People

ASPIRe Lab Co-Directors

Tracy Mroz, PhD, OTR/L Tracy Mroz is an Associate Professor in the Division of Occupational Therapy in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Washington. She is a health services researcher whose research agenda focuses on the impact of policy and delivery systems on access to and quality of post-acute care. Dr. Mroz has clinical experience with adults and older adults with physical disabilities across the health care continuum, including acute, post-acute, and community-based care. Dr. Mroz is currently co-leading the Post-Acute Care (PAC) Policy Impact Study on the impact of payment reform and the COVID-19 pandemic on home health agencies and skilled nursing facilities. As an investigator with the WWAMI Rural Health Research Center and the UW Center for Health Workforce Studies, she is also leading research on post-acute care in rural communities and the therapy workforce. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the Health Resources and Services Administration. In addition, Dr. Mroz co-directs an Advanced Rehabilitation Research and Training (ARRT) program in disability and aging policy research for postdoctoral fellows funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research. She also serves on the Quality Advisory Team of the American Occupational Therapy Association and on the Advisory Committee for the Long-Term Services and Supports Interest Group of AcademyHealth. Education Postdoctoral Fellowship in Delivery System Science 2013-14 | Group Health Research Institute PhD in Health Services Research and Policy 2013 | Johns Hopkins University MS in Occupational Therapy 2005 | Boston University BA in Classics 1999 | Princeton University

Rachel Prusynski, DPT, PhD Rachel Prusynski is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Physical Therapy in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Washington. Her health services research agenda focuses on the intersections between health and reimbursement policy, therapy practice, and patient outcomes in post-acute care, specifically Skilled Nursing Facilities. She is a board certified clinical specialist in Neurologic Physical Therapy with a decade of clinical experience across the continuum from ICU to community-based care. Her experience in Haiti and in the U.S. working with low-income older adults guides her research interests in quality of care and equity for historically marginalized communities.  Dr. Prusynski is a Learning Health System scholar with BAYADA Home Health and serves as co-investigator of the Post-Acute Care Policy Impact Study and her research has been funded by the Foundation for Physical Therapy Research, the Health Policy and Administration Section of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA), and the National Center for Advancing Translational Health Sciences through the Institute of Translational Health Science at the University of Washington. She serves on the APTA House of Delegates and as a member of the PT Journal editorial board.  She is the winner of the 2022 APTA Dorothy Briggs Memorial Scientific Inquiry Award, awarded to an author in the Association’s Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Journal (PTJ), whose research and discussion has made a measurable contribution to the knowledge base of physical therapy. Education PhD in Rehabilitation Science 2022 | University of Washington Predoctoral TL1 Translational Research Training Program 2021-22 | UW Institute for Translational Health Science Doctor of Physical Therapy 2012 | University of Puget Sound BS in Life Science, BA in Spanish 2009 | University of Portland

Trainees

Cait Brown, MA, CCC-SLP, PhD(c)

Cait Brown is a PhD student in the Rehabilitation Science program in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Washington.  A speech therapist by background, her broad research interest is in applying health services research methods to the field of speech-language pathology.  Cait has worked in clinical administration and practiced in skilled nursing facilities, in-patient rehabilitation, telehealth, and pediatric outpatient services.  She hopes to leverage those experiences to develop lines of research that are especially meaningful to clinicians and the patients they serve.

Cait Brown is currently an Institute of Translational Health Sciences TL1 program trainee, through which she is investigating outcomes for post-acute speech therapy in skilled nursing facilities. She has previously been funded through the University of Washington Top Scholar award.

MA in Communication Disorders

2015 | Louisiana State University

BA in Anthropology

2011 | Louisiana State University

 

Harsha Amaravadi, MPH, PhD(c)

Harsha Amaravadi is a PhD student in the Health Services Research program in the Department of Health Systems and Population Health at the University of Washington.  Harsha is a public health researcher interested in healthcare delivery system innovation with specific application to cancer care in the post-acute care setting. Her broad research interests include: understanding the role of the social determinants of health in payment reform, unintended ethical consequences of measurement in policy design, identifying facilitators and barriers of effective value-based care, and health policy evaluation.

For the past several years, Harsha has supported the implementation of various Medicare value-based care initiatives and has contributed to cost and quality measure development and implementation for the Merit Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and Post-Acute Care Quality Reporting Programs. She has also contributed to work that supports the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation in testing and implementing novel accountable care payment models in hospital and outpatient settings. Harsha is currently an AHRQ T32 program trainee and she has previously been funded through the University of Washington Top Scholar award.

MPH in Epidemiology & Biostatistics

2017 | Tufts University School of Medicine

BS in Biology & Community Health

2016 | Tufts University

 

Rachael Rosen, CPO, MPO

Rachael Rosen is a PhD candidate in the Rehabilitation Science program in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Washington. With a background as a prosthetist and orthotist, Rachael has clinical experience working in Level I trauma and pediatric hospitals across Washington State and Mississippi. These experiences have directly informed her research interests, which focus on evaluating health and mobility outcomes related to prosthetic and orthotic interventions. Additionally, Rachael has an interest in using big data and machine learning techniques to improve health equity, reduce disparities, and address social determinants of health for individuals who have had, or are at risk for, amputation.

Throughout her career, Rachael has been part of research teams that have developed and validated novel performance-based and self-report outcome measures for lower limb prosthesis users. For her dissertation, she is examining post-acute care outcomes in Medicare beneficiaries who have undergone lower limb amputation, specifically identifying disparities and predictors of hospital readmission.

Master of Prosthetics & Orthotics

2016 | University of Washington

BS in Kinesiology

2014 | Western Washington University

 

Samsun Naher, PhD, MA

Samsun Naher is an Advanced Training Fellowship in Rehabilitation Policy Research (ARRT) Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Washington. She is a health economist who is currently working on a pair of studies on medication use among people with disabilities. One study uses longitudinal survey data with people with long-term disabilities to examine the characteristics associated with reporting a participant’s barrier to medication use. Another study uses Medicare administration data to understand the changes in the availability of medication relevant to people with disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. An additional study is looking at the impact of changes in ownership in home health agencies on the quality of Medicare patient outcomes.

Dr. Naher completed a research grant from the Social Security Administration through University of Wisconsin-Madison (2021-2022). In her graduate research, Dr. Naher studied the interconnection between public policies (such as the Affordable Care Act and Supplemental Security Income program) and outcomes among vulnerable populations, especially disability claiming and prescription drug use for mental health. Moreover, some of her independent research includes environmental issues related to air pollution and housing prices, natural disasters and child health.

PhD in Economics

2023 | University of New Mexico

MA in Economics

2019 | University of New Mexico

MSS in Economics

2014 | Islamic University

BSS in Economics

2013 | Islamic University

 

Jordan Samford, MS, SPT

Jordan is a student physical therapist in the Doctor of Physical Therapy program at the University of Washington. He is participating in a DPT Capstone study with Dr. Prusynski examining relationships between therapy volume and patient outcomes in home health.

 

Alumni

Natasha Krugmeier, DPT