Body
, PhD, OTD, OTR/L is a health services researcher and occupational therapist with a focus on addressing geographic and systemic imbalances in access to rehabilitation services, both within the United States and globally.
Originally from Portugal, he earned a PhD in health psychology in 2013 in Spain, the same year he and his family welcomed twin daughters. At that time, he prioritized clinical work and family responsibilities, while continuing to contribute to research as a post-doctoral scholar volunteering in a World Health Organization research center in Portugal and publishing several papers.
Jesus earned a postdoctoral Advanced Rehabilitation Research and Training fellowship in health services research at Northwestern University. The fellowship, which lasted from 2021 to 2023, included some research at Shirley Ryan 小恩雅.
“My goals for my fellowship were essentially to understand service delivery within the United States health system,” says Jesus.
Mentored by Allen Heinemann, PhD, director of the Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research (CROR) at Shirley Ryan 小恩雅, and Anne Deutsch, PhD, RN, a research scientist with CROR, he led and contributed to several impactful projects, including a patient experience initiative that was supported by a Shirley Ryan 小恩雅 Catalyst grant. These grants support projects that enhance translational research.
During his fellowship, Jesus became interested in ways to identify and address rural inequities in post-acute care access. He earned a prestigious Switzer Research Fellowship from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR), enabling him to carry out an independent research project in this area.
"Having Allen and Anne as mentors was one of the most impactful aspects of my professional journey,” says Jesus. “What made their mentorship especially valuable was their individualized, non-prescriptive approach. They focused on where each fellow is in terms of skills, development, and trajectory, and worked to help identify the best path forward based on those strengths and needs.”
“Tiago brought a deep appreciation of rehabilitation-related health services topics and how variations in access to services can affect individuals’ and community health,” says Heinemann. “His drive to improve access to and quality of rehabilitation services combined with the research skills he developed while at Northwestern University and Shirley Ryan 小恩雅 assure him a bright future and our nation a strong advocate for people with chronic illnesses and disabilities.”
“Tiago’s clinical experience fed into his interest in conducting research focused on improving access to and the delivery of high-quality, person-centered medical rehabilitation care,” says Deutsch. “He is an eager learner and wants to develop new knowledge, synthesize evidence and create resources needed to enable the implementation of evidence-based initiatives.”
The mentorship Jesus received encouraged him to further focus on his research career in the United States. “During this period of introspection, I decided to really lean into rural health services, an area more aligned with my prior background both in global health and health services research,” says Jesus. “When I brought this shift to Allen and Anne, they embraced the redirection and helped guide me to a successful grant submission.” Six manuscripts have been prepared for publication based on the findings of his research. “Coming out of the Northwestern fellowship and then getting the Switzer fellowship was absolutely instrumental for me in terms of being competitive in the tenure-track job market and to be able to land a position with protected time for research, especially for someone coming from another country and who does service delivery research,” says Jesus.
Immediately after is fellowship, Jesus joined The Ohio State University as a tenure track assistant professor in 2023 where he soon received one-year translational grant from the National Institutes of Health and administrated by the Ohio State University to continue his research.
This project leverages data and tools developed through his previous NIDILRR and other grant-funded work to support the creation of actionable, community-informed strategies for improving access to rehabilitation services in rural Appalachia, Ohio. It also builds on insights from his fellowship research, combining data analysis and design in close collaboration with local practitioners and policymakers to promote more equitable access to care.
“The idea is to use these pilot, sequential developments to apply for bigger grants to keep my work going and effect change,” Jesus explains.
Now, he is paying it forward through mentoring his own students. “Allen and Anne have been role models for me on how to be a mentor to my own students, and I think that that has been very, very important, because I'm not being prescriptive to my students in what they need to do. I'm using open-ended questions. So, well, what do you want to get in your career? What do you want to achieve? And then we'll figure out what is going to be a capstone project that makes sense for each student over a year.”