Becky Molinini, PT, DPT, PhD, has been awarded a T32 Institutional Research Training Grant through the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) Supplement Program to Promote Diversity in Health Research. Based in the UNC School of Medicine’s Program on Integrative Medicine (PIM), the fellowship offers mentorship from leading faculty with expertise in diverse methodologies, perspectives, and approaches related to Complementary and Integrative Health research, particularly for at-risk and underrepresented populations.
Prior to joining the T32 training program, Becky completed her PhD at Virginia Commonwealth University in Rehabilitation and Movement Science followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in the Partnership for People with Disabilities in the School of Education also at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her research is guided by her years of clinical experience working as a physical therapist with young children with disabilities and their families in North Carolina and abroad in Cape Town, South Africa.
Dr. Molinini’s dissertation research focused on the three-way relationship between gross motor development, synchrony of parent-child relationships, and pediatric physical therapy interventions. Her dissertation results support that:
- Gross motor development facilitates synchrony of parent-child interactions.
- Pediatric physical therapy interventions impact parent-child relationships with some interventions supporting dyadic synchrony while other interventions were associated with less synchrony over time.
- Synchrony of parent-child relationships predict steeper growth in children’s global development.
Her T32 proposed research plan builds off her dissertation findings and includes engaging with stakeholders to design a holistic physical therapy intervention that supports family well-being during the transition from the NICU to home. Additionally, she is using parental EEG recordings during parent-child interactions in the NICU and at home to identify neurological mechanisms for alterations in inter-personal familial relationships and parental mental health commonly seen following a preterm birth and subsequent prolonged NICU stay.