Julia Manczurowsky blends PT, robotics and social psychology to transform rehabilitation and promote clinician-researcher roles.
Julia Manczurowsky, a doctoral candidate in human movement and rehabilitation at Northeastern University, is forging a unique path in the field of physical therapy.
Her journey began as an undergraduate at Northeastern, where she created a unique co-op opportunity for herself in Uganda. After graduation, she became a traveling physical therapist, gaining experience across various health care settings.
Now, she is at the forefront of Northeastern’s Ph.D. program in human movement and rehabilitation sciences as the first clinical doctor of physical therapy in the program. She’s also the first in her department to receive the prestigious Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health.
“I didn’t necessarily see much representation of being a clinician-researcher in my clinical career,” Manczurowsky says. “I really want to increase the visibility that this is a career path that clinicians can take, especially people who maybe are more inclined to ask rigorous questions.”
Her research integrates physical therapy with social psychology to improve rehabilitation outcomes using robotics.
“Her proposed research is very interdisciplinary, cutting across many fields,” says CJ Hasson, director of the Neuromotor Systems Laboratory and Manczurowsky’s adviser. “It represents the integration of clinical expertise and research.”
Every year, about 800,000 Americans suffer strokes, often resulting in long-term mobility issues. Physical therapy is vital for recovery after a stroke or another neurological injury as it provides movement-based treatments to help patients improve muscle control and movement, regain independence and get back to work.
Robotic exoskeletons, or wearable devices that assist with standing and movement, have become part of modern therapy. But patients can grow overly dependent on assistance, whether from a robot or a therapist, limiting the development of motor skills and regeneration of neural pathways.
Ultimate success of rehabilitation, Hasson says, depends on patients’ active engagement and trying to do the motions, even if they can’t.
Manczurowsky’s dissertation tackles this issue by exploring whether the Köhler Effect — a social phenomenon in which people increase effort when they feel like a less capable member of the group — can help patients stay more engaged during therapy.
By making patients aware of how much robotic assistance they’re receiving in real time, Manczurowsky hopes they will remain more engaged and avoid becoming reliant on the assistance.
“That way, when the support is removed, they can still retain and apply the skill,” she says.
Manczurowsky credits Charles Hillman, associate director of the Center for Cognitive and Brain Health at Northeastern and a co-adviser on Manczurowsky’s NIH submission, with helping her shape her interdisciplinary approach to the problem and in leveraging the principles of social psychology.
Manczurowsky’s work introduces several innovations, Hasson says, including telerobotics, when a physical therapist can control a robotic exoskeleton remotely, and the use of temporary artificial impairments in healthy study participants through electrical stimulation.
Manczurowsky has had to dive into robotics and programming to pursue this research.
“That reflects her personality and drive to keep her eye on the ball and stay innovative even when faced with these challenges,” he says. “She’s learned to speak the language [of these systems] and understand these things in a way that will benefit her in the future.”
Manczurowsky grew up in a small suburban community in Central Massachusetts, minutes away from the Boston Marathon’s starting line.
As a child, she was a competitive gymnast and later a cheerleader, which led to injuries, she says, and her first experiences with physical therapy as a patient.
Her mother, a nurse, inspired her, her twin sister Kayla and their younger sister Sofia to become health care professionals.
“She demonstrated this high-level role model of being a strong person who cared about other individuals and tried to make a difference in her community,” Manczurowsky says.
It was her mother who first suggested physical therapy as a possible career choice. Manczurowsky saw it, she says, as a way to combine her interests in science and health care with her firsthand experience in training and recovery.
“That’s what drew me then to look into Northeastern’s PT program, because it had this really nice integration of both didactic, really rigorous academic training with real-world connection and contribution,” she says.
The program offered a lot of volunteering opportunities, she says, that exposed her to different specialties within the profession.
But it was her co-op in Uganda, Manczurowsky says, that ultimately drove her career choices. After hearing about the Tunaweza Children’s Centre in Kampala providing children with disabilities access to physical therapy and day programs, she arranged to work there for six months.
“I’ve tried to choose my opportunities and capitalize on what Northeastern offers to maximize exactly who I want to be,” Manczurowsky says. “Northeastern has never told me what to do or has never said ‘no’ to me, and having that support and knowing that I can make my future what I want it to be can be really inspiring.”
In Uganda, she helped run therapy sessions and visited rural homes for patients’ assessments and caregiver training. The children’s center had dirt floors, and spaces and resources were often shared with equipment often built by neighbors.
Manczurowsky learned some foundational skills from Ugandan physical therapists, she says, which fueled her interest in how the profession works outside the U.S.
“Through that co-op experience I definitely learned that the environment shapes a lot of the approach,” she says. “I learned those early-on skills of problem-solving, being adaptable and working with what’s around me.”
These lessons proved useful later, when she worked on the West Coast with similarly limited resources.
After graduation, Manczurowsky pursued travel assignments, which expanded her skills and confidence.
Just as she was preparing to take an assignment in Alaska, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. At the same time, she was reflecting on how to expand her impact beyond one-on-one patient care.
Curious about research, Manczurowsky reached out to Hasson, her former capstone mentor, and learned about Northeastern’s new Ph.D. program. She saw a potential to influence clinical practice by studying how social dynamics and feedback exchange with a patient shape therapeutic outcomes.
Manczurowsky discovered an inspiring environment in academia that has been both rigorous and intellectually stimulating, she says, and encouraged interdisciplinary collaboration and a high level of creativity.
“I’m forging this new path,” she says. “And I feel like I belong somewhere, which is really meaningful.”
Her Ph.D. journey has also opened unexpected doors, including opportunities to work with professional athletes and to travel to Switzerland and spend a couple of months at a world-renowned robotics lab at ETH Zurich.
Manczurowsky continues to bridge the gap between clinical work and research, while also practicing as a home care physical therapist in the area.“This is a viable career path that is meaningful to the field because if we don’t get these really basic questions answered, we don’t necessarily know what ingredients of the therapeutic experience are actually going to make a difference,” she says.