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Director, Center for Outcomes and Measurement
Thomas Jefferson University
I do not have any relevant financial / non-financial relationships with any proprietary interests.
Dr. Mulcahey is a Professor of Occupational Therapy and Director of the Center for Outcomes and Measurement in Jefferson College of Rehabilitation Sciences (JCRS), and Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA. . She has over 30 years of experience as a practitioner, educator and researcher, and is a certified health coach, certified positive psychology coach and certified life care planner. Her primary area of research is the development, validation and utilization of new and existing outcome measures of impairment, physical function, activity, and participation for children, youth and adults with spinal cord injury (SCI), and other chronic conditions. She served as Principal Investigator for a seminal multi-center study on the psychometric properties of the International Neurological Classification of Spinal Cord Injury in children, which subsequently lead to evidence-informed guidelines on evaluation of the neurological consequence of SCI in children, and the first study aimed at establish imaging biomarkers of pediatric SCI. Engaging and working collaboratively with others, Dr. Mulcahey has developed and validated IRT-based child and parent reported outcome measures, conducted psychometric studies to establish lower age guidelines for outcome instruments used in SCI clinical trials, established pediatric recommendations for the NINDS SCI CDE and International SCI basic data sets, and developed and validated estimates to allow linking between pediatric and adult patient reported outcome scores. Dr. Mulcahey has published over 180 peer-reviewed manuscripts and 24 chapters, and served as editor for nine books\ special journal issues. Dr. Mulcahey is past-president of the American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) (2015-2017), past-vice president of the Pediatric Spine Foundation (2015-2020) current chair of the Board of Governance of the Steel Assembly for Pediatric SCI\D, current chair of the Board of Trustees of the American Occupational Therapy Foundation (AOTF). Dr. Mulcahey has received numerous awards including the 2009 APS Clinical Excellence Award; 2013 PVA Therapist Excellence Award; 2018 ISCoS Sir Ludwig Guttman Lecture; 2021 ASIA Lifetime Achievement Award. She is inducted into the AOTF Academy of Research and is a Fellow of the American Spinal Injury Association.
