Courtesy Dustin Winter, RMU

Whether or not she’s wearing one of the high-tech virtual reality headsets in her department, Paula Johnson, Ph.D., has a vivid vision of the Office of Research’s potential at Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions.

“We are an untapped resource,” said Johnson, RMU’s Office of Research director. “Anything having to do with research? We want to make it available. Our mission is to make RMU a leader in research that will impact the field with new types of medical teaching, technology and practices.”

In particular, RMU’s Office of Research — located on the Timpanogos Tech Campus in south Provo — focuses on using robust research to influence and improve the medical field and health care professions. That could include anything from creating physical tools to crafting useful surveys.

From vision to victory

The Office of Research and its staff have multiple ways of helping RMU students, staff and faculty accomplish those lofty goals. They can guide them through all aspects of the research grant process — from searching for grants to developing and writing them. They assist with survey development, analysis and support. They provide slideshow and poster templates, guidance and printing for presentation posters. They also facilitate research projects, from design to publication, and participation opportunities.

Along with a vast network of professionals and data-gathering tools, the Office of Research has a variety of high-tech equipment to assist in the research process, including a 3D printer, a driving simulator, a VO2 max setup with tracking equipment and treadmill, a Biosafety Level Lab 2, an electroencephalogram (EEG) machine, a motion-capture device and virtual reality headsets.

Courtesy Dustin Winter, RMU

“We are interested in making health care better and making teaching health care professionals better,” Johnson said. “We want the Rocky Mountain community to be able to do these things and we want to help lower the barriers so that they can do them.”

Building bridges

In the spirit of research collaboration, RMU often teams up with other academic institutions. On Friday, May 9, the Office of Research will co-host the Mountain West Research Summit at the Provo-based Noorda College of Osteopathic Medicine.

The showcase will feature the work of 200 researchers from Utah and Colorado universities along with displays from biotech companies, including BioUtah. It will include platform, poster and research synopsis presentations and facilitate learning and networking. Topics will range from clinical research to basic science and health professions education scholarship and research.

“These research conferences are big,” Johnson said. “It’s like a science fair on steroids.”

The summit highlights RMU’s commitment to research and partnering with its students, staff and faculty as well as other research-focused people and entities. That collaboration is a priority, which is why the Office of Research brings in students, faculty and resources from other universities to help all entities succeed in their research endeavors.

“We want to be able to work together with other people who have similar interests and maybe different resources that we need,” Johnson said. “So we keep those doors open and try to network.”

Expertise meets passion

Johnson, who’s been with RMU for two years, has connections with universities along the Wasatch Front. She’s worked as an associate researcher and analyst at the University of Utah for six years. She taught at Utah Valley University for five and a half years. The Brigham Young University alumna has taught at her alma mater for more than 12 years, including exercise classes and in the MRI Research Facility.

Johnson earned a bachelor’s in applied physics, a master’s in exercise science and a doctorate in neuroscience at BYU, but her path to grad school was unconventional. She attended college out of high school and then worked as a technical training specialist for PASCO scientific and as a part-time personal trainer.

When two of her three children attended BYU for exercise science degrees, Johnson decided to pursue a master’s in the same program. The timing was just right for her to work on her doctoral degree when her youngest child also became an exercise science major.

“I tell people I was just helicopter parenting,” she joked. “The degree was just my excuse.”

Johnson comes from a family of physicians, so working at a graduate health care institution fits like a pair of nitrile gloves.

“This is the perfect environment for me because I’m working with the medical school students,” she said. “It feels like home.”

Researchers, assemble!

Johnson goes out of her way to make others feel at home at RMU’s Office of Research.

One successful collaboration began when Miriam Cortez-Cooper, an assistant program director of RMU’s Doctor of Physical Therapy program, approached Johnson about a project. The study aimed to examine breathing patterns in Parkinson’s disease patients to determine whether they use the full capacity of their respiratory muscles.

As if playing the role of Captain America, Johnson and Cortez-Cooper assembled a team of experts from their contacts. They drew in a respiratory therapist from Noorda for pulmonary function testing. They enlisted a BYU research engineer to create a device — using surface electrodes and material nanotechnology — to measure the movement of chest muscles. They pulled in a speech-language pathologist from RMU to take swallowing and vocal measurements. Cortez-Cooper measures breathing patterns during incremental exercise.

“Paula also committed the Office of Research to ensure the equipment and software I needed worked seamlessly and reliably,” Cortez-Cooper said. “She was instrumental in forming a research team and providing support.”

Once the research team formed, the grant was written and awarded. The group then began working to discover if their technology can capture the voice, swallow and breathing “signatures” of people with Parkinson’s.

In a separate Parkinson’s study, the recruited patients have the fun part. They get to wear a VR headset and play Beat Saber, which is a popular rhythm game where light sabers are used to slash flying beats in a funky, futuristic setting.

“When we watch people play the VR game, we tell them to make big movements. They say, ‘I am,’ but they don’t perceive that they’re not making big movements,” Johnson said. “It’s the same with breathing muscles. We studied breathing patterns in people with Parkinson’s to see if we could train them to use their muscles more effectively.”

Students leading the way

Research often begins when somebody wants to solve a problem or answer questions from a topic that interests them from personal experience. That’s the case with ongoing projects by research assistant students in RMU’s Doctor of Philosophy in Health Sciences (Ph.D.) program.

“Each has a really cool project going on that is near and dear to their hearts,” Johnson said.

Alex Mikle, who’s from a military family, is studying how red light therapy can benefit the mental health of female first responders. Her research includes red light therapy data from work Johnson contributed to while helping former University of Utah football players recover from experiencing debilitating symptoms likely related to Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE).

Beverly Albert is an endurance athlete who survived a life-threatening experience in extreme conditions. She’s collaborating with Utah Valley University to study whether training in one extreme condition can prepare you physiologically to perform in a different extreme condition.

Miguel Zeran, who served in the Marines, is exploring the concept that fasting can help people who have suffered from traumatic brain injuries. His idea came from concerns he had after witnessing his military brothers experience brain trauma from the repetition of firing weapons, jumping out of planes and doing other physically taxing tasks that can eventually accumulate into sub-concussive brain injuries.

Like other researchers, the RMU doctoral students have a love to learn, a passion for a project and a desire to help people improve their lives.

“These people care about somebody and have personal reasons for wanting to work with a population and to make their lives better,” Johnson said. “These things are all born out of personal questions. That’s how research should be — there’s this population of people I want to help and I have this question I want to answer. The Office of Research is there to help them answer those questions, and we have the resources for that.”

Jody Genessy is the senior content writer for Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions.