Faculty
A certified adapted physical educator and assistant professor in the College of Education’s Department of Human Performance, Dance and Recreation, Scott Pedersen started his career wanting to help athletes with their injuries.
However, while pursuing his first master’s degree, he worked at a local community college with students with disabilities – and found it inspiring.
“The look on the faces of those students when you helped them with an activity was amazing,” Pedersen said “Their parents were always asking me how they could help their child to play games well enough to play with kids who were not disabled. It became a challenge for me.”
Pedersen came up with a simple solution: play games that none of the students were familiar with. It was then he noticed that students with disabilities had a harder time with skills that required them to cross the midline of their bodies.
Pedersen decided to continue helping individuals with disabilities, so he changed gears and headed to Indiana University, there he earned a second master’s degree in kinesiology with a focus in adapted physical education (APE) and a doctorate in human performance, also focusing on APE.
Pedersen joined the faculty at NMSU in 2003 and continues to investigate the upper and lower extremity movements of children to identify where processing delays may occur in the human body. He also has begun looking for interventions that are not drug-based in order to help children increase their success at physical activities.
When Pedersen arrived in New Mexico, he was one of only two people in the state certified to teach APE. He has developed a minor in APE and several courses aimed at teaching the skill set needed to become nationally certified in APE.