I received my Ph.D. in Environmental Physiology from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada. My work was in developing a model to determine thermosensitivity of heat production in the cold in humans. With this expertise and my previous Master's degree in Exercise Physiology, I traveled to Bethesda, Maryland where I was a National Research Council Research Associate (postdoc) in the Diving Medicine Department at the Naval Medical Research Institute. There I studied ways to improve exercise performance in the cold in the Navy divers which included carbohydrate loading and hypnosis.

In 1990 I became an assistant professor in the Department of Exercise Science and Sport Studies at Rutgers University. I continue to study temperature regulation and performance, however, I have focused over the last few years on the role of the reproductive hormones (estrogen and progesterone) on responses to prolonged exercise and cold. We just completed a study of carbohydrate loading during the follicular (days 1-8) and luteal (days 19-24) phases of the menstrual cycle and its impact on time to exhaustion. We found that in trained women, CHO loading helped equally well in both phases and that there were no differences in performance between the phases.

We are also currently working on a study funded by the Dept. of Defense's Defense Women's Health Research Program which addresses the cold sensitivity of women vs. men, women in luteal and follicular phases, and differences between ethnic groups (European-American, African-American and Latin-American). This is a 3 year project.

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