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Charles H. Hillman, Ph.D., received his doctoral degree from the University 
of Maryland at College Park in 2000 and then joined the faculty at the 
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he is currently a pro-
fessor in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health. He 
also holds appointments in the Department of Psychology, Department 
of Internal Medicine, Neuroscience Program, the Division of Nutritional 
Sciences, and Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. He 
directs the Neurocognitive Kinesiology Laboratory, which has the mission 
of determining lifestyle factors that improve cognition, maximize health 
and well-being, and promote the effective functioning of individuals as they 
progress through the human life span. Dr. Hillman has published more than 
80 journal articles and 10 book chapters and has coedited a text on neu-
roimaging in exercise and sport sciences. His work has been funded by the 
National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, the National 
Institute on Aging, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and 
Kidney Diseases, and Abbott Nutrition. Dr. Hillman’s primary research 
emphasis is to better understand factors that relate to increased neuro-
cognitive health and effective functioning of individuals across the life span. 
He has predominantly focused on preadolescent children, with the goal of 
understanding how both single bouts of exercise and chronic physical activ-
ity promote basic changes in brain health that may lead to better cognition 
and scholastic performance. From a neuroimaging perspective, he has inves-

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Educating the Student Body: Taking Physical Activity and Physical Education to School
Appendix E
 
485
tigated the relationship of physical activity to underlying processes involved 
in attention, memory, and academic performance. Generally, results from 
this line of research have suggested that physical activity benefits cogni-
tive operations during tasks that require greater amounts of goal-directed 
action, an effect that is less pronounced for other less-complex aspects of 
cognition. Accordingly, his research indicates that physical activity may 
have a greater influence on cognitive processes that are more effortful, 
rather than a general benefit to overall cognitive function.