Priya Patel, PhD  

 

Assistant Professor
Location: KHS 121D
Telephone: (657) 278-5843
Email:Priya.patel@fullerton.edu

 

Advising Area:
Motor behavior

Couse Taught:
KNES 360: Movement Anatomy
KNES 361: Principles of Human Movement

Biosketch:

Dr. Patel joined the Department of Kinesiology at California State University, Fullerton in 2022. Her research interests in understanding the development and lifelong acquisition of motor skills stem from her initial work as a Physical Therapist with patients of stroke and cerebral palsy. She has a Bachelors in Physiotherapy (Physical Therapy) from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in India and mainly practiced in the field of Neuro-rehabilitation. She moved to the US for graduate studies wherein she first received her M.S. in Kinesiology (Major: Motor Neuroscience) from Texas A&M University, College Station. Dr. Patel earned her Ph.D. in Kinesiology (Major: Cognitive Motor Neuroscience) from the Michigan State University, East Lansing. She is an active member of several scientific communities and presents her work at various national and international conferences. Owing to her clinical background and multidisciplinary expertise in motor development, learning and control, she tackles motor behavior research both as a scientist and a clinician.

Interest Area:

A key element of Dr. Patel’s scholarly agenda is to address fundamental questions surrounding motor skill acquisition by assessing underlying movement mechanisms and factors influencing them across lifespan and in clinical population with motor dysfunctions. Her research work uses a combination of advanced biomechanics measurement techniques (Motion capture system, Wearable sensor system), software engineering (MATLAB, Ruby) and qualitative data analysis (Datavyu). By using a combination of behavioral and biomechanics research techniques, it is possible to not just uncover the underlying motor mechanisms but quantify them which are particularly of diagnostic and therapeutic importance in clinical populations.

Current projects:

Characterization of manual exploratory behaviors in early childhood using qualitative and quantitative means of analysis