Dr. Emily Keshner, PT, EdD

Professor and Chair

Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering, Temple University

Adjunct Professor, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Feinburg School of Medicine, Northwestern University

Director, Virtual Environment and Postural Orientation Laboratory

(http://chpsw.temple.edu/chpsw/vepolab/index.htm)

https://sites.google.com/a/temple.edu/tcave/the-team

Director of Research Strategy, CHPSW

3307 North Broad Street

Jones Hall, Room 600

Philadelphia, PA 19140

Fax: 215-707-7500

215-707-4815

emily.keshner@temple.edu

Biography

Dr. Emily Keshner received her Certificate in Physical Therapy at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University. She received her doctoral degree in Movement Science at Teachers College, Columbia University. She then pursued postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Oregon and the University Hospital in Basel, Switzerland; both in the area of postural control in healthy and vestibular deficient adults. Following that she was a Research Associate in the Dept. of Physiology, Northwestern University, where she performed both animal and human research. She then worked as a Research Scientist in the Sensory Motor Performance Program at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago with a faculty position in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Northwestern University until she came to Temple University in 2006. Dr. Keshner has been continuously funded from the National Institutes of Health since 1989. She currently teaches in the PhD program in the Department of Physical Therapy.

Publications/Presentations

Keshner, E.A. (2007). Postural abnormalities in vestibular disorders. In S. Herdman (ed.), Vestibular Rehabilitation, Vol. 3. F.A. Davis Co., Philadelphia, PA.

Keshner EA and Dhaher, Y (2008). Characterizing head motion in 3 planes during combined visual and base of support disturbances in healthy and visually sensitive subjects. Gait and Posture, 28: 127-134.

Haran FJ and Keshner EA (2008). Sensory reweighting as a method of balance training for vestibular loss. Journal of Neurologic Physical Therapy, 32: 186-191.

Dvorkin A, Kenyon RV, and Keshner EA (2009). Effects of roll visual motion on online control of arm movement: Reaching within a dynamic virtual environment. Experimental Brain Research, 193: 95-107.

Dokka K, Kenyon RV, Keshner EA (2009). Influence of visual motion and support surface cues on segmental orientation. Gait and Posture, 30: 211-216.Slaboda JC, Barton JE, and

Keshner EA (2009). Influence of moving visual environment on Sit-to-stand kinematics in children and adults. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 109: 121-132.

Keshner, E.A. (2009). Vestibulocollic and Cervicocollic Control. In M.D. Binder, N. Hirokawa, and U. Windhorst (eds.), Encyclopedia of Neuroscience, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, Germany, pp. 4220-4224.

Keshner, E.A. (2009). Vestibulospinal Responses. In M.D. Binder, N. Hirokawa, and U. Windhorst (eds.), Encyclopedia of Neuroscience, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, Germany, pp. 4250-4253.

Keshner, E.A. and Kenyon, R.V. (2009). Postural and spatial orientation driven by virtual reality. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 145: 209-228.

A. Gaggioli, E.A. Keshner, G. Riva, and T. Weiss (eds.), Innovations in Rehabilitation, IOS Press, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2009.

Gurses S, Kenyon RV, and Keshner EA (2011). Examination of time-varying kinematic responses to support surface disturbances. Biomedical Signal Processing and Control, 6: 85-93.

Slaboda JC, Lauer R, and Keshner EA. (2011). Age-Related changes in transient and adapted postural responses to combined physical and visual perturbations. Neuroscience Letters,91:138-42.

Slaboda JC, Lauer R, and Keshner EA. (2011) Continuous visual field motion impacts the postural responses of older and younger women during and after support surface tilt. Experimental Brain Research, 211: 87-96.

Grants & Contracts

NIH / NICHHD HD069769-01A1 (Lauer, R. PI) Balance and Posture in Adults with Cerebral Palsy

NIA AG026470 ARRA Supplemental Award to Support Undergraduate Research

NIA/NINDS AG026470 Posture and Orientation in Older Adults and Post-Stroke

Temple University Research Seed Grant: Development of a Lab to Explore Multimodal Control of Orientation in Space

Research

Dr. Keshner researches sensorimotor integration and how conflicting sensory feedback demands influence the ability to organize effective postural behaviors. Through her work, she examines how the central nervous system uses the neural and biomechanical components of complex, whole body movements when engaged in postural and orientation tasks. The goal of this research is to develop new treatment interventions which will effectively reduce instability and falls in aging and clinical populations. She has created the Virtual Environment and Postural Orientation Laboratory (http://chpsw.temple.edu/chpsw/vepolab/index.htm) for both experimental and clinical testing of postural reactions within a simulated dynamic visual environment. She studies several populations including healthy adults and those with balance problems and central nervous system disorders such as stroke, to understand how the control parameters change with age and neurological deficit. Her scientific work has taken an interdisciplinary approach, requiring the collaboration of physiologists, biomechanists, and bioengineers in order to identify the relative contributions of the neural and biomechanical mechanisms of head stabilization. To hear a podcast in which Dr. Keshner discusses falls in the elderly visit:
http://www.newsworks.org/components/com_flexicontent/uploads/10tefallme.mp3

For a demonstration of research in the laboratory visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SnUgMc_KJk

Clinical Interests

Dr. Keshner's vision for the discipline of Physical Therapy is that it becomes a key player, both in research and clinical application, in the fields of Motor Control and Rehabilitation Engineering. She believes that clinicians must become more intimately involved with engineers, biomechanists, and neuroscientists who are on the cutting edge of research dedicated toward identifying how the central nervous system controls motor behavior and how we might use new technologies to assist patients in recovering and sustaining motor function.