I graduated as a physiotherapist in 2003 from The Sage Colleges in Troy, New York, USA. I worked as a physiotherapist for nine years in Chicago, USA, specialising in neurology. During this time I enjoyed being a clinical supervisor to physiotherapy students and became interested in research. I worked on a research trial with stroke survivors; this experience further sparked my interest in pursuing research, which led me to England in 2012 to undertake a PhD. In 2016 I graduated with a PhD in Health Sciences from the University of East Anglia. After finishing my PhD I worked as a researcher and grant writer. I joined Bournemouth University in 2017 as a Physiotherapy Lecturer.

Research

My research interests are mixed such as neuro-rehabilitation, neural plasticity, upper limb recovery after stroke, how neurological disease impacts on the well-being of stroke survivors and their quality of life, and how to better translate research into clinical practice.

My PhD focused on upper limb recovery of reaching and evaluation of the corticospinal pathway; these aims were achieved through two systematic reviews and two empirical studies. The systematic reviews investigated the kinematic differences between stroke survivors and healthy controls during reach-to-grasp of an object as well as reach-to-target. The two empirical studies investigated the test-retest reliability of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) measures of corticospinal pathway excitability in both stroke survivors within the first three months after stroke and in healthy adults across the lifespan.

Publications

Grants

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