HPER Associate Professor is School Health Educators' Group President Elect

Julie Gast, an associate professor of health education in Utah State University’s Health, Physical Education and Recreation Department, is now president-elect for the School Health Education and Service Section of the American Public Health Association.

The school health section’s members are concerned with health from kindergarten through college, performing research on issues like policy development, obesity, asthma management and environmental protection. They are part of the larger American Public Health Association, the oldest and most diverse organization of public health professionals in the world.

Gast will be busy working with other sections of APHA to sponsor research presentations. The organization uses its annual conference to bring information on best practices to its members. That work trickles down into the schools and higher education institutions, she said. Members are out teaching and applying what they learned because of their membership.

Her tenure begins in November. She has one year as president-elect to learn her new duties. After that she will serve a year as SHES president.

Related links:

USU Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation

USU Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services

Contact: Julie Gast, julie.gast@usu.edu

Writer: JoLynne Lyon, 435-797-1463