VIDEO: Meet Your Professors — Dr. Tim Butterfield is a trained muscle mechanist

Dr. Tim Butterfield

Tim Butterfield, PhD, ATC, FACSM, FNATA, completed his PhD at the University of Calgary, and post-doctoral training at the Ohio State University. He is currently a Professor in the College of Health Sciences, Department of Athletic Training & Clinical Nutrition, and is a member of the University of Kentucky Center for Muscle Biology.  His area of research is muscle mechanics / physiology with a current focus on plasticity and the restoration of mechanical function following damage, injury, or atrophy in striated muscle.

Some of his recent studies have focused on the therapeutic qualities of massage. 

“It's interesting because it actually works,” he says. “We got interested in alternative therapies, manual therapies, back in 2007. We're interested in how massage is so efficacious in the world — it’s been around for two millennia for a reason — and when we started looking at the tissues after massage, it has an amazing physiological response and mechanical response.”

In the College of Health Sciences, we are the Gateway to the Health Professions. Here, both graduate and undergraduate students can participate in groundbreaking research with world-renowned professors like Dr. Butterfield.

“We have all these allied health professionals in the same place, which is pretty incredible, and that doesn't happen at every university,” he says. “It happens at no other University I’ve ever been at. You can do everything from research in clinical care, and you can also do research in basic science … it’s a neat, unique place to be.”

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Every week, we'll introduce you to another of your amazing CHS professors while we also explore their research. The College of Health Sciences is The Gateway to the Health Professions.

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