BBI’s Marcia Scherer ’70 to receive mentor award from Rehabilitation Engineering Society of North America

Marcia Scherer ’70, of the Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) at Syracuse University, will receive the Sam McFarland Memorial Mentor Award from the Rehabilitation Engineering Society of North America (RESNA). The award recognizes Scherer for having influenced, counseled and nurtured others in the field of assistive technology.

“Marcia presents with a marvelous mix of scholarship, publication, mentorship, advising and friendship that has touched many of us, as well as immeasurable numbers of persons with disabilities through her life’s work,” according to friends and colleagues who nominated her. “With a warm, willing smile and a quick mind, Dr. Scherer has helped students at all levels of education and in many fields affiliated with rehabilitation.”

Scherer currently serves as co-principal investigator for the Center on Effective Rehabilitation Technology (CERT) at BBI. The goal of CERT is to identify, document and analyze models of rehabilitation and assistive technology service delivery shown to be effective in promoting successful employment outcomes. Scherer has more than 20 years of distinguished activities as a researcher, educator, evaluator and developer of new tools and methods to improve awareness of, access to and favorable outcomes from assistive technology.

She is an alumna of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and has a Ph.D. in counseling, family and work life studies (counseling psychology) from the University of Rochester and a M.P.H. from the University of Rochester Medical Center. She also has a M.S. in rehabilitation counseling from State University of New York at Buffalo. Scherer is the author of “Living in the State of Stuck: How Assistive Technology Impacts the Lives of People with Disabilities” (Brookline Books, 2005), now in its fourth edition. She has authored or co-authored eight additional books, including the forthcoming “Assistive Technologies and Other Supports for People with Brain Injuries from Genetics, Injury, or Aging.”

She is the editor of Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology, a journal of the International Society of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine. As founder and director of the Institute for Matching Person and Technology Inc., Scherer has established partnerships with rehabilitation and technology experts in the United States and internationally. Scherer is also a professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the University of Rochester School of Medicine.