Marcos A. completed a baccalaureate in Biology at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus. During his BS he had the opportunity to be Biology and Ecology TA. He supervised test, graded, and clarified concepts to undergraduate students. After graduation, he spent an extra semester completing the course requirements to enter to the Exercise Science program. Then, he applied to the master program in Exercise Science at the same campus. While completing the master’s degree he worked in different investigations. He participated of research assistantship, which allows him to be a head of the physical activity component of the study he worked. In this position he oversaw the coordination of the evaluations of physical activity by questionnaire and accelerometers, initialized, downloaded, and analyzed the accelerometer data. Also, he had the responsibility of interview and train volunteer research assistants, performed evaluations, and recruited participants. He volunteered in the data collection of the physical fitness and nutrition components of the study and volunteered as investigator for a study that evaluated the descriptive characteristics and physical activity levels among patients with sleep apnea. He worked as research coordinator on a study that was evaluating the endurance capacity, cognitive and metabolic characteristics of Hispanic women HIV+. On this study he oversaw the coordination of the patients visits, the testing dates, the exercise calendar, trained the volunteer research assistants and completed data collection. Furthermore, he had a teaching assistantship, where he oversaw teaching the undergraduate lab experience, test supervision, grading, and lectures. At the final year of his master’s degree he completed a year-round clinical exercise physiology internship at the Veterans Affairs Caribbean Healthcare System. He also worked as track and field coach at school and college level.

Thanks to the research and teaching background, he gained experience in evaluating physical activity through accelerometers and questionnaires; evaluating physical fitness using the Fitnessgram protocol among children, and supervising high intensity interval training sessions among Hispanic women with and without HIV. Moreover, supervising, evaluating, grading, and teaching undergraduate students. He had ample practical experience on physical fitness evaluation, exercise prescription and training session supervision among healthy population and patients with chronic diseases such as cardiac, pulmonary, orthopedic, and metabolic. He had presented posters, thematic posters, and slide presentations at regional and national American College of Sports Medicine meetings