Dianna completes EL-OTD capstone
Last week, Dianna successfully defended her capstone project to earn her clinical doctorate in occupational therapy at Boston University. Many of her family, friends, colleagues, and CPERL members were in attendance via Zoom and in person.
Dianna's doctoral project involved a formative evaluation of the CPERL-CanChild sponsored contract model aimed at engaging students and scholars in knowledge translation and product development projects. Results of her OTD capstone showed that traditional and professional outcomes are possible through this funding mechanism. Next steps will include presenting her findings to CanChild and the OT scholarly community.
Dianna will continue to build her research engaged career by remaining a part of the lab as a research specialist. She will be continuing to chart her entrepreneurial path by overseeing and sustaining the collaborative efforts for training knowledge brokers in occupational therapy relevant research spaces.
Dianna shares: It has been a rewarding experience to see how well this project has culminated all of my research interests that I expressed over the course of earning my OTD. This capstone has given me further insight into the type of OT I want to be and how I want to contribute to the profession moving forward. I am also so incredibly fortunate for the opportunities that I have been afforded to bring me to this point including my involvement in CPERL, beginning as an undergraduate and circling back to CPERL for my doctoral capstone.
Mary shares: It has been a mentor's delight to welcome Dianna back to CPERL this summer in a new phase of her training to become a research engaged OT. When she accepted our invite to come back to lab meeting last Fall, the inspiration for a doctoral capstone was born. We are fortunate that she chose to accept our challenge and pursue it with tenacity and quality, through which she grew in her ability to conceptualize and communicate with precision. She also taught us, through her words and actions, how to juggle her 'main lane' project with opportunities to make valued contributions to related studies in our lab, and how to be a model lab citizen. I am proud of how Dianna has gone 'high' in navigating her path to becoming a valued member of our profession, and I look forward to what comes next.