Rehab Med grad gives back on U of A Alumni Council

Growing up, Linda Miller always knew she wanted to work in some aspect of medicine, but she also had an interest in design and construction. When she learned about the work done by occupational therapists, she realized it was a career that would combine all these interests.

Miller, a 1989 graduate of the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, has carved out a unique career for herself. She is also using her aptitude for building as the Rehabilitation Medicine representative on the Alumni Council of the University of Alberta, helping create a strong relationship between the University and its graduates.

Born and raised in Edmonton, Miller was attracted to occupational therapy by the way it enabled people. "It's about taking an individual's abilities and getting them back doing what they want to do-helping to empower them," she says.

After graduation, she began her career as an OT at Calgary General Hospital, but it wasn't long before her penchant for building things took her back to school, this time at the University of Calgary where she completed a master's degree in environmental design, focusing on ergonomics. She then returned to Edmonton and accepted a position with the Workers' Compensation Board. There, she combined her expertise in ergonomics with her background in occupational therapy to find ways to reduce workplace injuries.

Having grown up in an entrepreneurial family, Miller found herself anxious to strike out on her own and left the WCB to concentrate on her own company. "I never take traditional routes," she quips.

Her company, EWI Works, provides ergonomics consulting, offering on-site training and assessment at both industrial and office settings. "The whole premise," she says, "is that we are providing customized solutions to prevent injuries and optimize performance.

Recently, she's worked with a pipeline company to reduce the eyestrain being experienced by operators in the company's control centre, and she's helped another client come up with a plan to engineer out the risk of back injury in its mailroom.

"It's a lot like OT," she says of her current work. "It involves finding out client needs and coming up with ways to meet their needs."

Miller, who is completing a doctorate at Boston University-her doctoral work ties together ergonomics with LEED certification, underlining the importance of including ergonomics in the life cycle of a building-says she enjoys the collaborative nature of her work. "I'm working with engineers, architects, human resources people, health and safety administrators, and others," she says.

As the Rehabilitation Medicine representative on Alumni Council, she also has the opportunity to collaborate with individuals of varying backgrounds. Her goal on Council, she says, is to "help connect alumni with the University-getting the word out that this university is still producing world-class graduates and that the quality of research taking place is really pretty incredible."

Miller is one of 27 voting members of Alumni Council, which provides leadership for the University of Alberta Alumni Association, to which all graduates of the University automatically belong. Representing the Alumni constituency, Alumni Council provides advice and determines policy for the Association, as well as providing input to the University administration.

The voting membership of Alumni Council is composed of representatives from the 17 degree-granting faculties, two at-large alumni members, an elected president, the past-president, alumni representatives to the University's Board of Governors and Senate (two each), and the presidents of both the Students' Union and the Graduate Students Association.

Having gained a year's experience on Council, Miller is looking forward to the coming year. "Now that I am more familiar with Council, I'll be looking at how to leverage more Rehab Med grads into alumni activities," she says.

One of the biggest challenges," she says, "is that many of our graduates were somewhat disconnected from the rest of campus because of our Corbett Hall location." Her focus now is on finding ways to meet that challenge-and finding solutions is what she does.