Moving Health and Learning Forward, One Beat at a Time

Exercise moves the needle of health in our community.
Exercise strengthens both the body and the mind and understanding how our bodies respond to exercise is essential to creating a healthier, more resilient future. 

At UT Dallas, Exercise Physiology is one of the most popular and impactful courses among healthcare pre-professionals, preparing future doctors, dentists, pharmacists, physical therapists and other future healthcare providers. Yet, until recently, there was no cohesive, affordable and accessible resource that brought this vital field to life for students and the public. 

We decided to change this. 

A UTD Student-Led Vision 

Two years ago, a group of passionate UT Dallas undergraduate students, motivated by their love for learning and inspired by the impact of this course, teamed up with their professor, Dr. Z. Ruth Wu, to create something extraordinary: a free, publicly available technology platform and textbook with unique case studies, chapters, illustrations and animations. 

Together, they formed two dedicated teams: 

• A Textbook Team, to write and refine a student-friendly, high-quality digital textbook. 
• An Animation Team, to design clear, captivating illustrations and animations that visualize the complex molecular and cellular events underlying how our bodies respond to exercise in real time. 

This effort combines student creativity and expertise with faculty mentorship, making challenging topics in physiology not just understandable, but unforgettable. 

Why It Matters 

The results speak for themselves. 

In just the past two years, our team has made remarkable progress: 

• 17 of 24 textbook chapters written, peer-reviewed and refined.
• Over 150 original illustrations created to bring key ideas to life. 
• Developed expertise in animation technology and created five fully developed animations visualizing intricate and critical physiological processes. 
• Measurable improvements in student engagement and exam performance.

Beyond the Classroom 

This project doesn’t just enrich learning. It transforms students into leaders. Through their work, these undergraduate creators have developed skills in: 

• Leadership, communication and teamwork. 
• Teaching and educational design. 
• Animation, writing and web development. 
• Grant writing and project management. 

Their success continues beyond UT Dallas. 95% of past team members have gone on to medical, dental, physical therapy, biomedical and other graduate programs. 

A Project with Proven Impact 

Our project has already received recognition and funding from the UTD Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) for two consecutive years, helping us launch and sustain early development. 

Now, we’re so close to the finish line. 

How You Can Help 

To complete this project, we need support to fund our student animators and editors, many of whom have dedicated hundreds of volunteer hours to make this vision a reality. 

Your contribution will help us: 

• Support two editors to complete the remaining textbook chapters. 
• Support two animators to create four new educational animations. 
• Ensure professional-quality editing and design.
• Make this resource freely available to students and lifelong learners everywhere.

By supporting this project, you’re not just funding an educational tool, you’re empowering the next generation of healthcare professionals to understand and advance human health through exercise. Supporters of this project will be acknowledged in our textbook and enjoy lifetime access to our textbook, resources and updates from the team. 

Your support keeps this vision in motion, building a future where doctors, scientists and the public better understand the power of exercise to heal! 

These Are Our Amazing Team Members You Can Support!

Editor, Mentor, Perusall Manager Hi, I’m Timbo! I recently graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2025 with a Bachelor of Science in Biology. In 2023, I had the opportunity to take the Exercise Physiology course with Dr. Wu, which left me with a hunger to learn more and an eagerness to extend this fascination with future students! Since then, I have had the privilege of contributing to the Exercise Physiology project in various yet equally fulfilling ways.

As the primary teaching assistant for Perusall, our online platform for distributing course material, I oversee most assignments and ensure that textbook chapters are available as they are completed. On this platform, students were motivated to engage with the material and encouraged to provide feedback for our textbook. By gathering engagement data and feedback, we can quickly highlight concerns and implement changes directly from the students.

As a textbook editor, I have had the privilege of distilling complex course topics into digestible text, providing students with clarity. I also had the opportunity to serve as a mentor for new editors, guiding them through the workflow of chapter production.

Throughout these projects, I gained valuable experience in collaboration and communication across the distinct departments of the Exercise Physiology team, and together we continue to strive for maximum clarity!

The values and insights gathered from contributing to the Exercise Physiology project helped me to develop skills that I hope to leverage as a future Anesthesiologist Assistant. I am grateful to be a part of this team, and I am excited to see the developments made in the future of the Exercise Physiology course!

Newest Member, Animator and Illustrator

 George Xie is part of the animator/illustrator team with a keen eye for animating. With a background in scientific visualization and a passion for making complex biological processes accessible, he brings to life the models through engaging graphics and animations. George's work mainly focuses on helping students visualize how the human body responds and adapts from a cellar to a whole-body experience. Through clear and creative visuals, he aims to enhance the learning done in the classroom and hopefully inspire curiosity past the scope of the class.

Editor, Mentor, and Chair of the Mentoring Program Hello, my name is Frank Tong. I graduated from the University of Texas At Dallas in 2024 with a Bachelor of Science in Biology. During my time at UTD, one of the most meaningful experiences I participated in was the Exercise Physiology Textbook Project, which is a student-led initiative aimed at creating an accessible, high-quality learning resource for future students in the Exercise Physiology course.

As an editor and contributor, I was responsible for writing and editing chapters on topics such as muscle metabolism. Through this project, I developed valuable skills in simplifying complex information into simplified writing for students to grasp the content and being able to collaborate with my peers. I believe these skills will be able to help me in the future as a person that aspires to become a doctor.

I am currently the Chair of the Mentoring Program, where I organized monthly meetings, paired new editors with experienced mentors, and helped maintain consistency and accountability across chapters. My goal for this project is to help make the material easier for students to understand. I want be able to explain complex topics in a simple way and create a resource that could help others learn, while also improving my own knowledge of exercise physiology.

Animator, Illustrator, and Mentor

 I am Amy. As part of the Exercise Physiology textbook team, I help refine and illustrate course materials to make complex concepts clearer. The class is challenging but has been really helpful for my EMT and phase 1 cardiac or metabolic drug trials I’ve been around, especially in understanding physiology, enzymes, and how drugs interact in the body.

Creating visuals for this course has also sparked my interest in animation and it’s been exciting to see how design and science can work together to explain ideas in new ways.

Editor, Mentor, and Chair of Internal Affair

My name is Shailyn Hernandez, and I graduated from The University of Texas at Austin in 2023. I later completed a Certificate in Biomedical Sciences at The University of Texas at Dallas in 2024. I joined the Exercise Physiology Textbook Project in the fall of 2024 as an editor.

During my time as an editor, I have focused on writing textbook chapters that are clear, approachable, and supportive for students who are navigating a challenging course like Exercise Physiology. As someone who has struggled with learning in the past, it was important to me to create chapters that make complex topics easier to understand, just as previous student writers once did for me when I took the class.

Through this experience, I have learned the importance of collaboration, especially when working with other editors and illustrators to bring the textbook to life. As the Chair for Internal Affairs, I help coordinate and track project progress across our teams to ensure we stay organized and meet our goals.

Being part of this project has strengthened my communication and teamwork skills and has also supported my goal of becoming a dentist. I have learned how to explain difficult concepts clearly and effectively, a skill that I know will be essential when working with future patients and colleagues in the dental field.

Editor, Mentor, and Team President

Michael Wilde is a biomedical data scientist and aspiring physician whose work focuses on quantifying and modeling conditions like Perthes disease and scoliosis, glioblastoma, neuropathic pain, and severe burns. His research integrates genomics, histology, imaging analysis, and patient health records with applied math and machine learning to study how disease processes change cellular function and tissue behavior, with the broader intent of scaling patient forecasting to institution- and population-level healthcare.

Beyond medicine, Michael is deeply committed to advancing health education and making knowledge that empowers individuals, educators, and communities accessible to all. As a founding member and first president of the Exercise Physiology Working Group, he oversaw the growth of the organization into the team of students and alumni dedicated to making exercise and physiology education more collaborative, accessible, and impactful, and continues to guide efforts from its board to bring the classroom success of our textbook and organization to other important courses at UTD like Anatomy and Physiology. His nonprofit and outreach work in partnership with Vital Education seeks to translate important domain knowledge into resources that are both effective and digestible for learners with different educational backgrounds, and bringing the work of UTD's Exercise Physiology Working Group to other universities.