugh show, CNN, the NBC Today Show, MSNBC, Revista Epoca (a Brazilian weekly magazine), and on Australian National Radio.

Dr. Lightfoot is a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine, an ACSM Certified Exercise Physiologist, an ACSM Registered Clinical Exercise Physiologist, a Past-President of the Southeast Regional Chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine, and a past member of the Board of Trustees for the American College of Sports Medicine. He was awarded the national ACSM Citation Award in May 2018 and was named University Graduate Student Mentor of the Year at Texas A&M in 2018. He has been named Teacher of the Year in his College at three different Universities (Florida Atlantic University, University of North Carolina Charlotte, and at Texas A&M University) and was awarded the Henry Montoye Research Scholar Award by the Southeast American College of Sports Medicine in 2010. He was named Alumnus of the Year of the University of Louisiana Monroe in Kinesiology in 2010 and at the University of Tennessee in 2016, gave the keynote lecture at the 2013 Performing Arts Medical Association meeting, the President’s Keynote Lecture at the 2014 national American College of Sports Medicine meeting, the Keynote Speaker at the 2018 Southeast American College of Sports Medicine meeting, and was recently named the Pease Family Scholar Speaker at Iowa State University. He is a native Texan, married to a brilliant and beautiful woman (Faith), is the co-founder of the company Academic Career Development Services, used to race automobiles for fun, and has a passion for playing the bass guitar, which he does in live settings with a variety of bands.