{"id":7416,"date":"2026-07-02T10:45:55","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T15:45:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.unmc.edu\/alliedhealth\/?p=7416"},"modified":"2026-07-02T10:45:57","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T15:45:57","slug":"welcome-new-faculty-kate-heelan-phd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.unmc.edu\/alliedhealth\/2026\/07\/02\/welcome-new-faculty-kate-heelan-phd\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome new faculty: Kate Heelan, PhD"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kate Heelan, PhD, has recently joined our research faculty. Here&#8217;s more about Kate in her own words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prior to joining UNMC, I spent 25 years at the University of Nebraska at Kearney as a faculty of exercise science, department chair and director of the Physical Activity and Wellness Lab. During my tenure at UNK, I developed the Greater Nebraska Physical Activity Initiative with a mission is to address the obesity epidemic by providing expertise in community programs and initiatives aimed at increasing physical activity and healthy eating behaviors across the lifespan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I have successfully developed, tested, packaged, and disseminated programs that I have created for implementation in rural communities. I have experience working with rural communities to strengthen partnerships with public school systems, health centers, community agencies, and family units. I work to provide evidence-based obesity prevention and treatment program strategies to schools, medical clinics, communities, and families. I have three federally funded grants that I am excited to bring to UNMC and collaborate with faculty interested in implementing health behavior programs in rural communities.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kate Heelan, PhD, has recently joined our research faculty. Here&#8217;s more about Kate in her own words: Prior to joining UNMC, I spent 25 years at the University of Nebraska at Kearney as a faculty of exercise science, department chair and director of the Physical Activity and Wellness Lab. During my tenure at UNK, I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":7418,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[54,45,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-frontpage","category-research-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.unmc.edu\/alliedhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.unmc.edu\/alliedhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.unmc.edu\/alliedhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.unmc.edu\/alliedhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/109"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.unmc.edu\/alliedhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7416"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.unmc.edu\/alliedhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7420,"href":"https:\/\/blog.unmc.edu\/alliedhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7416\/revisions\/7420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.unmc.edu\/alliedhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.unmc.edu\/alliedhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.unmc.edu\/alliedhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.unmc.edu\/alliedhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}