Department of Occupational Therapy

The Department of Occupational Therapy at NYU Steinhardt warmly congratulate the two winners of the Fall 2025 Hinojosa Terminal Project Award: Patricia Librea and Meirav Rosenfeld.

Established in 2022, this award honors Dr. Jim Hinojosa’s legacy as a mentor, leader, and passionate advocate in the field of occupational therapy and in the NYU Steinhardt Department of OT. In keeping with Dr. Hinojosa’s desire to help doctoral students complete their studies, this award supports NYU OT doctoral students who are currently working towards the completion of their terminal projects.

Patricia Librea is a post-professional OTD student at NYU and an occupational therapist working in inpatient rehabilitation. Her clinical interests lie in neurorehabilitation, with a focus on stroke recovery and supporting patients as active participants in their own rehabilitation process. She also teaches as an adjunct professor at West Coast University in California, where she emphasizes practical clinical reasoning and evidence-informed practice. Her doctoral e-portfolio, “Lighting the Way Forward: Navigating the Path of Self-Directed Stroke Recovery,” examines how occupational therapists can expand opportunities for stroke survivors in inpatient settings to engage in therapeutic activity outside of formal sessions, and strengthen patient autonomy during rehabilitation.

Receiving an award that honors Dr. Jim Hinojosa’s legacy is deeply meaningful to me. His example of mentorship, leadership, and compassion within our profession has shaped how I think about my own growth as a clinician and an emerging educator. I am grateful for this acknowledgement and for the opportunity to continue developing in the spirit of the values he modeled so well.

After graduation, Patricia plans to continue strengthening her clinical experience in inpatient neurorehabilitation while deepening her involvement in teaching entry-level OT students. She also hopes to remain engaged in advancing self-directed practice in inpatient settings by collaborating across the profession to support thoughtful and evidence-informed approaches to care.

Meirav Rosenfeld is a PhD student at NYU who holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Tel Aviv University, and has worked as an occupational therapist with diverse populations in both Israel and Massachusetts. Meirav’s research interests focus on cognitive rehabilitation and the prevention of cognitive decline among people with chronic conditions, particularly type 2 diabetes. Her doctoral dissertation focuses on developing an OT intervention to prevent cognitive decline among adults and older adults with type 2 diabetes using the Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST) framework, an innovative approach to intervention development that balances effectiveness with implementation constraints.

I am deeply honored and grateful to be a recipient of this award, and for the support to advance this program of research. By adopting an innovative approach to intervention development—one that has been successfully applied in other disciplines but not yet in OT—and by targeting a practice area the profession sometimes struggles to claim fully, namely cognitive health and rehabilitation, my work seeks to extend the boundaries of current practice. I believe this approach aligns with Dr. Hinojosa’s innovative vision to highlight occupational therapy’s unique contributions and strengthen its role across emerging areas of practice.

Meirav’s dissertation establishes a critical foundation for future postdoctoral work, focused on designing and refining intervention components and advancing through the subsequent MOST phases. The ultimate goal of this research program is to raise awareness of cognitive decline as a potential complication of type 2 diabetes, promote cognitive health among adults with type 2 diabetes, and support greater participation in meaningful occupations, thereby improving both quality of life and long-term disease outcomes.