Faculty
PROGRAM DIRECTOR
Phillip Gribble, Ph.D., ATC, FNATA
Phillip Gribble is Professor and Division Director for Athletic Training at The University of Kentucky and an Associate faculty member of the SMRI. Dr. Gribble will serve as the Director of the proposed Graduate Certificate in Musculoskeletal Injury Management program, under which the OAT Core will exist. During his career, Dr. Gribble has mentored over 180 graduate and undergraduate students in scholarly projects, theses, and dissertations, while maintaining a highly visible, internationally recognized research agenda. Many of these students have been critical contributors to the over 115 peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts and over 230 peer-reviewed abstracts presented at scientific meetings. Much of this work has focused on the assessment and consequences of lower extremity musculoskeletal injury.
Dr. Gribble has been involved with Athletic Training education programs for over 15 years. He spent 11 years at the University of Toledo on the Athletic Training faculty in the Department of Kinesiology. His duties included teaching in the entry-level undergraduate Athletic Training program and was charged with creating a new post-professional master’s program in Athletic Training. Dr. Gribble, serving as the Program Director, achieved this goal by submitting a successful proposal to the university for a new master’s degree program and admitting the first class of graduate students in 2005. He navigated this new program through initial accreditation in 2012.
Dr. Gribble joined the Athletic Training faculty at the University of Kentucky in 2014 and assumed the role of Program Director of the accredited post-professional Athletic Training program in 2016. Over his career, he has been the Program Director for over 110 graduate students in this field. During his tenure at the University of Kentucky, he has led efforts for a recently approved proposal for a new master’s curriculum in Athletic Training, and a second effort to propose a new Graduate Certificate Program in Musculoskeletal Injury Management, which will cater to athletic trainers.
ACADEMIC TRAINING PROGRAM CORE FACULTY
Timothy Uhl, Ph.D., PT, ATC
Dr. Uhl is a Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Division of Athletic Training, associate faculty in the SMRI, and will be a co-instructor for the Occupational Athletic Training course (AT 780). He has been at the University of Kentucky since the inception of the athletic training master’s program in 1999. Dr. Uhl completed his masters of science from the University of Michigan in Kinesiology in 1992 which included the Occupational Biomechanics course taught by Dr. Don Chaffin. Dr. Uhl has been a practicing Physical Therapist and Athletic Trainer since 1985. Between 1991 and 1995 as part of his duties as a physical therapist, he performed job site analysis for The Human Performance and Rehabilitation Centers in Columbus, GA. He was also certified to perform Functional Capacity Evaluations. His occupational biomechanical background and previous experiences will be integral to educating students. Dr. Uhl developed much of the course work in this Occupation Athletic Training course along with the clinical course for the athletic training program. He has mentored over 150 graduate athletic training students over the last 19 years while maintaining high scholarly productivity. Dr. Uhl research is focused on the assessment and treatments of upper extremity injuries which accounts for approximately 50% of his 128 peer-reviewed publications.
Nicholas Heebner, Ph.D., ATC
Dr. Heebner is the Associate Director of Research at the SMRI, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Division of Athletic Training, and will be the Co-instructor for the Occupational Athletic Training course (AT 780). He joined the University of Kentucky faculty in 2015 after completing his doctoral work at the University of Pittsburgh in Rehabilitation Science focusing on biomechanical assessments of injury risk and prevention strategies in military occupational specialties. Dr. Heebner has practiced as a Certified Athletic Trainer since 2009 after completing his training at the Pennsylvania State University in Kinesiology. He then went on to complete his Masters of Science in Sports Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh while working for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Sports Medicine Center. Much of Dr. Heebner’ s prior and current work uses biomechanical assessment techniques to quantify motion, assess injury risk, and develop rehabilitation and intervention strategies. He currently teaches a Laboratory Techniques course in the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences that provides doctoral students practical experience with using various technology to measure human motion, strength, and functional capacity. Dr. Heebner is also a co-investigator on two Department of Defense research grants totaling $5.5 Million that focus on improving injury prevention, long-term health and wellness, and rehabilitation in the United States Military.
Babak Bazrgari, PhD
Dr. Bazrgari is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and also serves as an associate faculty in the Sports Medicine Research Institute. He will offer several guest lectures in the area of industrial ergonomics and occupational biomechanics for the proposed Occupational Athletic Training course (AT 780). A focus of Dr. Bazrgari’s research works is biomechanics of work-related musculoskeletal disorders with an emphasis on occupational low back pain. His research has been supported by federal and local funding agencies including the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Dr. Bazrgari has published more than 40 research articles in journals such as Ergonomics, Journal of Biomechanics, and Clinical Biomechanics. Among his teaching responsibilities, relevant to this application, are Industrial ergonomic (ISE 3624) at Virginia Tech and Occupational Biomechanics (BME 541) at the University of Kentucky.