Rate My Professor Eunhee Chung

Eunhee Chung is an Associate Professor in the Department of Kinesiology within the College for Health, Community and Policy at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where she joined as Assistant Professor in 2016 and was promoted in 2021. She leads the Molecular Exercise Physiology Laboratory, investigating the impact of maternal obesity and exercise on offspring cardiometabolic health, including sex differences in cardiac structure, mitochondrial function, and stress responses; skeletal muscle properties in obesity and diet interventions; gut bacteriome and mycobiome interactions in metabolic diseases; anti-obesity drug treatments like CYP8B1 inhibitors in diet-induced obesity models; and mechanisms of therapies such as acupuncture, electrostimulation, and nutritional supplementation to attenuate muscle atrophy. Prior roles include Assistant Professor (2013-2016) and Research Assistant Professor (2012-2013) in the Department of Kinesiology and Sport Management at Texas Tech University, and Postdoctoral Fellow (2007-2012) in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder, focusing on molecular mechanisms of pregnancy-induced cardiac hypertrophy. Chung holds a Ph.D. (2007) and M.S. (2003) in Kinesiology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where her dissertation examined aging and exercise training effects on myocardial structure and function, a B.S. in Exercise and Sport Sciences (2000) from the University of Georgia, and a B.E. in Environmental Engineering (1993) from Konkuk University.

Her research has attracted substantial funding, including a $1,418,950 NIH Support of Competitive Research (SC1) grant (2020-2024) on sex differences in cardiometabolic health of offspring from obese mothers with and without exercise, a prior $1,396,210 NIH SC1 (2019-2023) on maternal exercise alleviating offspring cardiac dysfunction, a $411,642 NICHD R21 (2019-2021) on gut microbiome in metabolic diseases, and the Lutcher Brown Fellowship (2022). Additional honors encompass the American Physiological Society Research Career Enhancement Award (2017-2018), SouthWest AHA Postdoctoral Fellowship (2009-2011), and multiple graduate fellowships such as Virginia Horne Henry Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowship (2004-2005). Key publications include "Switching to a Standard Chow Diet at Weaning Improves the Effects of Maternal and Postnatal High-Fat and High-Sucrose Diet on Cardiometabolic Health in Adult Male Mouse Offspring" (Metabolites, 2022), "Obesity, not a high fat, high sucrose diet alone, induced glucose intolerance and cardiac dysfunction during pregnancy and postpartum" (Scientific Reports, 2021), "Beneficial effect of dietary geranylgeraniol on glucose homeostasis and bone microstructure in obese mice" (Nutrition Research, 2021), "Pregnancy late in life has a detrimental effect on the heart" (American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology, 2018), and a book chapter "Genetic determinants of exercise performance: Evidence from transgenic and null mouse models" (2011). Her scholarship, with over 2,000 citations, advances interventions for obesity-related cardiometabolic risks.