Dr. Oatis graduated from Marquette University with a BS in physical therapy and completed her PhD in Anatomy and Biomechanics from the University of Pennsylvania. Her first physical therapy job was as a staff physical therapist on the Arthritis Service of Rancho los Amigos Hospital in southern California. Her experience on the Arthritis Service has informed her career ever since. She has remained active in the Rheumatology community through teaching and research for all of her career. Her research program has spanned the range from biomechanical mechanisms of knee joint stiffness in osteoarthritis to examination of the variability in delivery of physical therapy services post total knee replacement. With her collaborators from the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, she is currently a co-Principal Investigator on an NIH funded research project examining physical therapy practice following total knee replacement. The common thread in all of her research is the focus on functional performance in individuals with knee osteoarthritis. This focus combines her clinical expertise developed from almost twenty years of clinical practice including specialty practice in arthritis with her expertise in biomechanics and kinesiology, developed from graduate training in anatomy and mechanical engineering and honed by over thirty years of teaching biomechanics and kinesiology to physical therapy students, including authorship of a highly regarded textbook of biomechanics and kinesiology. Dr. Oatis is a long time member of American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) and of the Association of Rheumatology Health Professionals (ARHP), an inter-professional organization for health professionals with a focus in rheumatology. She has been active in the APTA serving on local and national committees related to physical therapy kinesiology curriculum and research. She has also been active in ARHP and the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), serving as President of ARHP in 2005. Dr. Oatis has received multiple awards for her teaching and service in physical therapy and rheumatology.