Dr. Carson is a Professor in the Department of Kinesiology & Sports Management at Texas A&M University. He holds the Debbie & Mike Hilliard ’73 Endowed Huffines Institute Chair and is the Executive Director of the Huffines Institute for Sports Medicine and Human Performance. He is an exercise physiologist with molecular and cell biology training. He graduated from Akron St. Vincent & St. Mary High School and then received his B.S. in Business Administration and Ph.D. in Education with an emphasis in Exercise Physiology from The Ohio State University. At Ohio State, he was a 3-year varsity letterman in football and a Graduate Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach with the Ohio State Athletic Department, where he worked with football, men’s and women’s basketball, and ice hockey teams. His training includes post-doctoral physiology and cell biology fellowships at the University of Texas Health Science Center-Houston and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

His research employs molecular biology techniques to examine skeletal muscle mass and metabolic regulation with cancer, regeneration from injury, and chronic inflammation conditions. Federal agencies have funded his research for over 20 years, and he has been an active collaborator on many funded projects with junior investigators. He has over 155 refereed publications related to muscle and exercise physiology, and his publications have received over 12,500 citations. He has 41 publications that have at least 100 citations. Mentorship in research has been a cornerstone of Dr. Carson’s career. His extensive research mentorship involvement includes junior and mid-career faculty and students from high school through the Ph.D. level. He has a long history of serving in leadership roles in doctoral education.

Dr. Carson has held academic leadership roles at the Associate Dean for Research and Department Chair levels. He also has considerable leadership experience in research centers and institutes related to colon cancer and tissue regeneration. He served as Senior Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies in the College of Health Professions at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis (UTHSC). He also served as Executive Director of the Tennessee Institute for Regenerative Medicine. He has been a tenured Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at UTHSC and the Department of Exercise Science at the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina (USC). While on the faculty at USC, he served as Department Chair and the Associate Director for the Center for Colon Cancer Research at USC. Dr. Carson has substantial experience mentoring trainees and junior faculty at the department, college, and research center levels. He has been a regular grant review panel member for several federal funding agencies, including the NIH and Veterans Affairs. He is an Associate Editor for two journals. In his various administrative roles, he has been heavily involved in academic program growth, program restructuring, faculty recruitment, faculty mentorship, and student mentorship in research.