Tell us a little bit about yourself. Your passions, your life, anything you want to share.

In life, regardless of PT, I’m married, my husband is a professor of math. I have 2 young children. My daughter is 9 years old and my son is 11 years old and they are just the best human beings on earth.

I love watching and participating in sports. I’m very connected emotionally with sports, whether it’s basketball or football, etc. I feel very engaged. But, I was actually not an athletic child. Like at all. I was the worst. Running the slowest, jumping the shortest.

All of this really changed around the military. I was a singer and I had a lot of free time for the first time in my life. We would have a rehearsal, perform, then be done by 2pm. No homework? No tests? What are you doing with your day? So I started exercising.

Of course, what comes next – the cliché – the injury. I went to a doctor and he said “well you sprained the ligament. You need to stop dancing for a month”, and then I went to a sports PT who told me “ok you sprained the ligament, let’s do some exercises to help” and I was back dancing in a week. That’s when I thought “this is me. This is what I want to do.”

I was always a really good student with a really deep curiosity. I was constantly asking questions. So, I went to get my masters, I worked 7 different jobs, continued practicing, and really loved everything I did. 

But, then I met my husband, who had to do a postdoc in America, and that was a really tough decision to make. But, he was my guy. So we left for Seattle. That was probably the hardest year of my life. Because he worked and I was just all alone. It was very difficult, until I got accepted into my PhD program. PhD life is not necessarily for everyone, and it is very frustrating. But, I loved research. It’s dynamic. It’s a constant challenge. I could never get bored.

Can you tell us a little bit about how you approach teaching and how you developed these classes that you teach?

Teaching neuro is special to me. It’s my latest class. I petitioned to take on teaching neuro for about 6 months. Before that I was just the sports person here. People were like “what are you doing? Why are you asking for this class?” And I said “No I want to teach neuro. Neuro is super important”. But it is difficult teaching you guys. These classes are a different generation and a different country. Although I was a student in the United States, its different how we do grades in Israel vs. how we do grades in America.

In building this class [neuro] I built it as a student. I built it as “what would help me as a student?” Not only the interactions but also the material is what makes it my favorite class to teach. 

Can you talk about the focus of your research? How did you get into doing research into VR (Virtual Reality)?

I was [originally at the University of Washington] going to develop a functional test for the shoulder, for return to play, because that’s what I didn’t have as a handball PT. My questions were very sporty. That department, though, is very neuro focused. So I thought it would be better to play to the strength of the department. So I started working with people there who do neuro, but, I was still sports in my way of thinking. So my dissertation question was kind of at the intersection.

So here I am in the sports clinic, doing proprioceptive training, asking people to stand on soft surfaces, and then I go to teach the clinical test for sensory interaction for balance, and I say “stand on foam so you dont use somatosensory”. Which didn’t make sense to me.

So I decided to test these two theories together in my dissertation. We did a study where we had people stand on different surfaces, and we did a visual stimulation and somatosensory stimulation, and we saw that neuro was right.

You do use somatosensory less if the surface is challenging enough. Plus, it depends on the surface, because when healthy young adults stood on foam, it didn’t change anything about sensory integration. But, when I had them on a bosu ball, they became so locked to the vision and responded differently to vibration.

That was my PhD, and there really wasn’t a direct next step in the research. When I came to NYU, I used that research helped us develop the way we stimulated vision in this new study. We didn’t have people close their eyes to start, we used specific frequencies and amplitudes and looked at how you locked onto that stimulus on a big screen and a projector. That was 2013.

In 2014, my husband, who is not only a mathematician, but also someone really into computer science and technology, said to me, “I think the technology you were trying to use a few years ago is now here”, and he was referring to the first version of the Oculus.

So I looked all over NYU to see who can do this with me, and reached out to Professor Perlin. I thought he wouldn’t reply because I was a visiting assistant professor and it was only my second month at NYU, and he was an academy award winner, and a full professor. But I tried anyway. He replied almost immediately. It turns out he had a passion about doing something with rehab. We met the next day. We were able to come up with an assessment of what we defined as visual dependence, into something portable. We had a prototype in April and a study planned in August.

From there it just kept growing and growing into places I never even imagined it could go. We started looking at hearing. I didn’t even think about sounds, only vision. I began to look at the vestibular population. Then the clinic on the 9th floor [of this building] reached out to me and there was a physician who wanted to know if her patients had balance problems, and if so, if this surgery she was doing helps. 

Do you have any advice for practicing physical therapists or aspiring physical therapists?

I once had a patient that came in and told me that they always thought that they were my VIP patient. But then they stayed late one day after the treatment and told me that they realized that every patient was my VIP patient.

So to PTs and aspiring PTs, the most important thing, I think, is loving the interactions with people. There is some factor in our interactions with people that I dont think can be quantified.

Obviously, PTs should be connected to evidence. We should throw away interventions that have been shown to not be effective. Our profession is still relatively young, so no matter where you go in the profession, stay connected with the research, but also don’t let yourself stray from the intuition and connection with your patients.

It is such a privilege to work with people. To help them get better. To make them smile. To show them that you care.

Do you have any advice for people who may be interested in getting into research?

There are a lot of different ways to be involved with research. The first of which is simply reading. This is something that absolutely everyone has to do. Even just taking 15% of the time that you spend scrolling on social media to instead dive deeper into literature and research on topics that interest you. Find the time to read.

As clinicians, it is still important to research even when you are not the principle investigator. Collaborate with your colleagues. Ask questions, be engaged. Researchers are always looking for strong clinicians to work with.

Becoming a researcher. You should understand that there will be some sacrifice. There was a time in my life that I thought I was going to do everything: treat, teach, do research, etc. but its really difficult to be a principal investigator – writing grants, leading a research agenda, mentoring PhD students, and also practicing.

So if the question is burning in you and you feel like you want to create new knowledge, then I think research is the right way to go. But not just to refresh your day. It’s a big commitment, so if you’re going to do it, go all in, and go in with a purpose.