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Weiwei Li, PhD, is a postdoc fellow in Center for Education in Health Sciences in the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. Her path from occupational therapy to rehabilitation research spans continents and is shaped by both personal experience and a commitment to bridging the gap between evidence and practice.
Originally born in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Providence, Li began her higher education journey in the United States, completing her undergraduate degree in health sciences at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri before pursuing a master’s in occupational science and therapy at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Reflecting on her motivation to enter the field, she shared how she would watch her mother interacting with patients as a family medicine physician in China, “I saw how she really helped them recover, and that really inspired me to go into the health field.”
During her graduate training, Li was drawn to the hands-on, patient-centered nature of occupational therapy, particularly the opportunity to work closely with individuals over time to support meaningful functional goals.
When she was ready to start the clinical practice part of her education, the COVID pandemic hit, and many students went home to continue their education online. For Li, this meant going back to China, where she was able to work hands-on with patients at the China Rehabilitation Research Center in Beijing. There, she encountered a striking gap between rehabilitation research, as she had seen in the United States, and clinical practice. Much of the care she observed relied on outdated approaches, and rehabilitation was often underutilized or initiated too late to maximize recovery. These experiences, coupled with the loss of her uncle following a stroke, deeply influenced her research trajectory and strengthened her commitment to advancing rehabilitation science. She explained, “I really felt the disconnection between research and practice when I was practicing in China, and I wanted to do research that could guide evidence-based care.”
Li returned to the United States to pursue her PhD at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she joined the Disability Participation and Quality of Life Lab. Her research focused on emergency preparedness, fall prevention, and community participation among individuals with disabilities, particularly those who use mobility devices such as wheelchairs and scooters. Her dissertation work centers on developing fall prevention strategies for post-stroke individuals with mobility limitations, addressing a population often overlooked in rehabilitation research that typically prioritizes ambulatory stroke survivors. “There are still many people who remain non-ambulatory after stroke, and they are often not included in research or intervention development,” says Li.
Her work has been supported by multiple funding sources, including an Advanced Rehabilitation Research Training Grant in Community Living and Participation from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR). She earlier received a competitive grant from NIDILRR for her doctoral dissertation project that aligned with her interest in rehabilitation and social participation. She connected with one of her current mentors, Alex Wong, PhD, DPhil, assistant director of the Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research (CROR), through a referral that highlighted strong alignment in research interests. Their shared focus on reducing social isolation and improving community integration for individuals with disabilities has become a central theme of her current work.
"Weiwei and I are united by a passion for advancing social and community participation, striving to develop evidence-based strategies that enhance community living outcomes for people with disabilities,” says Wong. “We seek to harness technology-based solutions to pragmatically test and implement strategies to elevate quality of life and support meaningful inclusion.”
Looking ahead, Li envisions a career that integrates research, practice, and systems-level change, particularly in China, where she sees significant unmet needs in rehabilitation services. She noted, “My goal is to help develop rehabilitation science in China and make research and practice work together.”