Nadia Hayat Agha is a lecturer in the Kinesiology Department at Rice University. Dr. Agha joined the Rice Faculty in 2023 and currently teaches Exercise Physiology.

Dr. Agha earned her Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology-Exercise Science and her Doctor of Philosophy in Kinesiology with an emphasis in Exercise Physiology at the University of Houston. As a graduate student, her work focused on the effects of exercise, aging and stress on the immune system.  Dr. Agha has worked on several projects to determine if exercise can be used as an adjuvant to cancer or immune therapies. She has also worked on several projects with NASA to determine the effects of space flight on the immune system. Additionally, she has worked on projects to determine the benefits of exercise to astronaut immune health during space flight. Dr. Agha completed a postdoctoral fellowship in muscle physiology at Baylor College of Medicine. Her projects focused on muscular diseases arising from alterations in excitation-contraction coupling. She was specifically interested in the effects of exercise on these muscular diseases and if they would offer benefits to patients. 

Dr. Agha’s research focuses on the effects of exercise for patients with varying diseases including, cancer, neuromuscular diseases, and diabetes. She is specifically interested in if and how exercise training can contribute to improved patient survival and quality of life in various disease models and populations. 

Dr. Agha is a member of the American College of Sports Medicine, International Society of Exercise and Immunology (ISEI) and Psychenuroimmunology Research Society. Dr. Agha has authored over 25 publications and presented at numerous local and international conferences.