Associate Professor Rachael McDonald is a clinical, research and teaching Health Professional with an interest in enabling people with lifelong disabilities to participate in life situations. She has worked extensively in this field, within both children’s services and adult settings, and has worked in the area of wheelchair and seating provision and evaluation for over 20 years across the UK and Australia. She supervises research (honour’s, MSc and PhD) students specialising in the care of people with complex disability, and has published widely. She previously held a joint appointment with the Department of Occupational Therapy and the Centre for Developmental Disability Health Victoria at Monash University. Her role at CDDHV included health professional education and leading research activities, however her interest in using technology as an enabler but also as a tool for collecting objective evidence was a feature of her occupational therapy research. This interest has led to her recent appointment as the Chair of the Department of Health and Medical Science at Swinburne University of Technology, where this research is developing further and she is looking forward to more in depth applications of technology to improving the experience of people who use seating and wheelchairs.

Since qualifying as an Occupational Therapist in 1997, Liz has worked in several practice areas including acute care and rehabilitation in hospital settings and community rehabilitation in both New Zealand and the UK. 

Having enjoyed assistive technology thorough out her career, Liz began working in the field of complex wheelchairs and postural management in 2007.  Since then, she has worked in clinical, coaching and leadership roles within the wheelchair and seating. She has been involved extensively in service development, working groups and professional forums within the sector and is a member of the national Enable Panel for the credentialing of therapists in Wheeled Mobility and Postural Management – Level 2 and complex custom fabrication and has been a member of the planning committee for Oceania Seating Symposium - NZ.  Liz joined the Seating to Go team as Service Manager in 2021.

Rachel Hibbs, DPT, NCS, ATP/SMS is an Associate Professor and Director of Continuing Education in the Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology at the University of Pittsburgh. In her academic role, she teaches in the Master of Rehabilitation Technology and Doctor of Physical Therapy programs at the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh and provides clinical care at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Center for Assistive Technology and the UPMC Rehabilitation Institute.

Dr. Hibbs is Co-Director of the International Seating Symposium. She is active in the adaptive sports community as member of the Pittsburgh Steelwheelers Board of Directors, a Classifier for the National Wheelchair Basketball Association, and a member of the Pittsburgh Marathon Handcycle Assistance Team. 

Mark Schmeler, PhD, OTR/L, ATP is an Associate Professor and the Vice Chair for Clinical Services & Policy in the Department of Rehabilitation Science & Technology at the University of Pittsburgh. He is also the co-director of the International Seating Symposium. He has 35+ years of clinical experience and serves as the Director of the Center for Assistive Technology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. 

He is the co-developer of the Functional Mobility Assessment and oversees a national registry of large data related to mobility outcomes to assess the effectiveness of mobility assisted devices to more scientifically demonstrate what interventions work best for what types of people under varying disability and environmental conditions. Publications of his work are used to inform both practice and policy as well as to advocate for people with disabilities who use wheelchairs. He is a Fellow of the Rehabilitation Engineering & Assistive Technology Society of North America.

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We are excited to join the team and deliver OSS 2025 in Rotorua.  

Marleen Goedhart & Dean Bradley 
Icon Conference & Event Management Ltd

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