The health and human performance department is tucked away inside the Anderson Athletic and Recreation Complex, and while many Tommies are clueless to its location, inside, students have been putting on scientific experiments all year long.

“This summer, I’m looking to do a research project that looks at how ACL tears affect bone and muscle strength,” junior exercise science major Katie Berglove said.

Thanks in large part to health and human performance professor Lesley Scibora’s pleading, the department now has new, high-tech pieces of equipment that students can use to carry out experiments for class.

“We have two new pieces of equipment to the health and human performance department. One is something called a BODPOD. We use it to measure body composition,” Scibora said. “The other piece of equipment is something called a peripheral quantitative computed tomography. It’s a bone scanner essentially.”

Before the addition of the BODPOD and the pQCT scanner, students had to use other equipment that Scibora said wasn’t as accurate. Berglove said she appreciates the additions for personal use and thinks it positively impacts St. Thomas’ reputation.

“This pQCT scanner, there’s only three of them in the state which is really huge,” Berglove said. “One’s at the Mayo (Clinic), one’s at the (University of Minnesota), and then the third one’s here which I think is really cool, because it’s Mayo, the U, then St. Thomas which gives our school a lot of notoriety.”

Scibora said that the BODPOD will be used to test body composition, like percentage of fat compared to muscle, over a period of time. She also said this will be especially important for athletes.

“I anticipate that students will work with me doing research, using this equipment,” Scibora said. “But they will also be able to use this on their own in their research methods courses where they can design experiments around measures that might utilize this equipment for measurements.”

Berglove said she is excited to use the new equipment to get the upper hand in getting into physical therapy. Without the pQCT scanner, she said there wouldn’t be anything special about her research. Berglove is also looking forward to her summer research because of the positive faculty attitude.

“Not only do we have these new pieces of equipment, but we have faculty be so over-welcoming and so excited to just help us learn how to use them,” Berglove said.

Scibora said the opportunities that the new equipment brings will be unmatched by other universities, because the students’ availability to use high-level equipment in unusual for most undergraduate students.

“The university is moving in a direction where we’re promoting more research and students are becoming more involved in research,” Scibora said. “So having equipment like this, to be able to use, is something the university recognizes as very important.”

Joey Anderson can be reached at ande9008@stthomas.edu.