MUNCIE, Ind. -- Ball State University's renowned Human Performance Laboratory has a renowned new director.

William J. Kraemer, head of the Penn State University Laboratory for Sports Medicine since 1989, has been named to the John and Janice Fisher Distinguished Chair in Exercise Physiology and director of the Human Performance Laboratory at Ball State.

C. Warren Vander Hill, provost and vice president for academic affairs, said Kraemer is uniquely qualified to succeed the lab's founder, David L. Costill, who retires this summer.

"We are very excited to welcome someone of Kraemer's international reputation to Ball State and the Human Performance Laboratory," Vander Hill said. "Based on his background, we believe he will excel in teaching, research and service and will be particularly successful in securing external grant funding."

Before joining the Penn State faculty, Kraemer was a research physiologist at the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine in Natick, Mass and taught at Carroll College, Boston University and the University of Connecticut.

At Penn State, he was director of research and senior academic administrator at the Center for Sports Medicine and associate director of the Center for Cell Research. He was named a professor of applied physiology in 1996.

"It's a great honor for me to be appointed director of the Human Performance Lab and to the John and Janice Fisher Distinguished Chair in Exercise Physiology," Kraemer said. "I think there's tremendous potential in the field of health and human performance as we enter the next century.

"My goal is to continue developing and organizing the lab into one of the best research entities in the world, building upon the legacy of excellence that Dave Costill has established," he said.

Kraemer holds a master's degree in exercise physiology and a doctorate in physiology and biochemistry, both from the University of Wyoming, where he served as a supervisor and research coordinator in the Human Energy Research Laboratory.

He has advised graduate and doctoral students in physiology. He also received excellent teaching ratings for his undergraduate courses in exercise physiology and graduate courses in muscle physiology, endocrinology, sports medicine and research methods and design.

His laboratory, with Penn State's Minority Affairs Office, developed a program to involve high school students and teachers with research projects. A visiting scholars program also has attracted scientists and students from Finland, Japan, the Netherlands, Australia and England.

Ball State's Human Performance Laboratory, founded in 1965, offers a variety of research, graduate study and service programs. Research interests have ranged from heart disease in aging men to performance of elite athletes and, most recently, a NASA space shuttle mission. In addition, programs in adult physical fitness and cardiac rehabilitation offer service to the local community.