Welcome to the Texas ACSM website!
The 2024 Texas ACSM annual conference will be held Thursday, February 22rd and Friday, February 23th at the Waco Convention Center located at 100 Washington Avenue in Waco, TX. We believe that we have assembled another amazing group of speakers and feel that our final program is extremely well rounded, providing “something for everyone” in attendance. Our vendor booths will again be open both days in Chisolm Hall. We encourage everyone to seek out and spend time visiting with our vendors during the meeting, as they each make significant contributions for our annual meetings. Parking continues to be free in Heritage Square surrounding the Waco Convention Center.
Thursday afternoon will feature both interesting and energized topics from a variety of captivating speakers. We will “kick off” the meeting with the student SRDA presentations, which will continue with five-minute presentation rounds and competition for additional monies to be given to first, second, and third place winners. Additionally, we have presentations from national ACSM regarding the current move to seek out CAAHEP / CoAES accreditation for your clinical exercise physiology programs. Following this first concurrent session, we will have presentations from Dr. John McCarthy from the University of Kentucky discussing satellite cells and muscle physiology along with Dr. Nick Barringer, will discuss military nutrition in arduous environments. The next round of concurrent sessions will feature the duo of Dr. Andrew Jagim from the Mayo Clinic Health System and Ms. Zapp who works as a firefighter and owner of Fire Rescue Wellness. They will be talking about the health concerns and physiological demands of the firefighting profession. Dr. Monica Hubal from Indiana University-Purdue University will round out the second part of this concurrent session speaking on the biology of exercise; insulin resistance and exercise interventions. To conclude Thursday’s talks, our GSSI sponsored talk will feature Mr. Brandon Shepherd who will discuss the physiology of sweat and sweat testing. The concurrent session will be our Second Annual Women’s Panel Roundtable. Panelists for this year’s roundtable will include Dr. Abbie Smith-Ryan from the University of North Carolina, Ms. Annette Zapp with Fire Rescue Wellness, Dr. Valerie Stevenson from the University of North Texas, and Dr. Jasdeep Kaur from the University of Texas.
Poster presentation format will change this year with student poster finalist judging from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Following the judging session, the TACSM student research poster session will open from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m and President’s Cup judging will move to Friday morning. The TACSM Social and Sponsor fair starts at 6:00 p.m. and will not disappoint with finger foods and limited complimentary beer and wine in Chisholm Hall. For those that are interested, there will be an informal meet and greet at J.S. Barnett’s Pub, which is within walking distance across from the Waco Convention Center following the completion of the social.
Friday starts off with a new edition to the meeting agenda. The first ever Women’s Panel Breakfast will take place with RSVP required. More information will be provided as we get closer to the meeting. This is a great opportunity to meet and talk with several prominent women in the field of exercise physiology and sport medicine. The first event of the day will include a 2nd opportunity for students to stand by their posters while the President’s Cup judging and a Graduate Student Fair. Dr. Abbie Smith-Ryan from the University of North Carolina will be the opening lecture of the day focusing on nutrition and training considerations in females. Dr. Bloomfield, retired Texas A&M faculty, will discuss the importance of integrative physiology for NASA’s Mission to Mars and Dr. Bryan Mann will give the “New to Texas” talk on velocity-based training and programing Round out this concurrent session. This year’s Raven Lecture will be given by Dr. George Brooks from The University of California Berkeley on Muscle and Whole Body Lactate Kinetics. Lunch will be provided and following that in a brand-new time slot, the always entertaining TACSM Student Bowl XV competition take place and will be followed by the TACSM Awards Ceremony to close the 2024 Annual Meeting.
Abstract and other meeting-related deadlines, as well as dates for registration have been posted on the Texas ACSM website (www.tacsm.org). We look forward to seeing you all in Waco this February.
Steven E. Martin, PhD, ACSM-CCEP
TACSM-President
Texas A&M University