Bellin College Physical Therapy

09/05/2026

This past Thursday Dr. Jon Weiss, the Assistant DPT Program Director, performed during the opening night of Come From Away at Stage Ten Seventeen in Green Bay. Dr. Weiss has been acting and performing for many years and students, DPT faculty, and Bellin College leadership showed up to support him during his opening night performance.

If you are in the Green Bay area and want to see an excellent show, be sure to get your tickets before all the shows are sold out (they are close)!

Get your tickets here: https://stagetenseventeen.ludus.com/index.php

09/04/2026

Excited for our next cohort to start next week! 💙

09/01/2026

DSc Student of the Month for September is Dr. Kathleen Geist!
Kathleen is a physical therapist and educator specializing in orthopedic manual physical therapy. She earned her physical therapy degree from Georgia State University and is pursuing a Doctor of Science degree at Bellin College to further her research, teaching, and leadership in physical therapy education.

At Emory University, Kathleen is an Associate Professor and Interim Assistant Director of the Division of Physical Therapy and serves as Associate Director of Clinical Practice and Post-Professional Education. She is a board-certified Orthopedic Clinical Specialist, a Fellow of the American Academy of Orthopedic Manual Physical Therapists, and an orthopedic subject matter expert for the American Board of Physical Therapy Specialties.
Currently, Kathleen is serving as a co-investigator on three research projects addressing stakeholder perspectives on physical therapy residency education, manual therapy outcomes for nonspecific low back pain, and the integration of clinical practice guidelines into entry-level DPT education. Her research has been published in several peer-reviewed journals, including JOSPT Cases, Journal of Physical Therapy Education, and Physiotherapy Theory and Practice that addresses orthopedic residency education and interprofessional healthcare education.

She serves the physical therapy profession through multiple APTA leadership roles. She advocates for direct access and physical therapy scope-of-practice issues as a member of APTA Georgia’s Legislative Committee and serves on the Board of Directors of the APTA Academy of Orthopedics.

08/28/2026

If it was easy, everyone would do it.

Fellowship training isn’t for everybody, but if you’re looking to become confident in a clinical reasoning, approach that reinforces comfortable, confident, and safe manual techniques along with solid exercise prescription while addressing psychosocial influencing factors, our program is for you.

08/27/2026

Time flies...4 years ago we welcomed our first DPT cohort. They are all now practicing PTs changing the lives of the people they serve! 💙

Yesterday we welcomed the very first Bellin College DPT class for their in person orientation.

We spent the day getting to know each other, reviewing the fall semester classes and having fun!

We can’t wait to join these students on their journey to become DPTs!

08/24/2026

We have more 10 year OMPT fellowship graduation anniversaries to celebrate! (From left to right)

𝗗𝗿. 𝗝𝗼𝗲 𝗞𝘂𝗰𝗸𝘀𝗱𝗼𝗿𝗳 - since graduating from the fellowship, Joe co-established a team-based model for PTs to be embedded directly into primary care clinics as first-line providers. He currently oversees quality, professional development, and administrative projects (i.e. outcomes assessment/research project) within the orthopedics and sports medicine divisions at Emplify by Bellin in Green Bay. He later got his DSc from Bellin College. His work has earned him recognition as being one of the region's "Future 15" young professionals in 2023 and the 2025 AAOMPT Excellence in Innovation Award.

𝗗𝗿. 𝗝𝗼𝗲 𝗟𝗲𝗲𝗰𝗵 - Joe is an accomplished physical therapist and academic faculty member, currently serving as an Associate Professor and the Director of Outcomes & Assessment for the Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) program at South College in Nashville, Tennessee. He returned to get his DSc from Bellin College after his fellowship training. He has a focused research agenda looking at pain related topics in MSK and PT education.

𝗗𝗿. 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗶 𝗞𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗿 - Currently serves as an Assistant Professor in the hybrid Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) program at Graceland University on their Independence, Missouri campus. Since fellowship, she has completed the Bellin College DSc program. She has continued to mentor several of the fellows-in-training in our program and is passionate about teaching the clinic side of anatomy to DPT students.

𝗗𝗿. 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝘃𝗲 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 - Currently serves as a Commander in the US Public Health Service as a military-based PT and clinical research scientist at the Intrepid Spirit Center (ISC) at Fort Carson, Colorado. He, too, got his DSc from Bellin College soon after completing fellowship training. Steve has taught for several DPT programs as adjunct faculty. He applies an OMPT approach to treating service members with complex brain and vestibular injuries. Prior to his current post, he spent nearly a decade providing care in Indigenous communities.

Our OMPT fellowship strives to create leaders in clinical, educational, and research settings and these graduates demonstrate just that since graduating from the program a decade ago. Let's give these Bellin College grads some love!

08/20/2026

👀 New publication from a Bellin College program collab!

Lead author and DSc program grad Dr. Josh Subialka teamed up with OMPT fellowship graduates Drs. Seth Peterson, Brett Halpert, Lisa Sellers-Simone, and Dan Maddox as well as DSc program research committee member Dr. Dan Rhon for this article looking at conflicts of interest in low back pain research. Lisa contributed to this work while she was in the fellowship program as her scholarly project.

Check out the findings here: https://www.mskscienceandpractice.com/article/S2468-7812(26)00156-6/abstract

Great work from an awesome mix of Bellin College colleagues!

08/19/2026

Purpose guides what we do ➡ empower society to optimize movement 💙

08/17/2026

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗱𝗼 𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗣𝗧 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲?

This was the question that this Bellin College PT team asked and now we have the results. Nice work from DSc program graduate Dr. Griff Lee who worked with Drs. Joe Kucksdorf (Bellin College associated faculty and Emplify by Bellin Health PT), Jodi Young (DSc Director of Research), and Casey Rentmeester (Bellin College faculty and Associate Dean of Academic Success).

Find the article here: https://www.mskscienceandpractice.com/article/S2468-7812(26)00090-1/abstract

08/14/2026

Another DPT semester down ✅

1st year ➡️ 2nd year (pic 1) - celebrating the end of the semester
2nd year ➡️ 3rd year (pics 2/3) - celebrating the end of internships w/ their CIs

Congrats taking the next step in your journey to becoming a PT!