Professor Jonathan Folland, Professor of Neuromuscular Performance, will take on the role which includes the new National Rehabilitation Centre (NRC) which is due to open in 2025.
His remit is to develop and lead the implementation of a rehabilitation research and innovation strategy at Loughborough and contribute to the development of research and innovation within the NRC. This role includes bringing together rehabilitation active research staff from across campus and ensuring integration with NRC colleagues and partners to maximise the opportunities for rehabilitation research.
Professor Folland’s research addresses the measurement, determinants, and exercise training of human muscle function. His work takes a deliberately integrative approach drawing on anatomy, physiology and mechanics to understand and improve/optimise function, with wide application to human performance and rehabilitation following injury and illness. His rehabilitation work aims to characterise the impairments in neuromuscular function and physiology due to injury or pathology, and optimise exercise training, and related therapies, to redress these limitations.
His particular interests include osteoarthritis, knee injuries (anterior cruciate ligament rupture) and hamstrings strain injury. He has attracted research and innovation funding from sports organizations, industry, health charities and UK government, co-authored over 130 peer reviewed research papers in world-leading physiology, sports science and medicine journals, and supervised 21 PhD students to completion.
Jonathan is a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine and the Royal Society of Biology, and Deputy Director of the Versus Arthritis Centre for Sport, Exercise and Osteoarthritis Research as well as having editorial roles with the journals Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise and the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports.