Current Members:

Contact Linda Linda Tickle-Degnen, Ph.D., OTR/L, FAOTA, Lab Director Professor Tickle-Degnen is Chair of the Department of Occupational Therapy at Tufts University. She teaches courses in evidence-based practice, clinical reasoning, research methods, and therapeutic behavior and motivation. Her research is directed toward understanding and promoting positive social functioning and wellness in Parkinson's disease and other chronic conditions. In particular she studies nonverbal and verbal communication, cross-cultural health care interactions, interpersonal rapport, engagement in meaningful daily activities, and quality of life. She is interested in increasing occupational therapists' participation in inter- and multi-disciplinary clinical interventions and research activities that have the goal of improving the health and quality of life of individuals with chronic conditions.  Learn more about Dr. Tickle Degnen's research > Review Dr. Tickle-Degnen's publications >

Contact Kathleen Kathleen Rives Bogart, M.A., Graduate Student Kathleen Rives Bogart is a doctoral candidate student in Experimental Psychology at Tufts University. She earned her M.A. in Social Psychology at San Francisco State University, where she completed her thesis study entitled, Facial Expression Recognition, Social Competence, and Adjustment in People with Moebius Syndrome. Her research focuses on how reduced facial movement affects social interaction, and how to facilitate emotional communication in people with facial movement disorders. An additional goal of her research is to identify effective verbal and nonverbal communication strategies that people with facial movement disorders can use to enhance communication. Read about her research in the New York Times Sciences Times. More information about Kathleen's research can be found on her website.

Contact Amanda Amanda Hemmesch, M. A., Graduate Student Amanda Hemmesch is a doctoral candidate in Social/Development Psychology at Brandeis University. Amanda's focus is on improving health, well-being, and quality of life for older adults. She is interested in how illness and psychosocial factors, especially social relationships, influence development and well-being throughout adulthood. Her current research examines interpersonal perception and social relations in the context of Parkinson's disease. Amanda's dissertation, Older Adults' First Impressions of Individuals with Parkinson's Disease: An Examination of Facial Masking, Abnormal Bodily Movement, and Target Gender on Impressions of Reciprocity, Social Behaviors, and Caregiving Burden and Reward, is a collaboration between Amanda, Dr. Leslie Zebrowitz at Brandeis University, and Dr. Linda Tickle-Degnen at Tufts University. Prior to joining the Health Quality of Life Lab, she worked with Dr. Aurora Sherman examining psychosocial influences of pain and well-being for individuals with osteoarthritis. Amanda completed her BA in psychology at the University of Minnesota, focusing her honors thesis on social preferences across the life span.

Past and Present Research Assistants:
 

Amy Demicco Carolina Ferrar Twyla Fink Rebecca Fitzhugh Fan-Pei Kung

Natasha Malkani Jasmine Owarish-Gross Jennifer Perlmutter Sarah Porter Lisa Ryan

Tara Soloman Tiffany Tu Caroline Wilkes

Lab Alumni:
 

Contact Pai-chuan Pai-chuan Huang, M. S., OT, Sc.D. Pai-chuan Huang received his Doctor of Science (ScD) degree in Rehabilitation Sciences at Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Boston University. Prior to joining the program, he worked as an occupational therapy teaching assistant at the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan, and as a part-time occupational therapist. Pai-chuan earned his B.A. degree in Occupational Therapy from the National Cheng Kung University in 1999 and his OT certification in Taiwan in 1999. As part of his dissertation, he analyzed data from Rehabilitation for the Self-Management of Parkinson’s Disease study (PI: Robert Wagenaar; Co-I Linda Tickle-Degnen) to explore rapport building capacity, facial expressiveness and social aspects of quality of life in Parkinson’s disease.

Contact Heather Heather Gray, Ph.D. Dr. Heather Gray is a Research Associate at the Division on Addictions, Cambridge Health Alliance, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, and an Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She received her PhD in social psychology from Harvard University in 2006, where she studied interpersonal sensitivity and social cognition. From 2006-2008, she was a post-doctoral fellow in the Health Quality of Life Lab, under a followship sponsored by Boston University's Health and Disability Research Institute. During her time in the Health Quality of Life Lab, Dr. Gray worked with Professor Tickle-Degnen on research studying how the symptoms of Parkinson's disease influence people's ability to broadcast and interpret thoughts, feelings, and personal character. Their meta-analysis of emotion recognition in Parkinson's disease was published in the journal Neuropsychology. More information about her research can be found on the Cambridge Health Alliance website. Photo courtesy of Division on Addictions, Harvard Medical School.

Contact Kayoko Kayoko Takahashi, Sc.D. Kayoko Takahashi received her Doctor of Science (ScD) degree in Rehabilitation Sciences at Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Boston University. Prior to joining the program, she worked as an occupational therapist specializing in improving physical function among people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and their families. Her primary areas of research are motivation, self-efficacy, and outcome expectancy in Parkinson’s disease. Her dissertation research involved developing an observational coding system using behavioral cues to identify motivational states in people with PD.