Professor Chukuka S. Enewmeka, PHD, FACSM

Professor Chukuka S. Enwemeka is the Provost and Senior Vice President of San Diego State University, San Diego, California, USA. Before joining San Diego State University on July 1, 2014, he served for five years as Distinguished Professor and Dean of the College of Health Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and for over six years as Professor and Dean, of the School of Health Professions, New York Institute of Technology, Old Westbury, New York. He was Professor and Chairman of the Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, Kansas from March 1, 1993 to February 28, 2003.

Prior to his appointment at the University of Kansas, he served as Associate Professor of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation, and Associate Director of Physical Therapy at the University of Miami’s School of Medicine, Florida. Prof. Enwemeka also held a joint appointment as Assistant Professor of Physical Therapy, Cellular and Structural Biology, and Physiology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Texas.

In addition to his academic appointment, Prof. Enwemeka has served on numerous non-profit and for-profit corporate boards. Currently, he is a Non-Executive Director of Zenith Bank, Plc, Lagos, and a Trustee of California Western School of Law, San Diego, California.

He earned his Ph.D. from New York University (NYU), and did his post-doctoral research training at NYU’s Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine. Dr. Enwemeka received his M.Sc. and B.Sc. degrees from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California and the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria, respectively. He is a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine and a Fellow of the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery.

As a researcher, Professor Enwemeka is one of the foremost authorities in the use of lasers and LEDs for therapeutic purposes. He is known for using near infrared lasers and monochromatic light sources, to stimulate tissue repair in experimental models of soft tissue injury and clinical cases of chronic ulcers that failed to respond to other forms of treatment. In groundbreaking experiments, he and his team pioneered the use of blue LEDs to effectively kill a wide range of deadly bacteria; including drug-resistant strains of bacteria.

As an international figure, he held the Presidency of the World Association for Laser Therapy (WALT) from 1998 to 2000, and served as founder and pioneer chairman of the North American Association for Laser Therapy (NAALT) from 2000 to 2006. His academic life has taken him to thirty-nine countries either as a visiting professor, invited presenter, keynote speaker, visiting scholar, or as an invited guest of other universities world-wide.