Dr. Deirdre Dawson, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Occupational Science & Occupational Therapy at the University of Toronto and Rehabilitation Sciences Institute, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, and a Senior Scientist with the Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Health Sciences, Toronto. She is a licensed occupational therapist in Ontario, Canada and worked clinically for 10 years prior to doing her graduate studies. She was inducted into the American Occupational Therapy Foundation’s Academy of Research in 2014 and in 2015, she was awarded the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine Mitchell Rosenthal Award and an Award for Continuing Excellence in Graduate Teaching and Mentorship from the University of Toronto.

Dr. Dawson’s research has been funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation, Quebec Rehabilitation Research Network and the Canadian Partnership in Stroke Recovery. Her scholarship focuses on understanding how cognitive processes in acquired brain disorders and aging affect people’s abilities to be autonomous in community living and on developing and evaluating effective interventions that promote participation in every-day life. Her work spans from ecologically valid assessment of cognitive impairments to occupationally based cognitive rehabilitation approaches to investigating the benefits of community support programs.