Advisors

Neil M. Johannsen, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the School of Kinesiology at Louisiana State University. In 1998, he graduated from South Dakota State University with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry. His graduate training was conducted at Iowa State University where he obtained a PhD within the Department of Health and Human Performance in 2007 with a focus on the Biologic Basis of Exercise, in particular, exercise metabolism and physiologic responses to fluid intake during exercise. During his time at Iowa State University, he was awarded the Future Faculty Fellowship Award for demonstrating outstanding scholarship and promise for becoming a faculty member in higher education. From 2007 until 2012, he was at Pennington Biomedical Research Center as a Post-doctoral Researcher and later, an Instructor, in the Department of Preventive Medicine. His research focus at Pennington was the study of physical activity and exercise training effects on chronic disease and special populations where he played an integral role in more than 10 research studies involving populations ranging from young lean adults to older adults, overweight/obese people, individuals with type 2 diabetes, and women with a history of breast cancer. Dr. Johannsen remains on the Preventive Medicine team at Pennington as an Adjunct Assistant Professor.

Guillaume Spielmann, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the School of Kinesiology at LSU and an adjunct Assistant Professor at Pennington Biomedical Research Center. He earned a BSc in Immunology and Toxicology at Edinburgh Napier University (Scotland) and a MSc in Exercise Science at the University of Houston. He obtained his PhD in Exercise Immunology from Edinburgh Napier University, before working for three years on a NASA-funded project as a postdoctoral fellow.

Dr. Spielmann’s research focuses on the impact of various psychological and physiological stressors on the immune system. In particular his research centers on the influence of obesity, physical inactivity, microgravity and poor aerobic fitness on premature immune aging. He is also interested in the impact of physical inactivity, aging and latent viral infections on immune cells bioenergetics and systemic dysmetabolism.