The Kinesiology Merit Fellowships are given to students from educational, cultural, or geographic backgrounds that are underrepresented in kinesiology in the United States or at the University of Michigan. These students have demonstrated a commitment to diversity in the academic, professional, or civic realm through their work experience, volunteer engagement, or leadership of student or community organizations.

Read on to learn more about Melissa Siemen, one of this year’s graduate fellows.

Q: What brought you to U-M?
A: After undergrad, I knew that I wanted to get an advanced degree. I took a gap year to work as an exercise physiologist for Michigan Medicine, so I’ve been with U-M for a bit. I liked it, and I wouldn’t mind staying in that kind of field, but I realized I was really interested in why exercise physiologists do the things we do with patients, the research and the knowledge behind it.

So then my mind started drifting more toward the research and academia track. Obviously, U-M is a huge research institution, and it has a lot of resources for grad students. It was one of my top schools. If I hadn’t gotten in, I don’t think I would have gone anywhere else at the moment because of resources and convenience.


Q: And you're in the movement science grad program, right? What led you to be interested in that discipline?
A: Before I started my bachelor’s degree at Eastern Michigan University, I was pre-physician assistant/pre-med. I was told by an advisor that a lot of people who want to do the same thing as me major in exercise science because it’s not so natural science heavy. It’s more of the gross anatomy and hands-on, which is what I liked better than biology and chemistry.

We were required to do a full-time internship the last semester before graduation, and people either did exercise physiology or strength and conditioning. I was never a personal trainer type, and I knew I wanted my experience to be somewhat medical, so I went the exercise physiology route.

During that process, I learned so much about cardiovascular anatomy, and I ended up really falling in love with that. But it also opened up this new curiosity in me and solidified that I wanted to be one of the minds behind why exercise physiologists do what they do in practice.

Q: Was research always part of the plan?
A: No. I remember as an undergrad, I didn’t think I wanted to do any research at that point. When I thought of research, all that came to mind was dumping chemicals into jars. But I realized that research in the field of movement science is so dynamic, and there are so many hands-on areas of it. I wanted to explore my options; now I’ve narrowed down my interests a bit more, and I’m really excited about that.

Q: What did you decide to focus on?
A: I’m focusing on the psychology of exercise and motivation and decision-making — the cognitive science behind it. I’m starting to work on my master’s thesis this semester, and I’m still fleshing out the official question, but I think it’s going to be along the lines of decision-making and perception changes of exercise and people with cardiovascular disease. That’s my two most valued areas coming together perfectly. But I do want to keep my mind and doors open to other fields every once in a while.

Q: Are you working in a lab right now as well?
A: I am. I’m working with Dr. Lipps [associate professor David Lipps] because one of his studies is cardiac rehab as an intervention for breast cancer patients. He thought I would be really helpful because of my experience as an exercise physiologist and my work in cardiac rehab. We haven’t taken off quite yet (recruitment is still ongoing), but we’ve been doing some pilot work.

Q: Is your ultimate plan to do a PhD then?
A: Yeah, my plan would be to start a PhD program in fall 2025. My gold standard perfect plan would be to stay at U-M. I feel confident about the connections I’ve made here. But really, it comes down to funding availability.

Q: Why do you want to get a PhD?
A: I have this innate curiosity for things that I’m interested in but maybe don’t know about quite yet. In grade school, when summer breaks came around, I’d always find myself excited to go back to school, and it wasn’t because I’d be around my friends. I remember being excited to get into some new subjects, even if I didn’t want to admit it to myself.

And now I found a path where that excitement doesn’t have to end. In academia, I feel like you are constantly looking for answers and trying to solve something new. Even if you aren't going to school yourself, it’s almost like you are because you still have projects and deadlines for research grants and proposals. And then you have the upper hand on how you want to design these protocols and these projects for what you want answered. So that flexibility and the idea of never leaving the academic environment is at the heart of what drew me to this path.

Q: You mentioned that you became more interested in the cardiovascular system, and now that’s likely going to be a component of your master’s thesis. What fascinates you about that area of the body?
A: When I did my exercise physiology internship, I was so enveloped in everything cardiovascular. Some of the cardiologists we worked with weren’t as familiar with the EKGs as the exercise physiologists were. We were constantly around it and learning new things about it. It was like a whole other language that I had to learn. There’s so many different aspects to it that I got really curious about it, and that’s never really left, even since I stopped being an exercise physiologist.

And then last summer, I was diagnosed with postural tachycardia syndrome (POTS). It’s a type of dysautonomia [a disorder of the autonomic nervous system]. It causes the heart rate to spike when standing up. That added to my curiosity because even though POTS isn’t necessarily a cardiovascular disorder, it affects the cardiovascular system greatly, and I always think it’s interesting to see the connections between the nervous system and the rest of the body. 


Q: The Kinesiology Merit Fellow program is intended to provide support for students who come from backgrounds that are underrepresented in kinesiology. Can you share more about that from your perspective?
A: I wrote my personal statement about hating sports. When I was back in grade school, I was bullied during physical activity/sports. It wasn’t anything to do with body shaming but more of a clumsiness or the inability to do the sport as well as my other teammates. I always held so much resentment for that because I tried almost every sport my school offered, and I felt like I couldn’t get to where I wanted to be. So obviously, that led to me not liking sports very much, especially team sports.

To this day, I struggle to be motivated to exercise regularly. For someone to have had a bad experience with physical activity and then pursue a career that revolves around it, that’s very uncommon.

But I think that’s where my love of the deeper psychology of decision-making around exercise has started to come in.

Q: Was it tough to transition to U-M given that different background?
A: Honestly, that’s not even what comes to mind. I remember in my first semester, I was sitting next to someone who had gone to an Ivy League school, and now they’re here. I felt so out of place. I was really scared that the change in the academic rigor was going to be very hard on me, and I was struggling at the beginning of the semester. I figured I might crash and burn, but I would just keep trying. And then I was really proud because I ended up with a 4.0 at the end of the semester. I hadn’t even done that in undergrad. So that was huge. Now I’m focusing on myself. It doesn’t matter what work anyone else does.
 

Q: What has your experience in the grad program been like? Do you feel included? 
A: It’s been great, actually. I was worried about that coming in because U-M’s a bigger school, and I thought the professors wouldn’t be able to get to know all the students. But that has not been the case whatsoever. They’ve been very receptive, very conscientious with the connections they think about when you talk to them. They all seem so patient but very down-to-earth. Like Dr. Lipps — he’s awesome. He’s a very laid-back person, really funny.

Q: What has been the biggest benefit to U-M’s grad program so far?
A: I’ll give a specific story. In the middle of last semester, I was trying to talk to professors who were doing things I was interested in. I really like qualitative research, and Dr. Dom [assistant professor Dominique Kinnett-Hopkins] is one of the best faculty here for that. Up until that point, I’d felt discouraged because there wasn’t a professor that shared exactly my interests, and I was trying to make connections for an eventual PhD or just to help out in their lab.

I went to Dr. Dom, not really knowing what to expect, and I laid it straight out on the table. I told her my ultimate goal was to get a PhD and I explained why, and she was really receptive to that. Immediately, she started thinking of people who I could connect with that might be more towards my interests.

Since I said I’d been an exercise physiologist at U-M, she mentioned that Dr. Lipps was doing a study on breast cancer and cardiac rehab. It turns out they’re doing the research in my old department — it’s the same cardiac rehab unit I worked for. I remember before I left, I’d heard a rumor about a breast cancer study going through, and I finally put two and two together that it was the same one. So now, I haven’t even really left that department, and that’s awesome. 
 
I told some of my former coworkers about it, and they were ecstatic. They were so happy that they were going to have one of their own on the other side to make sure their needs were getting heard.

Just the other week, we were doing some pilot work, and there were some things I was concerned about with the stress testing. I brought up my concerns with Dr. Lipps, and he told me we needed a more in-depth protocol and I could write down what my department did for a lot of situations, and we could apply that. I thought that was great. I didn’t think I’d have that much pull or that my experience would be taken seriously. Now I get to feel valued because of it.