Heather Feldner
Dr. Heather Feldner, PT, PhD, PCS Emeritus, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, core faculty in the Disability Studies Program, and an Associate Director of the Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences (CREATE) at the University of Washington in Seattle, Wa, USA.
Dr. Feldner’s research is centered at the intersection of mobility, disability, and technology. She is interested in understanding social perceptions of disability and identity and how these emerge and evolve through technology use. She also works with children and families in the design and implementation of pediatric mobility technology and supportive mobility environments to maximize participation.
Dr. Feldner is also involved in researching disability equity and justice in various contexts, particularly in health professions education. Her current work incorporates multidisciplinary, mixed methods, and participatory approaches drawing from her background as a pediatric physical therapist, doctoral work in disability studies, and postdoctoral fellowship in in mechanical engineering.
Laura Gallagher
Dr Laura Gallagher is a Senior Clinical Psychologist in Neurology and Neurodevelopment, Children’s Health Ireland at Tallaght. She has over 14 years of experience working with children and young people with neuromuscular conditions providing neurodevelopmental and neuropsychology assessment and therapy. She emphasises the importance of psychology working within the multidisciplinary medical service to recognise and support the varied developmental and psychological needs experienced by these children, young people and their families.
Ed Giesbrecht
Dr. Ed Giesbrecht’s research focuses on wheeled mobility to enable occupation, particularly in terms of effective use and skills training. His research includes tailoring training for older adults, employing mobile devices for home training application (mHealth), peer training, gaming as a training intervention, and improving clinician skills to enhance their clinical practice with wheelchair provision and training. His research interests include assistive technologies and participation, wheeled mobility and participation, effectiveness of wheelchair skills training, telehealth/eHealth/mHealth, and education of allied health professional students, particularly related to mobility and postural support.
https://umanitoba.ca/rehabilitation-sciences/faculty-staff/ed-giesbrecht
William C. Miller
William C Miller (Bill), PhD epidemiology, is a Professor in the Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy at UBC. He is an investigator with the International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries and AGEWELL a pan-Canadian Network that strives to create real-world assistive technology solutions that have a meaningful impact on seniors, their caregivers and individuals with physical disability in general. His research focuses on the epidemiology, measurement, and evaluation of interventions and technologies designed to remediate mobility disability with the goal of improving social participation. Bill is a fellow of the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. He has published 26 journal papers and 12 book chapters. He has developed 6 outcome tools designed for clinical practice and research some translated into multiple languages.
Elegast Monbaliu
Elegast Monbaliu is physiotherapist and professor in Paediatric Neurorehabilitation within the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences of KU Leuven Health & Technology (Bruges, Belgium). There, he heads the Neurorehabilitation Technology Lab (NTL) whose mission is (1) to create the highest independent mobility, (2) to create the highest possible computer access and (3) to optimize objective evaluation of movement disorders in individuals with childhood onset complex movement disorders as cerebral palsy. Within the NTL Bruges, they optimize evaluation and therapeutic rehabilitation interventions for these complex movement disorders and introduce new technologies in the rehabilitation field.
This research was awarded several national and international EACD and AACPDM awards. He is co-founder of the European Dyskinetic CP Network (EDCPN) and his research line led to CoMoveIT, a KU Leuven spin-off from Campus Bruges to improve the mobility of people with complex movement disorders through a smart wheelchair control system using sensors and artificial intelligence. In addition, he is the secretary of the European Academy of Childhood Disability (EACD) and president of the EACD 2024 Annual Meeting.
Lisbeth Nilsson
Lisbeth Nilsson is a PhD and specialist in occupational therapy and associated researcher and lecturer of Health Sciences in Lund University, Sweden. She completed a Master of Science in 1996 and earned her Doctoral degree in 2007, both in Lund University. She is the developer of the intervention Driving to Learn in powered wheelchair for people with cognitive disabilities (1993-2007), and the developer of the Assessment of Learning Powered mobility use (ALP) in collaboration with Josephine Durkin, PhD, UK (2009-2016). Her special research interests include powered mobility, assistive technologies for mobility and communication, tool-use learning in broader contexts and a universal tool fort assessment and facilitation of the learning process.
Paula Rushton
Dr. Rushton’s research is focused on measurement, intervention, knowledge translation and education related to improving the wheeled mobility of both adults and children through an improved wheelchair provision process. From the measurement, intervention and knowledge translation perspective, Rushton’s projects lie in the domains of wheelchair skills and wheelchair confidence. From the education perspective, she collaborates with the International Society of Wheelchair Professionals to enhance wheelchair content in rehabilitation university curricula globally.
https://www.dal.cafacultyhealthoccupational-therapyfaculty-stafffacultypaula-rushton.html
Dr. Emma M. Smith
Dr. Emma M. Smith is an Occupational Therapist and researcher with a clinical background in assistive technologies and wheelchair provision. Emma's clinical research focuses on wheelchair provision and wheelchair skills training, primarily in the area of powered mobility. Her other areas of research focus on inclusion for vulnerable and excluded populations, especially those with disabilities, through innovation in assistive technology policies and systems. Emma is an assistant professor in the Discipline of Occupational Therapy at University of Limerick where she teachines in the Postgraduate Certificate in Posture, Seating, and Wheeled Mobility. Emma is also a Marie Sklowdoska-Curie Actions Research Fellow at the ALL Institute at Maynooth University, and a technical specialist in assistive technology for the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe.
Andrea Tobin
Andrea is a Clinical Specialist Occupational Therapist working as part of the specialist neuromuscular service in Children’s Health Ireland and CRC. She has over 17 years’ experience working with children with neuromuscular conditions in Ireland. Andrea has presented at international conferences on the role of Occupational Therapy and neuromuscular conditions. She was a member of the Integrated Pathway for Children and Family’s with Neuromuscular Disorders in Ireland. Andrea completes functional assessments with children attending the service. She has a special interest in family centred care and promoting participation and engagement in everyday activities for the children within the environments in which they live.
Takashi Handa
Dr. Takashi Handa is an engineer and a senior researcher at Saitama Industrial Technology Center, which is a public research institute in Japan. He has developed some devices around Assistive Technology, such as Seated Posture Measurement Tools, and Medical Surgery, such as the navigation system for Total Knee Arthroplasty. He has also been researching around wheelchairs and seating, especially wheelchair basketball in recent years.
Dr. Handa is teaching Medical Devices Development Process at Saitama University as an associate professor and teaching Medical Device Development at Shibaura Institute of Technology as a visiting associate professor.
Dr. Handa has been involved in international and domestic standards development for 10 years. He is a convenor of ISO/TC 173/SC 1/WG 11 (wheelchair seating).