2020 Archives

Dr. Edelle Field-Fote is the 2020 recipient of the Foundation for Physical Therapy Research (FPTR) Robert C. Bartlett Trustee Recognition Service Award. The Service Awards are the highest honor that FPTR presents each year to select individuals and organizations. These awards recognize members of the FPTR community for their volunteerism and commitment to the physical therapy profession. The recipients have also demonstrated unyielding support of FPTR and its mission to fund physical therapy research through generous and longstanding contributions.

In acknowledging this service award Dr. Field-Fote said: “The FPTR has done so much to promote research and to support the development of future researchers in the physical therapy profession.  Having received my very first extramural research grant from the FPTR, it was a privilege to have served in the role of President.  I feel so honored to be recognized by the FPTR in this way.”

With a clinical background as a physical therapist and Ph.D. training in an animal model of spinal sord injury (SCI), Dr. Field-Fote’s 20+ years of SCI research have spanned the breadth of basic and clinical research related to SCI. As Director of SCI Research and the Hulse Spinal Injury Laboratory at Shepherd Center, Dr. Field-Fote leads a team dedicated to improving motor function in persons with SCI through the development of rehabilitation approaches informed by the latest neuroscience research. Her contributions to SCI literature include the largest study to date of locomotor training for persons with chronic, motor-incomplete SCI, as well as the first-ever study of a rehabilitation intervention to promote cortical neuroplasticity for improved hand function in persons with tetraplegia.

Dr. Field-Fote is also a professor in the Division of Physical Therapy, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at Emory University’s School of Medicine.

The Division Congratulates Dr. Field–Fote on this honor.

View the Fall 2020 Journal of Humanities in Rehabilitation issue.

Dr. Kesar, who was recently promoted to Associate Professor, received the Eugene Michels New Investigator Award from the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA). This award recognizes physical therapists who have engaged in independent research efforts within 10 years of completing their doctoral degree or post-doctoral training, and whose research makes significant impact on the physical therapy profession. This national recognition is a testament to Dr. Kesar’s research accomplishments and prominence. Over the past 10 years, Dr. Kesar has demonstrated a focused and independent research trajectory elucidating biomechanical and neural correlates underlying treatments for rehabilitating post-stroke gait dysfunction. She has over 42 peer-reviewed publications on gait retraining, stroke gait biomechanics, non-invasive stimulation, and training-induced plasticity in lower limb muscles. Her work revealed advantages of novel functional electrical stimulation patterns and paradigms. Her NIH-funded K-award evaluated non-invasive methods to rigorously probe neuromotor control of lower extremity musculature using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), peripheral nerve stimulation (PNS), and combinatorial methods. Her ongoing NIH-funded R01 grant award investigates the time courses and neuromechanics processes underlying recovery of locomotor function in response to clinically-relevant gait treatments. A parallel research path evaluates real-time biofeedback and innovative gaming interfaces for stroke gait retraining. By understanding how, why, and for whom gait retraining is effective, her long-term research goal is to maximize locomotor recovery post-stroke. The division congratulates Dr. Kesar on this recognition!