APTANJ Congratulates Alma S. Merians, PT, PhD, Newest APTA Catherine Worthingham Fellow

APTANJ is proud to announce that Alma Merians has been named a 2024 Catherine Worthingham Fellow. This honor recognizes the significant contributions made to the field of physical therapy, and for exemplifying excellence in the fields of education, practice and service, publications, research, and academics.

An APTANJ member since 1976, Dr. Merians’ main focus is to study basic mechanisms underlying neuromuscular control of human movement and sensorimotor learning and to utilize technology-assisted rehabilitation to re-train people with neurological diseases like stroke or cerebral palsy. She was one of the pioneering groups to use interactive, adaptive robotics and virtual reality simulations for hand training in people with hemiplegia post-stroke and has been integral to the development of the system*.

She is a distinguished professor and the Chairperson of the Department of Rehabilitation and Movement Sciences at Rutgers University.

Congratulations from all of us at APTANJ on such a prestigious honor!