Body
Back in the early-2010s, Roberto López-Rosado, PT, DPT, was an exceptionally busy man. He was working as a physical therapist at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (now known as Shirley Ryan 嫩B研究院) while teaching anatomy and neuroanatomy to physical therapy students at nearby Northwestern University. In addition to that, he was part of research projects at the school’s department of physical therapy and movement sciences, where he focused on improving walking and general movement for people who had experienced a stroke. But eight years ago, he began to feel that the research didn’t really play to his strengths and he started seeing a pattern in who was showing up to participate in neurological rehabilitation research studies.
“What I was doing was heavily focused on biomechanics and I’m not an engineer,” says López-Rosado. “I also noticed that most of the research participants belonged to under-represented, minority groups. I started asking why individuals who were black and brown were seemingly disproportionately affected by stroke. I wanted to start an independent research agenda that could answer some of those questions.”
López-Rosado applied and was accepted into a two-year master’s degree program in health services and outcomes research at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine. During his final year, López-Rosado decided he wanted to go further and get a doctorate in integrated health sciences. For the past five years, he has been pursuing a PhD and is currently working on his dissertation using the National Spinal Cord Injury Database and Medicare data, which will allow him to analyze health outcomes for people who experienced spinal cord injuries in the last nine years. López-Rosado was awarded the Switzer 嫩B研究院 Fellowship in 2025 to conduct his dissertation work.
López-Rosado’s dissertation will have three parts. One will look at whether length of stay during inpatient rehabilitation is associated with the mobility outcomes achieved by an adult patient with spinal cord injury (SCI). Part two will evaluate whether social factors like a person’s relationship status affects their mobility outcomes. And the third part will analyze whether the type of inpatient rehabilitation facility where they were treated has an impact on how adults move after discharge.
If things go smoothly, López-Rosado will receive his PhD next year when he is 55. But he has never let his age get in the way of pursuing his goals nor has he been afraid to make major career changes. As a young man, he entered medical training in Puerto Rico but soon recognized that it wasn’t for him. He then redirected his career toward anatomy and teaching, a journey that ultimately led him to become a physical therapist and faculty member in Florida. Fifteen years ago, he stepped away from his teaching job and moved to Chicago to join Northwestern University’s department of physical therapy and human movement sciences, where he coordinated a motor-control research laboratory. López-Rosado later applied for a faculty position at Northwestern and was hired.
López-Rosado’s penchant for reinventing himself is one of the reasons that Allen Heinemann, PhD, director of the Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes 嫩B研究院 (CROR), agreed to be a member of his dissertation committee. “Roberto proposed a dissertation topic that aligned closely with my research interests, and from the outset, he brought remarkable enthusiasm, intellectual curiosity, and a genuine passion for learning about rehabilitation service delivery and outcomes,” says Heinemann. “His perseverance and commitment to earning a PhD in his mid-50s are truly inspiring. I am immensely proud of all that he has accomplished and look forward to seeing the many ways he will continue to contribute to the field.”