Teresa Kimberley, PhD, PT, FAPTA, Professor and Director of the Brain Recovery Lab, has been appointed Director of the PhD in Rehabilitation Sciences program. 

Dr. Kimberley has been interim director of the program for the past year, after founding director Robert Hillman, PhD, CCC-SLP, stepped down.  

Since the program was launched in 2012, it has graduated 22 alumni with clinical backgrounds in occupational therapy, physical therapy, and speech-language pathology. The program engages 28 core and over 30 adjunct faculty who are involved as executive committee members, teaching faculty, research mentors, and academic advisors.  

Dr. Kimberley was recruited three years ago to bring her interprofessional research in neurorecovery to the IHP from the University of Minnesota. Since her arrival, she has built many bridges as illustrated by the secondary appointments she holds: core faculty in the Center for Neurotechnology and Neurorecovery at Massachusetts General Hospital and research staff in the Department of Neurology at MGH and at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital.   

Dr. Kimberley’s research helped to pioneer the use of neuroimaging and non-invasive or minimally invasive brain stimulation in the investigation of recovery from neurologic disease. In April, The Lancet published the results of Dr. Kimberley’s research using vagus nerve stimulation and rehabilitation to improve the lives of patients who have had a stroke with resulting arm weakness. This year, Dr. Kimberley received two grants from the National Institutes of Health and one from the National Spasmodic Dysphonia association for research on the effects of neural modulation in dystonia.   

She has been involved with PhD education for nearly 20 years and has had a track record of mentoring several highly successful PhD students and postdocs from a variety of disciplines, including people with backgrounds in PT, OT, speech-language pathology, neurology, and engineering. She is a Catherine Worthingham Fellow of the American Physical Therapy Association, its highest membership award.