Northwestern State University of Louisana

Emily has been with the NSU track and field team for two years, assisting her teams to four conference championship wins during that time. She is Louisiana licensed, BOC certified, CPR certified, QPR certified for mental health and suicide prevention, and has recently undergone dry needling certification in order to provide even more avenues for recovery to her athletes. She is passionate about combining current scientific literature with compassionate care, always adapting creatively in resource-limited settings to ensure optimal athlete outcomes.

Walker comes to NSU from UL Lafayette, where she worked closely with track & field, baseball, softball, cheer, and volleyball as a master’s student - managing a wide range of musculoskeletal injuries. During this time, she also became highly skilled in injury evaluation, emergency response, IASTM techniques (Graston, HawkGrips, RockTape), and rehabilitation.

Before her time at ULL, she assisted at Delcambre High School in Delcambre, Louisiana, where she worked with the basketball, baseball, softball, cross country and track & field teams. There she provided care to athletes with little to no resources through creative means. Walker also implemented new modalities and trained the licensed professionals on how to use them correctly.

In January 2022, she managed working around animals, dangerous events and emergency situations while providing care at the Lafayette Rodeo. In addition to clinical work, Emily also contributed to the research field while studying cancer cachexia using live rodents and molecular testing. She presented at 11 different research conferences, focusing on building a background in research that she would use to make informed decisions in her future clinical practice.

She earned both her bachelor’s and master’s from UL Lafayette, earning the bachelor’s in 2020 and master’s in 2023.