Student's doctoral success leads to bright future

“You’re going to be a star.”

We’ve all heard that in reference to ourselves or others, but when that statement comes from the director of the Exercise and Wellness Program and the Healthy Lifestyles Research Center, Glenn Gaesser, it’s one of the greatest compliments you can receive. Siddhartha Angadi has earned that recognition. 

Angadi is stepping into his last year of the Ph.D. program for Physical Activity, Nutrition and Wellness (PANW), for Exercise and Wellness and Nutrition students, with a strong foot forward. He has been offered the chance to continue his education with two post-doctorate offers – one, a firm offer from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) under professor Christian Roberts and the other from Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

The opportunities that have been presented to Angadi are earned by his past and ongoing achievements. He already has five publications, two of which he was first author. The publications have a main focus on exercise, diet, and diseases affected by those, such as diabetes and cardiovascular health. But, it does not stop there; Gaesser said that Angadi will have approximately five more publications to submit within the next few months.  

Publications are not all that makes him a standout student; he has also been appointed as Gaesser’s key liaison with the Mayo Clinic for Gaesser’s ASU-Mayo seed grant. This is also Angadi’s doctoral dissertation project. Only the top grant proposals are selected each year, Gaesser described them as, “the most meritorious being chosen on the basis of research design, potential impact, and possibilities for future National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding.” The focus of this research is on “a very novel, high-intensity aerobic interval exercise program to improve cardiovascular health in patients with heart failure.”

Angadi has the opportunity, as the key liaison, to work directly with the subjects, testing their cardiovascular health as well as working closely with the Mayo Clinic’s Department of Cardiology, Farouk Mookadam, and the cardiac rehabilitation staff at Mayo Clinic.  

Being one of the crucial planning contributors to the PANW Building Healthy Lifestyles Conference (BHLC), which is held annually in February, Angadi’s successes continue through his doctoral experience.

Angadi is an outstanding student who represents the newly formed School of Nutrition and Health Promotion. There is a bright future ahead of him and he is one of many students leading the way for the School of Nutrition and Health Promotion, research, as well as the medical field.

According to Gaesser, “He is going to be a star,” and many others can agree based on the accomplishments strivings, and future opportunities of Angadi. Welcome to a school that offers so much and is building a number of distinguished students.