Associate Professor Julia Freedman Silvernail joined the Kinesiology and Nutrition Sciences department during fall 2014 and teaches biomechanics and computational methods in biomechanics within the undergraduate and graduate programs.

Freedman Silvernail’s research focuses on lower extremity injury prevention, primarily between two different groups of individuals. Among healthy active runners, she investigates factors that may lead some individuals to stay healthy while others are injured.  She also studies how perturbations such as alterations in footwear may alter movement.  She also investigates risk factors for knee osteoarthritis by investigating at risk young adults and individuals who have undergone hip replacement surgery.  

Freedman Silvernail earned her bachelor’s degree in kinesiology from the University of Maryland, College Park, her master’s degree from UNLV in kinesiology (biomechanics), and her doctoral degree from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in exercise and sports leisure studies (biomechanics). She also completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She received the 2016 Western Society of Kinesiology and Wellness Young Scholar Award.