Northwestern's first research-track MPO class graduated in September. It's the only program of its kind in the country.

Six students graduated from Northwestern University Prosthetics-Orthotics Center’s Master of Prosthetics and Orthotics Research program on September 3. The program, known as MPO-R, is described by NUPOC as the only degree of its kind in the United States.

The gap it addresses is real and has been documented long enough to stop being surprising.

What the MPO-R is, and what it is not

The MPO-R is not a standard clinical master’s degree with a research elective attached. Students completed nine academic sessions combining NUPOC’s existing MPO curriculum with coursework in research design, biomechanics, statistics, and scientific writing, and finished with original thesis projects and formal defenses. The clinical training is the same track as the standard MPO; the research training is additional, not substituted.

O&P has a structural problem with who does its research. The field trains practitioners to fit devices. It has historically done less to train people who can design the studies, run the trials, and publish the results that should be informing what devices get covered, recommended, and refined. The people who understand clinical O&P well enough to ask useful questions are often not the same people who have the methodological training to answer them.

The MPO-R is one attempt to produce graduates who can do both.

The first class and what they studied

The six graduates each completed original thesis research:

Amanda Kemper studied how myoelectric prosthesis use affects upper body dynamics, working with advisors Russell Johnson, PhD, and Matthew Major, PhD.

Owen Albrecht examined the kinematics and kinetics of pediatric powered prosthetic knee walking, advised by Major.

Christian Moran looked at how prosthetic foot-ankle stiffness affects rollover shape, with Steven Gard, PhD, as advisor.

Elyssia Robbins studied whether ankle-foot orthosis effects on hemiparetic gait symmetry can be predicted ahead of fitting, working with Johnson.

Elizabeth Ibata-Arens investigated how damping prosthetic components affect balance in transtibial prosthesis users, also advised by Major.

Maria Gamez examined lower limb proprioception and foot clearance in post-stroke individuals, with Johnson advising.

The research topics range across device mechanics, pediatric applications, orthotic prescribing, and neurological rehabilitation. The spread is deliberate-looking: this is not a cohort that all worked on the same question in the same lab. The thesis model required each student to frame and execute an independent inquiry.

Why the “only program of its kind” claim matters

There are roughly 12,000 licensed prosthetists and orthotists in the US, according to the American Orthotic and Prosthetic Association. The number of people in that field with both full clinical credentials and advanced research training is much smaller. Estimates are not easily pinned down, but the clinical-researcher gap is consistent enough that O&P foundations, including Live in Motion, have built grant programs specifically to fund people who occupy that rare overlap.

One graduate program producing six researcher-practitioners per year will not close that gap on its own. What it might do is function as proof of concept: that you can combine the two tracks, that students will complete both, and that the thesis work they produce is publishable and clinically grounded. If other programs follow, the first cohort at NUPOC will be part of the reason they did.

For now, the more immediate question is what these six graduates do next. Research careers in O&P typically require postdoctoral positions or faculty appointments at the small number of universities with active O&P research programs. Whether this cohort can find those positions, and whether NUPOC and the field’s funders can track that outcome, will determine whether the credential translates into the pipeline change it is designed to produce.