Introducing Dr. Vera Kaelin
In front of her committee, colleagues, friends, and family, Vera successfully defended her dissertation to earn her PhD in Rehabilitation Sciences at UIC. Her dissertation is titled: Artificial Intelligence to Customize Participation-Focused Pediatric Re/habilitation Interventions. Vera designed and conducted four studies that hang together to motivate the potential use of AI for strengthening the design and delivery of participation-focused pediatric care. These studies together form a foundation for her to establish a research program. As a next step for an aspiring academic, Vera is committed to pursuing postdoctoral training opportunities both domestically and abroad.
Vera Shares: It has been the most wonderful journey to pursue my PhD at CPERL, with Dr. Mary Khetani as my dissertation chair and Drs. Dana Anaby, Andy Boyd, Natalie Parde, and Martha Werler as my committee members. With this team, I was fortunate to be surrounded by talent, passion, brilliance, and commitment through which I was supported during challenging and joyful times. I had the opportunity to be exposed to a new client group, new methods, and new area of research. They taught me so many useful skills that I will carefully keep in my tool box for future work.
Mary Shares: I might have had to wait longer than most to mentor a PhD student, but Vera has made it worth my wait. Her creativity, tenacity, and collaborative spirit have filled our lab with many milestones and memories. She chose to take important risks in her dissertation research along multiple dimensions, to be more inclusive in who she engages as part of this scientific topic, what she chooses to examine, and how she chooses to engage the kind of team that is needed to break new ground in elevating this science to new heights for clinical impact. It has certainly not been without its challenges, tensions, and fears … but she showed us that it has been without regret. The innovations that were baked into her science were also baked into the life she chose to build here as a PhD student with her family, modeling so well the importance of creativity and determination for work-life integration that also has had its challenges, tensions, and fears – but as she assures me, it too has been without regret. I used to tell Vera that it takes a village to raise such a creative, committed, and caring scientist. I am forever grateful that she chose us to be her village for this chapter, as she has become an integral part of ours. I trust that she can forge ahead, trusting that 'mentorship relationships are lifelong, not term limited'.
CPERL is happy to introduce Dr. Vera Kaelin, our lab's first PhD graduate! CONGRATULATIONS!