Isabelle Gélinas, Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director in the School of Physical and Occupational Therapy in McGill’s Faculty of Medicine has received the 2016 Muriel Driver Memorial Lectureship Award from the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists (CAOT). The award was established to honour a member who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession through education, research and professional practice.
Dr. Gélinas is also a researcher at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation of Greater Montreal and an associate researcher at the McGill Center for Studies in Aging. She completed her undergraduate training in occupational therapy at the Université de Montréal in 1983. At a time when very few occupational therapists pursued graduate studies in occupational therapy, she studied in the United States, obtaining her M.Sc. in occupational therapy from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA in 1985. Her Ph.D. in Rehabilitation Sciences from McGill University followed in 1995, supported by a doctoral studentship from the Alzheimer Society of Canada.
Her doctoral thesis entitled “Disability assessment in dementia of the Alzheimer’s type” led to a decade of innovative contributions related to identifying, measurement and intervention in the functional status of this important group. Over the years, Dr. Gélinas has developed a research program focusing on the daily activities and the contextual factors (personal and environmental) that shape the level of social participation of adults and the elderly with disability. She has been instrumental in the development and promotion of graduate on-line certificates at the School which are targeted at clinicians who seek specialized training in specific domains.
“It is such an honour to receive this very prestigious award and to be recognized by my peers for my accomplishments and contributions to the profession,” said Gélinas upon receiving the award at the CAOT conference in Winnipeg at the end of May.
Congratulations Dr. Gélinas!