SDSU DPT Alum Earns PhD

The School of Physical Therapy is proud to celebrate our alum, Dr. Jessica Wagner, who successfully defended her dissertation and earned her Ph.D. from UC San Francisco this week.

"My PhD research stems from my time working as a PT where I grew frustrated with our lack of understanding of knee osteoarthritis (OA) and why pain presents so differently between patients," says Wagner. "My dissertation spans patient outcomes, quantitative imaging (MRI), and biological profiling of the infrapatellar fat pad (IFP), which reveals unique morphological and molecular features that relate to how patients experience the disease. This work emphasizes the importance of evaluating the IFP and gets us closer to decoding the complex and varying pain phenotypes in knee OA."