Dana McCarty, PT, DPT, PhD, shared her research and expertise at two major international conferences this past summer. In June 2025, she was invited to speak on a panel titled “Exploring the Intersection Between Therapeutic Interventions for Infants and Parent-Child Dyad” at the 4th Triennial Meeting of the International Alliance of Academies of Childhood Disability (IAACD) and the 37th Annual Meeting of the EuropeanAcademy of Childhood-Onset Disability (EACD) in Heidelberg, Germany.
In addition, McCarty presented with UNC Neonatal Intensive Care Unit PT Fellow Jennifer Bosserman, PT, DPT, PCS at the International Congress on Early Sensorimotor Development and Neurodevelopmental Disorders at the University of Tours in France. Together, they shared preliminary findings from a feasibility trial using a portable force plate to measure the center of pressure in preterm infants at term-equivalent age.
Lastly, McCarty presented a poster highlighting the reduction of salivary cortisol—a potential physiological marker of reduced stress—observed in parents after they massaged their preterm infants.