Set amidst a village of weight machines, elliptical treadmills, and schmaltzy exercise contraptions, the Department of Exercise and Sport Sciences in the School of Education doesn’t house your typical academic offices. From an office in the far corner of the physiology laboratory, professor and department chair Arlette Perry is multitasking—typing an e-mail, advising a graduate student who leans into her doorway, and preparing for an upcoming hiking trip in North Carolina’s Smoky Mountains. A lifelong athlete, Perry demonstrates remarkable dexterity in juggling numerous personal and professional pursuits.

“My students see me sweating on the elliptical machine at about a 15 percent incline,” Perry says. “For 45 minutes I’m going through my journals to keep up with the latest research. It’s really important to stay on top of things so I can say to my students: ‘Why don’t you look at the time-course changes in C-reactive protein while training; no one has done that yet.’”

Most of Perry’s research centers on the health benefits of exercise, focusing on the underrepresented in women’s health and on obesity. She has been the principal investigator of several clinical trials examining the impact of pharmacological agents, including Meridia, on weight loss in both adults and adolescents. Her most recent project, Healthy Bodies, Higher Grades, a program designed to educate public school teachers about how to incorporate exercise into their curriculum, has earned kudos for its inclusiveness and ingenuity. Perry also is a recipient of the University’s 2004 May Brunson Award for her efforts to improve the status and lives of women and a 1989 Florida’s Governor Award for Outstanding Achievement in the field of physical fitness.

Born into athletics, Perry’s mother was a swimmer, and her father was a competitive racquetball player. “One of the reasons I got into this field was that I was exposed to sports at a very early age. I performed well, received positive reinforcement, and thrived in so many different types of sports, so that was my ticket.”

Perry nearly won the national collegiate racquetball tournament in 1971, defeating a host of all-male competitors and becoming the first woman ever to enter, let alone reach the finals in an all-male sport. A student at the City University of New York at the time, she found herself in the spotlight on page five of the New York Daily News. “Being female, I was a little before my time. We didn’t get the money and support for women’s sports in those days, but it helped me to focus on exercise as a way to promote health.”

Nowadays Perry gets a rigorous workout from playing competitive singles tennis, a fitting metaphor for her work ethic. “When you’re tired after a rally, you have to start up again, and you have to really push ahead your recovery time—and keep working while you’re recovering.”

— Blythe Nobleman