Dr. Dupont graduated from State University Limburg at Maastricht, the Netherlands, with a Bachelor in Science degree in Movement Sciences. The title of her research thesis was: “Relationships between Impairment and Disability in Patients with Neuromuscular Diseases” and this study was performed with Dr. Eline Lindeman.

In 1995 she received a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Physiology from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Texas. Dr. Roger McCarter was her PhD mentor and her dissertation was entitled: “Exercise and Clenbuterol as Modulators of Muscular Dystrophy in mdx Mice.”

Esther Dupont-Versteegden completed a postdoctoral study in molecular physiology with Dr. Charlotte Peterson at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences entitled: “Molecular Mechanisms of Muscle Responses to Exercise”.

In 1999 she became Assistant Professor of Geriatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and in 2006 she accepted a position as Associate Professor in the College of Health Sciences Department of Physical Therapy at the University of Kentucky. In 2015 Dr. Dupont-Versteegden was promoted to full professor and in 2016 she accepted the position of Director of the Rehabilitation Sciences Doctoral Program.

Educational Focus

Doctor of Physical Therapy Program

• Neurophysiology
• Physical Inactivity

Rehabilitation and Health Sciences Program

• Academia and Beyond
• Grant writing

Research / Scholarship

• Skeletal muscle plasticity
• Aging
• Skeletal muscle atrophy
• Muscle stem cells
• The effect of massage on muscle properties
• Muscle recovery from severe illness