Foundations of Physical Activity and Public Health

Harold W. (Bill) Kohl, III, PhD, is a professor of epidemiology and kinesiology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the University of Texas at Austin. At the University of Texas Health Science Center, Dr. Kohl also serves as the associate regional dean for academic affairs and international health affairs at the Austin regional campus.

In his recent efforts, he has concentrated on national and international physical activity surveillance and epidemiology issues, as well as program development and evaluation studies for the promotion of school-based physical activity for children and adolescents. He is a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and the National Academy of Kinesiology, and he has served as an elected trustee of ACSM. He is the founder and past president of the International Society for Physical Activity and Health and currently serves as the elected chair of the U.S. National Physical Activity Plan Alliance. He has served in an editorial capacity for several scientific journals and is editor emeritus of the Journal of Physical Activity and Health. He has published more than 200 papers, chapters, and monographs in the scientific literature. In 2018 he coauthored the textbook Foundations of Kinesiology.

Tinker D. Murray, PhD, is a professor emeritus and honorary professor of international studies in health and human performance at Texas State University in San Marcos. He earned his PhD in physical education from Texas A&M University in 1984. His research interests include school-based and clinical-based youth physical activity and interventions with public health linkages for the prevention of obesity and diabetes, continuing education opportunities for coaching education, and personal fitness and training applications related to exercise physiology.

From 1982 to 1984, Murray served as director of cardiac rehabilitation at Brooke Army Medical Center, where he was twice recognized for his exceptional performance. He began his career at Texas State University (formerly Southwest Texas State), where he served as the director of employee wellness from 1984 to 1988 and director of the exercise performance laboratory from 1984 to 2000. He was a volunteer assistant cross country and track coach at Southwest Texas State from 1985 to 1988 and helped win three Gulf Star Conference titles.

From 1985 to 1988, he was a subcommittee member for the Governor's Commission on Physical Fitness that developed the Fit Youth Today program. He served as lecturer and examiner for the USA Track and Field Level 2 coaching certification program from 1988 to 2008 and as the vice chair of the Governor's Commission on Physical Fitness in Texas from 1993 to 1994. He worked with the Texas High School Coaches Association (THSCA) from 2003 to 2013 as a facilitator with the Professional Development Cooperative, which promoted continuing education opportunities.

Murray is a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and is certified as an ACSM program director. He was a two-time president of the Texas regional chapter of ACSM (1987 and 1994). He served on the national ACSM board of trustees from 1998 to 2001. In the fall of 2003, he was a guest researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity. He has been actively involved with the International Society for Physical Activity and Health (ISPAH) and has attended several biannual meetings of the International Congress on Physical Activity and Public Health.

Murray retired from Texas State University in 2018 and was named a professor emeritus and honorary professor of international studies. He continues to remain physically active by cycling daily, jogging often, and lifting weights twice a week. He remains academically active by contributing to scholarly presentations and publications that promote physical active lifestyles.

Deborah Salvo, PhD, is an assistant professor of public health at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, where she is a faculty scholar of the Prevention Research Center, the Center for Diabetes Translation Research, and the Institute for Public Health. Before this appointment, she held positions at the University of Texas School Health Science Center in Austin, Stanford University&;s Prevention Research Center, and the National Institute of Public Health of Mexico.

Salvo is a native of Mexico City, Mexico, and earned her bachelor&;s degree in nutrition and food sciences from Universidad Iberoamericana. She earned her doctorate in biological and biomedical sciences (nutrition and health sciences, public health and epidemiology track) from Emory University in 2013. Her interests lie in understanding the role of built environment on physical activity and health, and in using this evidence to resolve global health disparities. Her work ranges from local projects to multisite international consortia. She has expertise in using, improving, and developing novel methodological approaches that combine physical activity and spatial epidemiological tools to address complex questions on the effects of context on health. Throughout her career, she has facilitated and led international collaborations to support the growth of the field of physical activity and public health on a global scale, with special emphasis on low- and middle-income countries and populations.

Salvo is the current chair of the Council on Environment and Physical Activity within the International Society for Physical Activity and Health. She is also part of the steering committee of the Global Observatory for Physical Activity, and she is an active member of the Our Voice Global Network. Salvo serves as associate editor for Preventing Chronic Disease, an official scientific journal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Throughout her career, she has served as technical advisor on physical activity and the built environment for several agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Fogarty International Center within the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Public Health of Mexico, and the World Health Organization. Salvo was a contributing author to the second series on physical activity published by The Lancet in 2016, which convened global experts to present the latest evidence of the important role of physical activity for public health.