Victoria Moerchen

Victoria is an Associate Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences & Technology where she teaches lifespan Motor Behavior and the Pediatric clinical management courses in the Doctor of Physical Therapy Program. Additionally, in the College of Health Sciences, she advises MS and PhD students with whom she conducts research on early infant motor development, parent-infant interaction, and promotion and measurement of physical activity in pediatric clinical populations including Spina Bifida, Down syndrome, Prader-Willi syndrome, and Autism Spectrum Disorder. She is currently funded for research to examine the use of a lifespan physical activity test developed in her lab as a proxy measure for early identification of cognitive decline in individuals with Down syndrome, for which she and her students have participated in the UWM NSF i-Corps program. For nearly 2 decades, she has had federal funding from HRSA through which she led an interprofessional Maternal & Child Health Pipeline Training Program to support undergraduate students from under-represented groups in successfully entering graduate professional education in healthcare. Her work in this area has resulted in appointment to the Diversity Task Force for the Commission on Accreditation for Physical Therapy Education, a Stanford Award for Most Impactful Publication in the Journal of Physical Therapy Education in 2018, and an appointment to the National Maternal & Child Health Workforce Development Center. She serves on the Review Committee for the Physical Therapy Research Foundation, the Research Committee for the Academy of Pediatric Physical Therapy, and is a manuscript reviewer for 13 professional journals. Her service history at UWM includes University Relations Committee, Admissions and Records Policy Committee, Research Policy and Advisory Committee, Faculty Rights and Responsibilities Committee, Faculty Senate, Senate Subcommittee for the Evaluation of Administrators, Rules Committee (chair and President Pro Tem) of the Faculty Senate, and the University Committee. She also serves on the UW-System President’s Advisory Council on Disability Issues.