Rate My Professor Qin Zhu

Qin Zhu, Ph.D., serves as Professor, International Program Coordinator, and Director of the Division of Kinesiology and Health in the College of Health Sciences at the University of Wyoming. He earned his Ph.D. in Human Performance with a minor in Experimental Psychology from Indiana University in 2008, M.Ed. in Exercise Science from Shanghai University of Sport in 2002, and B.S. in Coaching Education from Shanghai University of Sport in 1999. Zhu joined the University of Wyoming as Assistant Professor and Director of the Perceptual-Motor Behavior Laboratory in 2008, was promoted to Associate Professor and Director of the Perception-Action-Cerebral-Executive (PACE) Laboratory in 2014, and to Professor in 2019. He assumed the role of Interim Director in August 2024 and became Director in June 2025. Earlier positions include Research Assistant and Associate Instructor at Indiana University and Shanghai University of Sport.

Zhu's research employs a perception-action approach to study perceptual-motor skills acquired in daily life and sports settings, focusing on how perception and action interact to enable functional control of human movement. Key interests include affordances, overarm throwing, illusion effects on action, coordination, and rehabilitation of motor skills. Current projects encompass coordination dynamics in badminton plays, perceptual-motor learning of bimanual coordination, configural perception in vertical dance, affordances in long-distance target throwing, perceptual-motor mechanisms in ACL loading during jump-landing, and motor learning through robot-assisted dyadic interaction. His scholarship includes numerous publications in refereed journals and book chapters, such as 'Sports Skill Analysis' (2024, Routledge, with Li and Dai), 'Validating the Performance of VR Headset Eye-Tracking Using Gold Standard Eye-Tracker and MoCap System' (2026, Information, with Todd, Gong, and Banic), 'Detection of Chronic Cognitive-Motor Deficits in Adults with a History of Concussion' (2025, with Huang), and earlier works on throwing affordances and prehistoric spheroids as projectiles. Zhu has obtained federal funding, patented technology for telerehabilitation, and received media coverage in outlets like Cosmos Science Magazine, UW News, and Science Friday. Awards include the University of Wyoming Presidential Fellowship (2022-2023) for extending international reach, Academic Affairs Faculty Fellow (2021-2022), and Global Engagement Office recognition (2023). He teaches courses such as Motor Behavior, Perception/Action in Motor Skills, and Advances in Research of Sport Expertise, and fosters international collaborations, including the Nordic Ski Educational Coaching program with Shanghai University of Sport.