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Dr. Gina Tucker-Roghi, Chair of the Department of Occupational Therapy at ���ϸ�����, returned to Harvard Medical School earlier this month to serve as a guest facilitator for the Harvard Macy Institute’s Leading Innovations in Healthcare and Education program.

The Harvard Macy Institute prepares educators, clinicians, and administrators for leadership roles in healthcare and education. The Leading Innovations program brings together faculty from Harvard Medical School, Harvard Business School, and academic institutions around the world to guide scholars through frameworks like design thinking, disruptive innovation, and change leadership. Dr. Tucker-Roghi, whose expertise includes geriatric education, previously served as a scholar in 2022.

As a facilitator, Dr. Tucker-Roghi worked with scholars to help them integrate course principles into actionable strategies. She also guided small teams through a collaborative design challenge focused on leveraging technology to support personalized learning in health professions education.

Building on her work at the Harvard Macy Institute, Dr. Tucker-Roghi will begin integrating innovation-focused content into ���ϸ�����’s occupational therapy curriculum starting this coming fall. ���ϸ����� faculty, she notes, are interested in piloting new techniques to further infuse technology into ���ϸ�����’s person-centered and community-focused model of education.

“My goal is to foster collaborative, innovation-driven leadership development across disciplines,” Dr. Tucker-Roghi says.

As part of the doctoral course OT 6040: Leadership and Management, she will introduce frameworks and tools from Harvard Macy, such as design thinking and disruptive innovation, to help students develop leadership skills that support meaningful change in healthcare and education.

In Spring 2026, as part of her planned sabbatical, Dr. Tucker-Roghi will expand this innovation curriculum to include interdisciplinary learning opportunities for students across the School of Health and Natural Sciences, including nursing, physician assistant, and other health professions programs.

"I think this is a timely opportunity for us to model innovation and intelligent risk-taking for our students. As future OT practitioners, they will need to be fluent in using technology to build and deliver services that meet the occupational needs of society,” Dr. Tucker-Roghi says. “Part of our role as faculty is staying current, experimenting thoughtfully, and showing them how to lead in evolving practice environments." 

Dr. Tucker-Roghi has dedicated her career to advancing occupational therapy practice, education, and dementia care. She joined ���ϸ����� University in 2018 and became Chair of the Department in 2022.

In 2019, Dr. Tucker-Roghi was awarded a four-year, $300,000 Geriatrics Academic Career Award (GACA) from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). The grant funds supported her work to develop resources and training opportunities for occupational therapists and others who provide services to older adults with dementia and their caregivers. ���ϸ����� was the first institution to receive a GACA award for occupational therapy.

In 2021, under Dr. Tucker-Roghi’s leadership, the OT program partnered with San Rafael nonprofit Vivalon to launch Vitality@Vivalon, a free Healthy Aging Program designed to give older adults a baseline assessment of their current health, then provide information, tools, and support to encourage a shift toward new skills, habits, and routines that can improve overall health and promote healthy aging.