Expertise

I am a licensed physical therapist with over 20 years of clinical experience.  I earned a Bachelor of Science in Physiotherapy at Seth G. S. Medical College and K. E. M. Hospital and a Master of Science in Orthopedic Physiotherapy at Lokmanya Tilak Medical College and Sion Hospital at the University of Mumbai, India. I have a small private practice in NYC. 

I obtained my academic doctorate at the University of Iowa in Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science, you can find my dissertation here! I completed a two-year post-doctoral fellowship funded by the Arthritis Foundation, with mentors Drs Deborah Nawoczenski, PT, Ph.D. and Judith Baumhauer, MD. 

My pre-tenure work focused on foot and ankle rehabilitation. Since tenure, my research portfolio has expanded in scope and impact, my work has been funded by professional foundations and the National Institutes of Health. 

I am a technology enthusiast and also technology agnostic! This page includes an overview of my technical expertise, and the equipment and facilities available at the Arthur J. Nelson Human Performance lab at NYU Physical Therapy. 

My technical expertise extends to: 

1. Markerbased and markerless motion capture. We currently have a 16-camera motion capture system (Qualysis, Sweden).  We use Visual3D (HAS Motion, CA) and Theia (Theia Markerless, CA) for post-processing. My collaborators also use IMU-based sensors (Movella) and OpenCap. 

2. Surface Electromyography. We have a wireless system, integrated with our motion capture system (Centro, Delsys with Avanti sensors, Boston, MA) 

3. Force plates. We use two floor-embedded force plates (Kistler, Amherst, NY) 

4. Pressure measurement. We have insole and barefoot plantar measurement systems (Novel Inc, PA) 

5. Muscle strength. We have an isokinetic dynamometer (Biodex, Shirley, NY) and handheld dynamometers (Vald, Australia and microFET, CT)

6. Algometer. We have a hand held algometer (Wagner instruments, CT). 

7. Speed traps. Infra red timing gates (Brower, UT) are available to measure speed of activities. 

8. Physical activity monitoring. We use wearable devices (such as Fitbit, Step Activity Monitor (now Modus StepWatch), Actigraph (now Ametris)) to measure daily sedentary time and physical activity.  We have also used mobile phone based apps to monitor gait. 

9. We have multiple A/D boards and custom sensors (like accelerometers) to build custom devices if needed. 

My research and clinical expertise includes: 

1. Research Informatics. My team and I have current expertise in all aspects of cohort exploration (Slicer Dicer), recruitment using DataCore, Epic and its features. 

2. RedCap. We administer patient reported questionnaires over HIPAA compliant REDCap.

3. Clinical and performance-based metrics. Given my background as a licensed physical therapist, I have substantial expertise and current research experience evaluating skeletal muscle function using muscle strength and other performance-based metrics. 

4. Compliance. All members of my team are up-to-date with human subjects and Good Clinical Practice training.