CHS Student Named Lyman T. Johnson Award Winner

By Ryan Clark
CHS Communications Director

For Jiho Kang, MS, ATC, a career dedicated to helping athletes recover from injury began with an injury of his own.

Now, the College of Health Sciences (CHS) doctoral student is being recognized with the College's Lyman T. Johnson Award, which honors alumni and students from each college who have positively impacted the lives of others and their communities.

"It still hasn’t fully sunk in yet, but this award is incredibly meaningful to me," he said. "What makes it especially meaningful is that it recognizes not only academic achievement, but also the impact we can have on others and the community around us."

Kang, a student in the Rehabilitation and Health Sciences PhD Program (RHB) and a graduate research assistant in the Department of Athletic Training and Clinical Nutrition and the Sports Medicine Research Institute (SMRI), also recently received two significant honors recognizing his work as an emerging researcher. He was selected to receive the College of Health Sciences Office of Research & Scholarship’s Emerging Scientist Grant and was also awarded the Southeast Athletic Trainers' Association (SEATA) Student Research Award.

Originally from South Korea, Kang’s passion for rehabilitation research grew from personal experience. A competitive swimmer, he was forced to retire after suffering a shoulder injury.

“That experience helped me understand how much injuries can affect athletes physically and mentally,” Kang said. “After that, I became interested in helping athletes recover from injuries and return to the activities they love. That is what led me to athletic training, rehabilitation and eventually rehabilitation and health sciences.”

His academic journey eventually led him to the University of Kentucky, where he found an ideal environment to pursue his research interests.

“Throughout my graduate studies in both South Korea and the United States, I continued to develop a strong interest in ankle injury research,” Kang said. “The University of Kentucky was a great fit for me because of the Sports Medicine Research Institute. SMRI conducts a wide range of sports medicine research and has an international reputation, especially in ankle injury research. I felt that the research environment, mentorship and expertise at UK aligned very well with my interests and long-term goals.”

Kang said the College of Health Sciences also offered the opportunity to bridge research with patient care.

“I wanted to conduct research that could directly contribute to clinical practice and improve patient care,” he said. “Because of that, the College of Health Sciences was the right place for me to continue developing as a researcher and clinician-scholar.”

His current research focuses on chronic ankle instability, a condition affecting individuals who continue to experience repeated ankle sprains or persistent feelings of instability following an initial injury.

Kang is investigating the biomechanical, clinical and neurological characteristics associated with the condition while exploring how machine learning and advanced data analysis can improve rehabilitation.

“My long-term goal is to use data-driven approaches to develop more personalized rehabilitation strategies that can improve prognosis and clinical outcomes,” he said. “Current ankle rehabilitation protocols often treat patients as a broad and somewhat heterogeneous group. I hope to better understand individual differences among patients so we can develop more personalized treatment approaches.”

As both a clinician and researcher, Kang believes innovation should always remain focused on improving patient outcomes.

“With the development of new technologies, equipment and data analysis methods, it is easy to focus on things that look innovative or impressive,” he said. “However, the more important question is whether those methods can actually help improve clinical outcomes.”

He encourages future researchers to keep patients at the center of their work.

“As healthcare providers and researchers, I believe we share the same goal: to help patients and athletes recover better and improve their quality of life,” Kang said. “Keeping that goal in mind is very important.”

The University of Kentucky Alumni Association’s Lyman T. Johnson Alumni Constituency Group will host the 35th annual Lyman T. Johnson Awards Luncheon 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 9, in the Gatton Student Center Grand Ballroom. 

'Being recognized in that way means a great deal to me, and it motivates me to keep moving forward, take another step, and find more ways to make a positive impact through the work I do," he said.