USA Professor and assistant visits the Human Movement Science Department at NMMU

USA Professor and assistant visits the Human Movement Science Department at NMMU 

Physical therapist and American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) member, Meredith H. Harris PT, DPT, EdD, is an associate professor at Northeastern University. 

She recently became a Fulbright Specialist in education with a sub-specialty in public/global health. She was also named as a Fulbright Scholar pursuing a research project on exercise at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. 

At Northeastern University, Professor Harris teaches the capstone physical therapy project course to engage faculty and students in research and community service learning to forward the goals of research in physical therapy and accomplish the mission of Bouve College and the university to address urban and global health issues. She has been active in APTA for many years, serving most recently on the ethics task force and on APTA’s awards committee. 

Her personal research interests are in fall prevention and the use of technology to measure balance in older adults, exercise to address health issues in childhood and adult obesity, and the use of exercise in HIV. She has spent many years with United Cerebral Palsy of New York state and Long Island University as a clinical physical therapist, facility manager, researcher, and advocate for children and adults with developmental disabilities. She was a member and chair of APTA’s committee on cultural competence and was charged to address the question of health disparities in physical therapy. 

She is currently a member of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) subcommittee charged to review proposals in rehabilitation. She is a former member and chair of the National Center of Medical Rehabilitation Research (NCMRR) advisory board of NIH. She is also an active member of her community on Cape Cod, serving as a board member of the Thornton Burgess Society and the altar guild of St John’s Episcopal Church in Sandwich, Massachusetts. 

Stephanie Koweek, who will be assisting Professor Harris, is a 4^th year physical therapy student at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. Stephanie has chosen to do her cooperative education in Port Elizabeth at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Merryvale School and Aurora Hospital.

At Northeastern University she is a member of the physical therapy club as a class representative for her physical therapy class of 2013. Her profession physical therapy and rehabilitation interests include paediatrics, developmental disabilities, amputees, and spinal cord injuries. She graduated high school in 2007 from Hudson High School in Hudson, New York. She has experience working with children teaching swimming lessons as well as working at a camp for special needs. 

We would like to wish Professor Harris and Stephanie all the best with the research project in South Africa.

  Professor Harris (left) and Stephanie Koweek (right)