Stephanie Rigot, DPT, PhD

Stephanie Rigot, DPT, PhD, is a Post-Doctoral Fellow and Physical Therapist within the Max Näder Center for Rehabilitation Technologies & Outcomes Research in the Regenstein Foundation Center for Bionic Medicine at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. Dr. Rigot graduated in 2015 from the University of Rochester with a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering and minor in Psychology as a Social Science. Dr. Rigot then became a member of the inaugural class of the dual Doctor of Physical Therapy- PhD in Bioengineering program at the University of Pittsburgh and graduated with her DPT in 2018 and PhD in 2021. As a graduate student, Dr. Rigot won multiple funding awards including a TL1 Clinical and Translational Science Post-doctoral Fellowship and a NIH F30 Individual Pre-doctoral Fellowship and produced nearly a dozen peer-reviewed publications.

Dr. Rigot's research is broadly focused on improving the quality of life for individuals with limb loss, spinal cord injury and other neurological impairments with emphasis on improving physical activity and mobility, wearable sensors, neuromuscular and mobility prognosis, the relationship between pain and mobility and wheelchair transfers. Her dissertation work was aimed at developing a clinical prediction model using machine learning and limb accelerations from wearable sensors to predict long-term ambulatory ability for individuals with a new spinal cord injury. Currently, her primary research focuses are:

1. developing a clinical toolbox to improve prosthesis prescription and identify when individuals with lower limb loss are in need of intervention to maximize their mobility and participation, and
2. improving the physical activity of individuals with spinal cord injury through personalized, adaptive, machine learning-driven telehealth interventions