Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Simon Sharples, assistant professor of kinesiology in the Penn State College of Health and Human Development, has been named the Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Early Career Chair in Movement Neuroscience.

Sharples, who joined Penn State ahead of the fall 2026 semester, investigates how the spinal cord governs the strength and precision of movement, work that spans from early development through recovery after spinal cord injury.

"My research aims to understand how the spinal cord controls the strength of our movements — essentially how the nervous system decides whether a motion should be gentle or powerful, like turning a volume dial up or down," Sharples said. "What's innovative about our approach is that we study these circuits across the full arc from development to injury: we look at how these pathways are first formed early in postnatal development, as animals and people are learning to walk, and use that developmental blueprint to understand how the same pathways become dysfunctional after spinal cord injury. ... By connecting the electrical and genetic fingerprints of these circuits, we get a far more complete picture than looking at development or injury in isolation, and it's this integrated view that points us toward new strategies for promoting recovery and restoring function."

Since arriving at Penn State, Sharples has become active with multiple Huck research units, including the the Center for Cellular Dynamics, the Center for Molecular Investigation of Neurological Disorders, the Center for Movement Science and Technology, and the Penn State Neuroscience Institute.

“We are very pleased to have Dr. Sharples join our community at the Huck Institutes and at Penn State,” said Christina Grozinger, Publius Vergilius Maro Professor of Entomology and director of the Huck Institutes. “Dr. Sharples' research is incredibly interdisciplinary — he is integrating genetics, development, neurobiology and behavior, and will give us new insights into the mechanisms underlying motor control and locomotion while also informing health interventions.”

John Bartholomew, professor of kinesiology and head of the Department of Kinesiology, said Sharples stood out during the department's faculty search.

"Simon was the top choice in our search and we were excited to recruit him to Penn State," Bartholomew said. "His work has incredible potential to contribute to our understanding of mechanisms that control movement in a manner that translates to clinical populations. As such, Simon's work supports the connection of kinesiology to multiple units across campus and the medical school."

Sharples earned a bachelor's degree in kinesiology, with minors in biology and chemistry, from Canada's Wilfrid Laurier University, followed by a master's degree in kinesiology from the same institution. He went on to earn a doctoral degree in neuroscience from the University of Calgary. He was supported with funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada throughout his master's, doctoral and postdoctoral training, the last of which he began at the University of St Andrews in Scotland — additionally supported by a Royal Society Newton International Fellowship — before continuing his postdoctoral work at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center with support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, which funded research bridging his time at both postdoctoral institutions.

More information about Sharples and his research is available on his website.