Heidi Fischer

Heidi C. Fischer

Clinical Associate Professor, Occupational Therapy

Office Phone

312-355-3184

Office

1919 W. Taylor St., 347 AHSB

Mail Code

811

Office Hours

By appointment

About

Heidi Fischer received a B.S. in Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1997 and M.S. and Doctoral degrees in Occupational Therapy from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1999 and 2015. Dr. Fischer is Director of the UIC OT Faculty Practice: Self-Management for People Experiencing Chronic Conditions. She worked at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab for 14 years as a clinical OT, research OT and Clinical Research Coordinator and served as Quality Consultant for the American Occupational Therapy Association. She is co-investigator for 2 federally funded research grants and is co-author of over 45 articles, 2 book chapters and presented at over 50 national and international conferences. Her scholarly interests include self-management for people with chronic conditions including stroke and diabetes; addressing health disparities in clinical service contexts with underserved communities; and novel technology to improve stroke rehabilitation. Dr. Fischer was a UIC University Fellow, recipient of the Excalibur Award for Teaching Excellence in 2016, 2019 and 2021, the 2020 AHS Educator of the Year award from UIC and the UIC Teaching Recognition Award 2020-2021.

Service to the Community

Dr. Fischer leads a collaborative with the Rehabilitation Measures Database at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab to develop and publish new instrument summaries. To date our OT students have submitted over 65 summaries and 3 have been published in peer-reviewed journals.