Rebecca Abbott, PhD

Post-doc scholar, TRACT TL1 Program

Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Medical School

Primary mentor: Arin Ellingson, Medical School
Additional mentor: Paula Ludewig, Medical School

Project: Pathomechanical characterization of spinal motion in hypermobility spectrum disorders to facilitate targeted treatments

Rebecca is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine. Her research investigates intersegmental cervical spine kinematics, with a special interest in joint instability and hypermobility. She earned her PhD in Mechanical Engineering and Doctorate of Physical Therapy from Northwestern University in Chicago. Her PhD work involved developing an active machine learning framework to estimate the strength of individual neck muscles, utilizing a combination of musculoskeletal modeling, statistical inference, and information theory. Rab earned her Bachelors of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University, and worked as an engineer for a start-up medical device company for 3 years before entering graduate school. In her free time, she enjoys good food, hiking, and hanging out with her dog, Ramen.