Elissa has been a dancer for over 21 years. Dance continues to be her passion and has opened doors for her as a practitioner of physical therapy. She graduated from The Ohio State University with her Doctor of Physical Therapy degree and earned her BFA in Dance, also from Ohio State with a minor in psychology. Elissa spent the majority of her life as a competitive dancer training in ballet, tap, jazz, and contemporary. At OSU, her primary focus was ballet and modern training and she began her journey as a teacher and choreographer for her home studio. Elissa has experience working with dancers of all age, both amateur and professional levels, in the clinic and in the classroom, specializing in injury prevention. Elissa’s prior experience as a dancer contributes to her ability to speak the dancer’s language and understand the rigorous demands of the dancer’s body throughout class, rehearsals, and performance. During her clinical training, Elissa worked with Joffrey Ballet Company in Chicago, IL during their injury hours to gain exposure working with professional and pre-professional level artists. She also designed and presented a cross-training program to the pre-professional level dancers and educated them on the importance of cross-training for dancers to reduce risk of injury. Elissa currently works at Hands On Physical Therapy in OH, which is a high-level manual therapy clinic that specializes postural and movement analysis to determine the root cause contributing to the patient’s injury. This approach allows her to assist the patient to returning to their craft both stronger and healthier while reducing the risk of re-injury once they are discharged.

Elissa is an active member of Ohio Dance Masters, a national organization that focuses on dance education. She is currently working on developing an injury prevention program to provide dancers with appropriate exercises to perform based on their movement deficits and to promote overall understanding of the importance of strength training for dancers. In her free time, Elissa loves to take contemporary dance classes, read, and hang out with friends and family.

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