Heather Southwick is a physical therapist specializing in performing arts medicine in the Division of Sports Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital mostly seeing patients at The Micheli Center for Injury Prevention at The Skating Club of Boston. She has been taking care of dancers her whole career as a physical therapist. For the first 15 years of her PT career, Heather was at Boston Children’s Hospital, working in pediatric sports and dance medicine, along with providing contracted services for the company and students of Boston Ballet. She worked directly for Boston Ballet as the Director of Physical Therapy, where she was responsible for preventing and managing injuries with the company, creating health and wellness programs for the company and building partnerships among area healthcare providers    A dancer herself, Heather has bachelor’s degrees from Mount Holyoke College in dance and psychology, and she studied and trained at the Laban Institute for Dance in London  (now Trinity Laban) before graduate study in physical therapy at Simmons College. She taught ballet and jazz during graduate school. She also helped teach the initial Adaptive Dance Program at Boston Ballet when it was initiated.

Heather has worked on the screening and injury surveillance projects for Dance/USA’s Task Force on Dancer Health since 2005.  Representing the Task Force, she co-wrote several papers regarding the safe return to dance during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Her recent publications include chapters in Performing Arts Medicine and Preventing Injuries in the Young Dancer, as well as articles in the Journal of Dance Medicine and Science.

In Heather's current role, she runs a Dance Screening Assessment Clinic once a month for healthy dancers for injury prevention.  She sees dancers for physical therapy of all levels from professional to student and all genres from ballet to Irish step.  She is involved in multiple research projects to continue to study and better understand dancer injuries and rehabilitation. She is also involved in educating the community at Boston Ballet School and other area schools, along with larger dance medicine symposiums hosted by Boston Children's Hospital.