2023: MJ Mulcahey, PhD, OTR/L, CPPC, CLCP, FASIA

--Chair, American Occupational Therapy Foundation (AOTF)
--Professor of occupational therapy and director of the Center for Outcomes and Measurement, Jefferson College of Rehabilitation Sciences, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia

MJ Mulcahey is a professor of occupational therapy, director of the Center for Outcomes and Measurement, and interim associate dean of research in Jefferson College of Rehabilitation Sciences, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia. She has over 30 years of experience as an occupational therapy practitioner, educator and researcher. She served as principal investigator for a seminal multi-center study on the psychometric properties of the International Standards for Neurological Classification of Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) in children, which subsequently led to evidence-informed guidelines on evaluation of the neurological consequence of SCI in children and was the first study aimed at establishing imaging biomarkers of pediatric SCI.

Mulcahey has developed and validated child- and parent-reported outcome measures using contemporary measurement methodologies, 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. She has extensive experience in the neurologically impaired upper extremity, and has worked with children and adults following nerve and tendon transfers, and implantation of functional electrical stimulation systems to restore arm and hand function. Her clinical expertise is in the rehabilitation of children with neurological conditions, namely spinal cord injury, cerebral palsy, arthrogryposis, and brachial plexus birth injury.

She is a fellow of the American Spinal Injury Association, chair of the board of trustees of the American Occupational Therapy Foundation, and chair of the board of directors of the Steel Assembly for Pediatric Spinal Cord Injury. She has received over $3 million dollars in research awards and published more than 200 peer-reviewed manuscripts, 25 book chapters and two books. She is the 2021 recipient of the Association of SCI Professional’s Comarr Memorial Award for Distinguished Service to the Field of Spinal Cord Injury and the 2022 American Spinal Injury Association Lifetime Achievement Award. Mulcahey is also a certified life care planner, health coach and positive psychology coach.