She also served as the founding chair/professor of the DPT program, and executive director and chief executive officer for the Institute for Health Care and Research at Slippery Rock University, Pennsylvania. She has been in consulting and advisory positions with One Source, a board member of the U.S. Bone and Joint Institute representing the ACR, and serves as an expert witness. Dr. Richardson earned a doctorate and a Master of Science from the University of Pittsburgh, her post-graduate physical therapy education from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and a Bachelor of Science from Pennsylvania State University, State College.
Active in the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) at both the national and local levels, Dr. Richardson was APTA president, served as the U.S. delegate to the World Confederation of Physical Therapy, was a member of the executive committee of the APTA Board of Directors, and served as chair of the national TriAlliance of the APTA/American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA)/American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and the American Board of Physical Therapy Specialties (ABPTS) Task Force for Specialization.
Dr. Richardson has also served as the president of the ARP and on the executive committee of the ACR. Additionally, she initiated the physical therapy component of the Global Health Outreach Initiative at Duke University, traveling to India and Kuwait in the process. She served as a volunteer with a healthcare system in western Pennsylvania and with the Western Pennsylvania Hospital Council.
Dr. Richardson has received numerous awards and honors throughout her career, including the Catherine Worthingham Fellow Award (APTA), Lucy Blair Service Award (APTA) and the Stanley Paris Award (AOPTA/APTA) and was selected nationally as an Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine Fellow (ELAM).
With her co-investigator, Chad Cook, Dr. Richardson pioneered early work in the establishment of valid and reliable scales for pain and disability. Further areas of research included validation of an item bank in community-dwelling survivors of stroke, looking into the meta-analyses of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) treatments supported by biomedical oncology, and investigation into the use of physical therapy in patients hospitalized with a diagnosis of generalized weakness.
“I am honored to receive the Master’s designation from the ARP,” says Dr. Richardson. “The ARP has given me many opportunities throughout my career to serve in leadership positions and to contribute to the vision and goals of the ACR Association. The relationships that I have developed with colleagues have strengthened my abilities to enhance practice, advance research and foster education for the patients we serve and the profession of rheumatology.”
