Assistant Director
Amanda Botticello, PhD, MPH is a Senior Research Scientist at Kessler Foundation and Associate Research Professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School (NJMS). Dr. Botticello trained in social epidemiology and biostatistics in the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has over 15 years of experience analyzing large datasets, developing surveys, and designing quantitative and qualitative research studies. Her research focuses on advancing the science of the social determinants of health, understanding neighborhood effects on health, investigating geographic variation in disability and chronic conditions, and assessing long-term psychosocial outcomes for people with disabilities. She has been the Principal and Co-Investigator on projects funded by the NIH, NIDILRR, and Craig H. Neilsen Foundation.
Her current research portfolio includes a study investigating community activity spaces among adults with SCI using GPS, ecological momentary assessment, and in-depth interview data, a multisite survey of geographic mobility and housing instability after traumatic injury, a randomized control trial of an intervention to improve social and emotional functioning after SCI, and a pilot study assessing the feasibility of using state education data to understand community integration for children with special health care needs.
Dr. Botticello is a Co-Investigator on Kessler’s Spinal Cord Injury (SCIMS) and has led data collection and analysis of the SCIMS database at Kessler for over 10 years. Her work has involved diverse impairment groups (psychiatric, cognitive, and physical disability), medical rehabilitation populations (SCI, TBI, and pediatric), and different aspects of the lifecourse (children, adolescents, and older adults). Her professional service includes Methodology Associate Editor for the Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine since 2015 and work with early-career investigators that was recognized by the Rutgers NJMS Department of PM&R as Mentor of Year in 2018.
Dr. Botticello has established a body of work adding a public health perspective to medical rehabilitation research and disability studies. Her substantive interests include improving community integration and independent living for people with disability, the role of environmental factors in health and disability, and understanding geographic location as a key social determinant of health. Her methodological interests include the linking and analysis of large databases, quantitative data analysis, multilevel modeling, survey design, and mixed methods research.