YSPH-SBS 525 Seminar Series: Dr. Yetsa Tuakli-Wosornu, Yale: “Leveraging Virtual Reality, Assistive Technology, and Adaptive Sports to Facilitate Inclusion and Equity for Persons with Disabilities”

Yetsa A. Tuakli-Wosornu, MD, MPH is a board-certified physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) physician-scientist. Dr. Tuakli-Wosornu specializes in interventional spine and sports medicine treatments, helping people achieve high performances at all stages of life through “holistic mind-body development” and therapies. She approaches her work with a sense of compassion and innovation. Physiatry allows “my experiences as a physician, athlete and researcher to dovetail,” she says. Dr. Tuakli-Wosornu often draws upon her personal experience as an athlete. She is a long jumper who represented the Ghana National Team until 2016. She also represented Ghana as part of the 8-member International Paralympic Committee medical committee. As a scientist, Dr. Tuakli-Wosornu directs the Sports Equity Lab—an interdisciplinary research group focused on dismantling inequities in sport (exclusion, discrimination, and exploitation) while amplifying sport’s role as a positive change agent in society (www.sportsequitylab.com). Her research is athlete-centered and translational in nature, designed to influence global sport. Dr. Tuakli-Wosornu was the International Paralympic Committee’s inaugural welfare officer at the 2016 Paralympic Games, is a member of the International Olympic Committee’s working group to prevent harassment and abuse in sport, is co-Chair of the Safe Sport International research committee, and is Chair of the International Society for Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine task force on physical activity for persons with disabilities. She still treats people in her native West Africa, traveling home about twice per year. “There, preventive health and sports medicine remain underdeveloped,” says Dr. Tuakli-Wosornu, noting that she hopes to make an impact wherever she can.