healthcare mentorship program

Kinesiology/Clinical Exercise Physiology

Shirley Ryan AbilityLab
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Children’s Memorial Hospital

Deborah Gaebler-Spira completed a Pediatric residency at the University of Chicago and then pursued a residency in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation residency at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (previously Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago). She is board certified in Pediatrics, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine. She has been affiliated with Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Children’s Memorial Hospital as a Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Pediatrics at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab for 25 years.

Her primary clinical work is with children with cerebral palsy and spasticity management. She is past president of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine. Her research interests have been in management of spasticity and have obtained United Cerebral Palsy grants to evaluate the impact of Botulinum Toxins on the child as well as dance for motor learning and the child with cerebral palsy. She has collaborated with the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago Bioengineers on measurement of Hypertonia and worked with the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers grant “Technologies for Children with Orthopedic Disabilities.”

Assistant Professor
Department of Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences
Department of Pediatrics
Northwestern University

Dr. Theresa Sukal Moulton is an Assistant Professor at Northwestern University in the Department of Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences and the Department of Pediatrics. Dr. Moulton’s current role at Northwestern includes education of approximately 95 Doctor of Physical Therapy students per year in the areas of neuroscience, technology, pediatric physical therapy, and mentored research projects. In her own research, she investigates the underlying neural mechanisms of selective motor control in children and young adults with cerebral palsy, as well as infants who are at high potential of a cerebral palsy diagnosis. She serves as an assessor for several early intervention trials and loves to watch motor learning in action at these young ages. Also trained as an engineer, Theresa is most comfortable tinkering, graphing data, and finding creative and practical approaches to rehabilitation science, movement quantification, and mobility support. She collaborates with community partners in team-based activity interventions that use running frames for adolescents with movement challenges where athletes train together and participate in a community run event at the end of the season.

Dr. Moulton completed her PhD and DPT at Northwestern University and post-doctoral training in Dr. Diane Damiano’s laboratory at NIH. Theresa has been an active member of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine, serving in a range of leadership and service roles, as well as a longstanding member of the American Physical Therapy Association.