Christine Mermier, PhD

Christine Mermier is a Professor and the Laboratory Director of the Human Performance Labs at the University of New Mexico. She also serves as the chair of the main campus Institutional Review Board. Before coming to work at the UNM Human Performance Labs, she worked with New Heart, the first cardiac rehabilitation program in New Mexico. She also spent time and working with UNM’s Employee Wellness program and doing research in the Pulmonary Department at the VA. She received her doctorate in Exercise Science at UNM in 2003 after completing her dissertation focused on the effect of whole-body cooling in patients with generalized myasthenia gravis. She has also done several studies looking at the physiological demands of rock climbing. The primary focus of her recent research is to understand the gut, skeletal muscle, and the whole body’s interaction with environmental stress (heat, hypoxia) during exercise. Dr. Mermier is a believer in mentoring and supporting her students who want to develop their own ideas and conduct studies based on their interests rather than topics connected to her own research emphasis. A few recent examples of her doctoral students work include research questions such as how surgical face masks and breathing restricting masks affect individuals during high intensity interval training, the effect of exercise on cognitive performance in individuals with overweight/obesity, and whether heart rate can predict attainment of VO_2max in older individuals.