CHS Welcomes New Faculty - Meet Dr. Jaeho Jang
Published September 1, 2023
By Darlene Muguiro
UTEP College of Health Sciences
This fall, the College of Health Sciences (CHS) is welcoming new faculty members across several departments.
We are pleased to present the first profile, featuring Dr. Jaeho Jang, assistant professor of Kinesiology. Dr. Jang comes to UTEP from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he recently graduated with his PhD in human movement science. He received a master’s degree in athletic training at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, where he previously worked with Division I athletes and clinicians. His research aims to understand alterations in biomechanics and mechanical joint loading at the ankle joint in patients with chronic ankle instability.
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Like many of his peers, Dr. Jaeho Jang was struck by the beauty of the UTEP campus when he first arrived for his on-site interview earlier this year. Jang, who is originally from South Korea, said he was happy to see the Asian influences dotted throughout the campus while he was moving from one appointment to the next.
“The buildings are very exotic; it’s a very unique type of architecture and one of the things I like most about UTEP,” he said.
During his on-site visit, Jang was also impressed by the warmth of those he met, particularly the faculty, and cites this as one of the major reasons he chose to begin his academic career in El Paso. He turned down a job offer from a university with a larger faculty so that he could also take advantage of the resources UTEP offers for beginning faculty looking to build their research labs.
“UTEP offered more opportunities for me to pursue my research, including funding programs that support new faculty and opportunities to collaborate with other faculty,” he said.
During his first year at UTEP, Jang aims to publish the three papers that comprised his dissertation, and will also apply for a small pilot grant to help kickstart his lab activities, which will focus on the impact of long-term ankle instability. He will begin recruiting master’s students next spring to begin in his lab in fall 2024.
In addition to building his laboratory, Jang hopes to hone his teaching skills and identify best practices. He will be teaching a biomechanics course in the Department of Kinesiology. He says that he plans to incorporate different activities in order to lighten up the otherwise “dry” topic.
“Biomechanics is a combination of physics and anatomy and physiology. Most students, in general, don’t like math,” he said. “But I really don’t want students to give up and drop the class. I plan to add hands-on practice and have them use lab equipment to gather their own data, so they can have more fun and enjoy the class.”
To learn more about Dr. Jang’s research, please email him at jjang2@utep.edu
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