Stephanie Voss’s research at the College of Applied Health Sciences looks at how might yoga be used to manage lasting pain
Stephanie Voss, a kinesiology Ph.D. candidate, is a yogi and occupational therapist. Her research blends the two interests together. (Photo by Ethan Simmons)
To doctoral candidate Stephanie Voss, chronic pain treatment and yoga have more in common than we think.
Voss, now in her third year of a kinesiology Ph.D program at the University of Illinois, first came across the connection while working as an occupational therapist at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, a rehabilitation research hospital in Chicago.
While she consulted patients who were dealing with persistent, chronic pain, Voss was training to become a yoga instructor—an out-of-class hobby that helped her overcome her own studying-induced back pain.
“I couldn’t get over how similar the treatment approaches are,” Voss said. “Yoga is very much a holistic practice, and we address chronic pain in very much a similar way—it involves working as part of an interdisciplinary team on strength and muscle conditioning and posture and body mechanics. We also work on the psychological components, the emotional components and how we can integrate pain management strategies into daily life.”
Today, Voss’s research at the College of Applied Health Sciences merges the two: How might yoga be used to manage lasting pain?
This fall, she was named a recipient of the Paul D. Doolen Graduate Scholarship for the Study of Aging, an annual award given to two University of Illinois graduate students whose scholarly work advances research on the human aging process.
With the help of the Doolen scholarship, Voss will develop a yoga protocol that specifically targets interoception, or the ability to perceive and interpret the sensations within one’s own body, an ability which may fade as we age.
The project will explore whether yoga can improve older adults’ abilities detect and interpret feelings of pain and discomfort within their bodies.
“I found [the scholarship] relevant to my research because most of my patients are older adults,” she said. “Chronic pain is immensely prevalent in older adult populations for various reasons but interestingly older adults tend to not be included in pain trials as often.”
What the $4,250 scholarship gives her for now is “breathing room,” Voss said. “Being a grad student isn’t always easy from a financial standpoint, so having a little bit of extra support to free up my time and mental space, it’s one less thing to worry about.”
She’s very smart, and very personable. It’s just refreshing for somebody to have such a good perspective on the science of what she does, but to also be very respectful and willing to take criticism for what it’s worth.
Steve Petruzzello
Health and Kinesiology professor
Voss received her B.S. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from Northwestern University in 2014 and her M.S. in Occupational Therapy from Rush University in 2018.
She began at the University of Illinois in August 2021, working under former Illinois KCH Associate Professor Neha Gothe in Gothe’s Exercise Psychology Lab. Gothe was one of the only academics exploring the connection between yoga and pain management. Voss, then fully working as an occupational therapist, reached out to Gothe over email, expressing her desire to pursue a Ph.D. under her.
Since then, Voss has worked as a research assistant and teaching assistant, having instructed an introductory-level yoga class while periodically working with patients at the AbilityLab in Chicago. She recently taught the yoga intervention for one of Gothe’s research studies working with older adults.
“That got to really challenge my clinical and yoga teaching skills to integrate modifying postures for people who live in different bodies than mine,” Voss said. “It’s so immensely important that my research questions are rooted in the clinical needs of the patients. I want to make sure I’m still in touch with that population.”
When Gothe departed Illinois for Northeastern University in Boston, Voss decided to stay and finish the final stages of her Ph.D. program, with KCH Professor Steve Petruzzello stepping up as her on-site doctoral co-advisor.
“She’s very smart, and very personable,” said Petruzzello, who first met Voss while she made insightful comments in his class, KIN 443: Psychophysiology of Exercise & Sport. “It’s just refreshing for somebody to have such a good perspective on the science of what she does, but to also be very respectful and willing to take criticism for what it’s worth.”
Both her mentors described Voss as a methodical, talented researcher whose clinical experience has given her unique perspective and a deft ability to communicate scientific concepts to different audiences.
“She has an eye for translation and application of the research in clinical as well as real-life settings,” Gothe said. “Her years of yoga training and teaching also give her a unique advantage to work and communicate with her patients and research subjects.”
After her graduation, expected in spring 2025, Voss hopes to work in a hybrid clinical-academic position. In the meantime, Voss has seen great recruitment interest in her dissertation research, examining yoga as a strategy for chronic pain management.
“I do feel like I will be leaving with a degree that gives me a lot of opportunity and flexibility that I can teach in occupational therapy departments. I’ll be fully qualified for that, but I’ll also be fully qualified to teach in more traditional academic university-based settings that are not necessarily a clinical program,” Voss said.
Solomon Siskind is investigating what it’s like to be a Black student-athlete at a predominantly white institution and how being part of a racial affinity group affects their life on campus
Solomon Siskind is leading a double life at the U. of I: While researching diversity and inclusion for student-athletes, he leads Illinois Athletics development program for them. (Photo by Ethan Simmons)
Solomon Siskind is living a double life at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign—two lives that are finely intertwined.
While the Recreation, Sport and Tourism doctoral student researches diversity, inclusion and belonging for college athletes, he’s also applying those concepts as the Coordinator for Illini Way Student-Athlete Development in Illinois’ Division of Intercollegiate Athletics.
“The research that I’m doing is what I’m doing in my every day,” Siskind said. “Who I’m advocating for, and who I’m empowering.”
“No one day is the same” for Siskind in DIA. He’s laser-focused on preparing student-athletes for their transition to life after sport, whenever the ball stops bouncing or the track runs out for them.
A Midwest transplant from the East Coast, Siskind’s own experiences—as a former college athlete himself on the University of Massachusetts Amherst football team—inform his new day-to-day as a young scholar-practitioner in the sports industry.
Now, he’ll be studying these issues with his first grant-funded research project, entitled “Do we belong here? Examining Black student-athlete affinity groups as spaces for belonging at historically white institutions,” with a $7,500 grant from the NCAA. He spent the first year of his doctoral program ideating the project with his advisor, RST Assistant Professor Yannick Kluch. In his second year, he has started the research.
As one of five graduate students selected to receive the competitive grant, Siskind will conduct semi-structured interviews with Black student-athletes in NCAA Division I, predominantly white colleges across the country to better understand their experiences. Namely, what it’s like to be a Black student-athlete at a predominantly white institution and how being part of a racial affinity group affects their life on campus.
The topic dovetails with Siskind’s professional and personal experiences. He was part of an affinity group for student-athletes of color at UMass Amherst, and he advises its equivalent at Illinois, called “EMPOWER.”
“I’m interested in, what’s the impact going to be? How am I going to be able to take the findings from this research and provide recommendations to different institutions so they can better serve our Black student-athletes?” Siskind said.
Kluch is excited for Siskind’s project getting off the ground on this “much-needed topic,” and grow his horizons in the field.
“Solomon, in many ways, embodies many of the qualities I look for in doctoral students seeking to be advised by me. I care a lot about doing good work, doing rigorous research, knowing your expertise, but also applying that to industry contexts,” Kluch said. “With Solomon, he gets it. He has lived it. He lives it every day here at Illinois.”
From the playing field to the classroom
From Brockton, Massachusetts, Siskind grew up in New England and stayed there for his undergraduate work, walking on to the UMass Amherst football team as a freshman. Even with sports in the foreground, Siskind was dead set on obtaining an advanced degree like his older brother and sister before him.
“I’m a first-generation college student. My mother placed a big emphasis on higher education with me and my siblings from the beginning. She had both of my siblings in high school and as a single mother, her dream of going to college was no longer an option,” he said.
Siskind had to confront his own athletic mortality far earlier than he would’ve liked. Multiple knee injuries and surgeries derailed his playing time at tight end for the UMass Minutemen.
“I’ve had a lot of time down off the field, I’ve had space to think about this, because I knew ‘I’m not going professional,’” Siskind said.
It’s a concept he now talks about with his students at Illini Way: student-athlete identity foreclosure. What comes next after organized sports? Even the greats confront it eventually: Tom Brady is a football broadcaster now after 23 years in the NFL; Derek Jeter started preparing for the transition 10 years before his MLB career ceased; track and field star Allyson Felix started up her own lifestyle brand for women prior to retirement, Siskind recalled.
As an upperclassman, Siskind began to wrap his head around these concepts academically. In his junior year, he attended the Black Student-Athlete Summit in Austin, Texas, where presentations on student-athlete development and diversity, equity and inclusion in college sports lined the conference.
“That was my first time seeing that type of research and the type of conversations I wanted to have,” Siskind said. “From that moment on, I was like, ‘I want to do that.’”
For his first bite of research, he partnered with fellow college athlete Desiree Oliver of the UMass women’s basketball team to analyze the experiences of student-athletes of color at their university.
The study aimed to better understand how their experiences as student-athletes were shaped by being at a predominantly white institution, or PWI. The data showed, among other trends, that student-athletes of color were three times as likely to report experiencing “culture shock,” and half reported feeling depressed or isolated at their institution.
While obtaining his master’s, he learned under one of the top scholars in the diversity, equity and inclusion field as research assistant for Nefertiti Walker, now Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, and Equity for the UMass system.
“I knew this is what I wanted to do,” he said.
Perfect timing, perfect opportunity
If you’d asked Siskind if he wanted to stay in the Midwest two years ago, he would’ve “thought you were absolutely out of your mind.”
A postgraduate internship at the NCAA’s Office of Inclusion brought him from the East Coast to Indianapolis, Indiana, where he supported the office’s inclusion initiatives for a broad swath of student identities.
Outreach from a familiar face, Elizabeth Hamlet, opened his eyes to the university two hours to his west, in Urbana-Champaign. Hamlet was the Senior Assistant Director of Academic Success at UMass while Siskind attended, but now she serves as the Assistant Director of Academic Services for Illinois Athletics. They discussed a new opening in the athletic department in student-athlete development.
“Liz had been a mentor for me at UMass, and was someone who helped me develop off the field,” Siskind said.
The opportunity was attractive. At the same time, another connection was making the move to Urbana: Kluch had applied for a tenure-track professorship at RST. The two got offered and accepted their Illinois positions at the same time.
“When I thought about which Ph.D. programs I wanted to go into, he was the person I wanted to work with,” Siskind said. “I knew our research, our works and passions already aligned with one another.”
“It was really perfect timing.”
Siskind and Kluch had been acquainted for some time, following each other on social media platforms because they shared a research area. Their scholarly interest in diversity, equity and inclusion overlapped perfectly.
“The professionals who care about these things in the sports industry, it’s a pretty small and tight-knit group,” Kluch said.
Kluch had caught wind of Siskind’s social justice leadership on the UMass campus during his time as a student-athlete: “He was very big on elevating the athlete voice, promoting racial justice, social justice, DEI within those contexts.”
What further connects them, Kluch said, is their shared philosophy as “scholar practitioners,” aiming to extend the impact of their research beyond the classrooms or academic journals and into the real world. When he learned Siskind wanted to pursue graduate school, Kluch hit the recruiting trail to bring him to Illinois’ RST program.
“It’s so fun to work with him because a lot of grad students struggle with finding the connection between the theory, the theoretical, and the practical. And he walks that line seamlessly,” Kluch said.
An advisor who’s “been in their shoes”
Mary Long started at Illinois Athletics just a month after Siskind, and they’ve been crossing paths ever since.
Long, a second-year Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Fellow at DIA, coordinates cultural events for student-athletes, facilitates diversity training for staff, leads a mentorship program for students and advises Illini Allies, the LGBTQIA+ affinity group for Illinois athletes. She complimented Siskind’s ability to build rapport with student-athletes and quickly link them to scholarships or leadership opportunities.
“He takes the time to connect with them on a personal level—he’s warm, friendly, and genuinely interested in each student-athlete. Once he’s in your corner, he’s all in,” Long said. “His biggest strength as a student-athlete development coordinator is that he has firsthand experience as a former student-athlete. He’s been in their shoes, so he gets the unique challenges they face.”
He takes the time to connect with them on a personal level—he’s warm, friendly, and genuinely interested in each student-athlete.
Mary Long
Division of Intercollegiate Athletics
Siskind’s schedule is packed these days, balancing his part-time doctorate program with a full-time student support role. He leads sessions of RST 118: Transition to College for first-year student-athletes and helps them with major selection and grad school applications, resumes, leadership development and the like.
On top of that, he heads Illini Way’s community outreach efforts and co-advises the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), which provides insights to athletics administration and leadership development for more than 40 Illinois student-athletes across each athletic team, all while advising EMPOWER’s student leaders.
“I view student-athlete development as a part of DEI, because the work that we do has real implications in the lives of our students. whether it is through creating inclusive spaces, developing life skills, or growing civically and community engaged leaders, it all matters,” Siskind said. “The transition to life after sport is a very hard transition. I also think being able to help our student-athletes understand who they are as individuals, as leaders, and prepare them for life itself is super important.”
The job is fulfilling, but the opportunity to study in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism was a huge draw. Siskind has particularly enjoyed taking “Theory and Methods of Leisure” as a student of Associate Professor Liza Berdychevsky this fall.
“The number of things I’ve learned in the last few class sessions, it blows my mind. It’s not just sport management in RST—I’m excited to continue learning from all the faculty here,” he said.
(Siskind’s study on racial affinity groups for student-athletes is actively recruiting. Visit the following link to complete the survey and see if you qualify for participation.)
A team of Applied Health Sciences professors obtained a five-year, $1.1 million grant from the Office of Special Education Programs of the U.S. Department of Education to educate 10 speech-language pathologists
The first, five-student cohort of the REACH-SLP program at Hessel Park. Upon graduation from the speech-language pathology master’s program, each student is committed to serving children with high-intensity communication needs. (Photo by Ethan Simmons)
Between stuttering, language delays and articulation problems, Marjorie Campbell saw the gamut of communication disorders while shadowing a speech-language pathologist (SLP) at Champaign’s Edison Middle School.
She also witnessed “how drastically their quality of life improved when they were given effective communication strategies,” said Campbell, who majored in psychology at Illinois.
“It was something I felt like a lot of kids from underrepresented backgrounds don’t have access to because of financial reasons. I felt like that was a need I wanted to fulfill,” she said.
This fall, Campbell is back on the Illinois campus, training to become an SLP equipped to address those same language needs for school children. And her master’s degree at the Department of Speech and Hearing Science will be almost entirely paid for.
A team of Applied Health Sciences professors obtained a five-year, $1.1 million grant from the Office of Special Education Programs of the U.S. Department of Education to educate 10 speech-language pathologists: each trained to serve children with high-intensity communication needs, each coming from underrepresented ethnic, economic or linguistic backgrounds.
The first five-student cohort is now settled and learning on campus—the next five will be accepted in two years’ time, when the current students complete the program.
The project is titled Recruitment, Education, and Advancement of Clinical ScHolars in SLP, or “REACH-SLP,” a master’s level program co-directed by AHS faculty Mary Flaherty, the principal investigator and assistant professor in SHS, and Wes Wilson, the co-PI and assistant professor in the Department of Health and Kinesiology. Amy Strohman, a certified SLP and clinical instructor in SHS, also served as project co-director last year.
The grant essentially pays the students through school, covering every SLP-in-training’s tuition, fees and health insurance, while providing a stipend each year they’re enrolled.
“Hopefully they’ll have to take out very little additional loans or hopefully they won’t have to get another job to support themselves, so that they can focus solely on their education, which is what we want,” Wilson said.
In return, each student commits to serving children with communication disorders for at least four years after graduation, in a U.S. school, clinic, or medical setting of their choosing.
“Schools are our goal. We want to flood the schools with these people,” Flaherty said.
Schools are our goal. We want to flood the schools with these people.
Mary Flaherty
SHS assistant professor
Three of the five students in the first cohort are fluently bilingual, and all of them come from diverse ethnic and educational backgrounds. The program is designed to fill two “huge needs,” Wilson added: the shortage of SLPs in school settings—especially those trained for co-occurring communication disorders—and the shortage of bilingual SLPs in general.
Language delays, stuttering or stammering, swallowing problems, autism spectrum disorder, ADHD—any overlaps fall under the “high-intensity needs” banner, Flaherty said. After their first few weeks on campus, the first members of the REACH-SLP cohort are motivated to make a change.
“I don’t think people realize the shortage of SLPs who are trained to serve that youth,” Campbell said. “I think it’s why it meant so much more to me and the people in the program is we recognize those needs who are often unrecognized by a lot of people.”
Getting the grant
Before coming to Illinois, Marco Barcenas-Consuelo was on what seemed to be a straightforward academic path at the University of Richmond in Virginia. After completing an undergrad degree in neuroscience and minor in linguistics, the Round Lake Beach, Ill., resident was planning to enter the research track.
But after seeing presentations at a linguistics conference, including real-world perspectives from speech-language pathologists, Barcenas-Consuelo realized he wanted to use what he’d learned in school to help children.
He surveyed school openings in his home state, from Northwestern to Rush University to Urbana-Champaign, and learned about the REACH-SLP program at an open house. He sent in his application for the Illinois Department of SHS, not banking on receiving the scholarship. “I liked the program; I liked the rest of what (SHS) offered as a whole.”
“When I first got the general acceptance, I was really, really happy. It’s close to home, it’s a good school. And a couple weeks later they tell you, ‘you got the REACH-SLP, you have the funding, you’ll have this extra support,’” he recalled.
“I was so happy, there isn’t a word to describe how happy I was. For one, it would eliminate any sort of financial worries me and my family had about pursuing this field. And the fact that they’d have monthly meetings giving us guidance, telling you how to work with a specific population, I thought it was a perfect fit.”
He committed to the U. of I. the very next day, without yet setting foot on campus: “Let’s agree to this before they change their mind or something,” Barcenas-Consuelo said.
After spending a year studying abroad in Brazil, and another on a Fulbright scholarship in Portugal, Barcenas-Consuelo is fluent in Portuguese and Spanish, the latter of which he grew up speaking in the home.
As part of the program, the REACH-SLP cohort has regular monthly meetups with the faculty leaders. The focus is preparing the students for their future roles in the education setting.
“We’re trying to make it interdisciplinary as much as possible, even though that’s not the main focus of this grant. Because we do recognize any sort of extra enrichment is important,” Wilson said.
Though Wilson’s expertise doesn’t address speech-language pathology directly—he specializes in adapted physical education for students with disabilities—prior experience prepared him to write the grant and help Flaherty run the program.
Wilson pursued a similar collaboration while at the University of Utah, obtaining a grant to train students in both adapted physical education and speech-language pathology. Shortly after accepting his offer to join Illinois faculty, he reached out to Flaherty—before ever meeting in-person—to hit the ground running on a similar project.
Their first interdisciplinary proposal to the U.S. Department of Education didn’t come through, but with a lift from Flaherty, the faculty pivoted. In a matter of weeks, they crafted a new proposal singularly focused on training these skilled preservice SLPs.
The new grant came back from a competitive field in September 2023, two months after their submission to the Department of Education. Wilson decided to stay on the project as co-director.
“I was shocked that we got the grant because I’m not an SLP—I’m more of a hearing scientist. But I work with SLPs. I train SLPs. So obviously, I’m qualified for it. But I just didn’t expect to get the grant as easily as we did,” Flaherty said.
The REACH-SLP project addresses a soft spot for Flaherty’s work as well: Diversifying the speech and hearing science field.
“There is a lack of representation of those groups within the field, SLPs are serving tons of underrepresented groups, but they are not themselves representing that,” she said.
The mission of diversifying the field motivates the project leaders and advisors—including SHS Professor Fatima Husain, chair of the College of Applied Health Sciences’ DEI initiative, and Jennifer Dahman, an SLP and clinical instructor in SHS—as well as the students themselves.
“We all have our own little niches—serving kids who are bilingual or come from low-income communities—I think it’s amazing how all those different issues can come together, and how we can all fill different gaps that need to be filled in speech-language pathology, and provide support for these children who really do need these individualized services.”
For First-Generation Student Week in 2024, we highlighted stories from students at the College of Applied Health Sciences
RIHANNA SHEGOG
Kinesiology first-year student Rihanna Shegog grew up between Bradley and Shawneetown, Illinois—essentially, at both ends of the state.
It wasn’t until a college fair her senior year of high school that the University of Illinois first came on her radar. “Which is crazy, because it’s such a big school,” she said.
Shegog credits her time with I-LEAP—an AHS leadership program that supports first-generation college students—for helping her adjust to campus life.
“At first I felt a lot of pressure because I’m the first one in my family to go to college,” Shegog said. “But they really just want me to be happy and successful.”
VINCENT ANELLI
Vincent Anelli’s decision to come to Illinois was “a pretty obvious” one, he said, when he factored in the realistic tuition with the university’s top-notch speech and hearing science program. Now a sophomore, Anelli credits I-LEAP for teaching the basics of applying to research positions and internships early on.
“Being a first-gen scholar, there’s a lot of pressure to it, especially because my parents worked really hard for me to be here,” Anelli said. “It definitely helps me refocus, that I’m here for my academics. It’s a little daunting at times, but it’s a big motivator.”
AVA MONTAÑEZ
Freshman Ava Montañez searched for college programs that would help support a career in the sports industry. Illinois rose to the top of her list with its RST degree. And her family has helped her transition into college life. As the youngest of six siblings, Montañez leaned on her older twin sisters for advice in the application process. Together, they’re part of the first generation in their family to pursue higher education.
“I went to a small elementary school and middle school; coming to a school like this was a big change because I’m so used to knowing everyone around,” Montañez said. “But I had friends from my old school who came with me, and I have the I-LEAP program with staff I can go to.”
CLARISSA HARRINGTON
Clarissa Harrington was drawn to Illinois after a high school field trip to Champaign-Urbana, 90 minutes from her hometown of Springfield.
The sophomore initially wanted to join a pre-medicine track, but the focus of community health aligned best with her interests.
“After taking my first intro class and learning about community health and public health, I realized it was avbetter fit for me,” Harrington said. “I stayed in because I think it does a great job of helping minority communities on a large scale.”
The first-generation college student says she acclimated to campus “really fast,” serving on the I-LEAP student advisory board to help shape the university experience for incoming students on her same path.
