Kaitlyn Lyons is a doctoral candidate in Kinesiology under the mentorship of Dr. Abigail Wilson in the Rehabilitation and Modulation of Pain (RAMP) Laboratory. Her research examines how exercise can be used to reduce pain and improve quality of life in individuals with low back pain. She studies how resistance training influences pain sensitivity, focusing on mechanisms such as exercise-induced hypoalgesia, conditioned pain modulation, and temporal summation. By combining physiological testing with psychological factors and measures of lumbar muscle function, her goal is to better understand why people respond differently to exercise and to inform more individualized rehabilitation strategies.
Before beginning her Ph.D., Kaitlyn earned her B.S. in Exercise Science from Central Connecticut State University and her M.S. in Kinesiology from the University of Rhode Island. Prior to coming to UCF, Kaitlyn taught in the Exercise Science Department at Central Connecticut State University, specializing in exercise physiology and the physiology of aging. Kaitlyn is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and an American College of Sports Medicine Certified Clinical Exercise Physiologist.
