Faculty Profile: Dr. Karen Ball
Dr. Karen Ball, associate professor of exercise and health science, graduated magna cum laude from Alma College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in the exercise and health science program in 1987.
Ball received her doctorate in physiology and biophysics at the University of Illinois. Before coming to Alma she spent one and a half years as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
Ball's primary teaching responsibilities include human physiology, pharmacology and research methods. She has developed an advanced muscle physiology course, in which the mechanisms of muscle function are studied at the molecular level.
In more recent projects, Ball has focused on the mouse model for diabetic cardiomyopathy. This work, funded by the National Institutes of Health, is defining the specific intracellular changes that occur during this process. Ball's long-term goal is to use the information gathered to determine the best therapeutic strategies in diabetic patients with congestive heart failure. According to Ball, all of the ongoing work in the lab has been driven by the active involvement of students majoring in not only EHS but also biology and biochemistry.
