{"id":70125,"date":"2025-08-21T07:38:40","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T11:38:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogarchive.utc.edu\/news\/?p=70125"},"modified":"2025-08-21T07:38:49","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T11:38:49","slug":"graduate-and-launch-a-business-utc-occupational-therapy-students-do-both","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogarchive.utc.edu\/news\/2025\/08\/graduate-and-launch-a-business-utc-occupational-therapy-students-do-both\/","title":{"rendered":"Graduate and launch a business: UTC occupational therapy students do both"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"From

From left: Max Fuller Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Director Mike Bradshaw, Launch Tennessee’s Jennifer Skjellum, 2025 occupational theraphy graduate Katelyn Henderson and Occupational Therapy Doctoral Capstone Coordinator Erin Melhorn.<\/p><\/div>\n

Every spring, occupational therapy students at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga enter their final semester with a single directive: identify a challenge people face and fix it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the essence of occupational therapy, a field dedicated to helping people build or regain the skills needed for daily life after an injury, illness or other life change.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf students have evidence to support an idea, we give them the flexibility to explore it,\u201d said Dr. Erin Melhorn, who oversees the OT doctoral capstones at UTC. \u201cSometimes that becomes research, sometimes a new tool, a business or even a model for delivering care.\u201d<\/p>\n

====================================================================<\/p>\n

The UTC Occupational Therapy doctorate program fall 2026 application<\/a> cycle is now open. The deadline is Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n

====================================================================<\/p>\n

The last semester of the doctoral program is devoted entirely to the capstone: 560 hours\u2014about eight hours a day, five days a week\u2014focused on solving a practical OT-related problem of their choosing. Unlike a dissertation, the OTD capstone emphasizes advanced clinical practice, leadership and evidence-based solutions over purely academic research.<\/p>\n

For some OT students, that mission leads beyond graduation, as classroom prototypes evolve into products and therapists become entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

Katelyn Henderson is one of them. The May 2025 graduate is both working as an OT and developing a product that evolved from her capstone project. With help from the Max Fuller Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship<\/a><\/strong> in the Gary W. Rollins College of Business, she refined her business strategy and started product development while finishing her doctoral degree.<\/p>\n

During her clinical rotations, Henderson observed patients struggling with oversized, unrealistic OT props on site, which were intended to mimic daily tasks such as carrying groceries or opening pill bottles.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing clients struggle with tools that didn\u2019t feel realistic made me think there has to be a better way to do this,\u201d Henderson said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when she created the OT Closet, a portable, organized kit that combines more realistic\u2014but still therapeutic\u2014household items and simple, inventive tools that help clients work on daily skills more effectively.<\/p>\n

She participated in the Fly! Mocs Business Pitch Competition<\/a><\/strong> a year before starting her capstone and placed third.<\/p>\n

Sponsored by the Max Fuller Center, the contest helps students, faculty and staff turn their ideas into market-ready products and services.<\/p>\n

Building on her experience in the pitch competition, Henderson continued developing the OT Closet as her doctoral capstone\u2014the profession\u2019s counterpart to a Ph.D. dissertation.<\/p>\n

That work evolved into PriOriTizing Function, a startup-in-the-making designed to help therapists run more effective, real-world rehab sessions.<\/p>\n

\u201cKatelyn already had a strong concept, so we focused on the business side\u2014like pricing and distribution\u2014and how clinics might actually buy it,\u201d said Jennifer Skjellum, former UTC commercialization counselor and a member of Henderson\u2019s capstone committee.<\/p>\n

That meant thinking beyond one large product to include individual tools that clinics could purchase separately and items they would need again and again, explained Skjellum, now with Launch Tennessee\u2014a statewide entrepreneurship and innovation organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople immediately saw the potential,\u201d Skjellum said.<\/p>\n

Dr. Thomas Lyons, the Clarence E. Harris Chair of Excellence in Entrepreneurship and executive director of the center, said that bringing entrepreneurial thinking into health care \u201ccan create impact you can see right away with patients, in clinics and in the wider community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen students have the time and resources to explore an idea,\u201d Lyons said, \u201cthey often take it further than anyone expected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not all entrepreneurial ventures are physical products.<\/p>\n

Mia Lawson, a May 2025 graduate, used her OT capstone to design a service model for postpartum clients in underserved communities.<\/p>\n

The idea grew from her 14-week clinical rotation with the national Nurse-Family Partnership site at Erlanger, where she sat in on home visits and heard new mothers describe feeling overwhelmed, isolated and unable to manage daily routines.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember one mom telling me just getting from her bedroom to the living room felt like a huge deal,\u201d Lawson said. \u201cI wanted to create something that met people where they are with tools that made sense for their actual lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her solution was a digital manual for in-home visits that blends occupational therapy strategies, activities and techniques with screening tools for anxiety and depression.<\/p>\n

The digital manual focuses on building routines, managing sensory overload, reframing negative thoughts and connecting clients to resources. Lawson copyrighted it, presented it for her doctoral capstone, and is now in talks with Nurse-Family Partnership\u2019s national office to make it a standard resource for nurses.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d love to see it out there being used,\u201d she said, \u201cand if that means others reproduce it, that\u2019s perfectly fine. As long as it reaches the moms it was made for and I\u2019m credited, that\u2019s all I really want.\u201d<\/p>\n

The American Occupational Therapy Association increasingly emphasizes innovation and entrepreneurship as key to advancing the profession.<\/p>\n

At UTC, Melhorn said, the doctoral capstone reflects that shift.<\/p>\n

\u201cOccupational therapy and entrepreneurship both start with the same question: what problem needs solving?\u201d she said. \u201cWhen students apply that mindset, they can create solutions that reach far beyond the clinic, and that\u2019s the kind of impact that lasts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Learn more<\/h4>\n

Visit UTC<\/a><\/p>\n

UTC Occupational Therapy<\/a><\/p>\n

Max Fuller Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship<\/a><\/p>\n

Fly! Mocs Business Pitch Competition<\/a><\/p>\n

UTC Centralized Application Service for Occupational Therapy Programs (OTCAS) <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIf students have evidence to support an idea, we give them the flexibility to explore it,\u201d said Dr. Erin Melhorn, who oversees the occupational therapy doctoral capstones at UTC. \u201cSometimes that becomes research, sometimes a new tool, a business or even a model for delivering care.\u201d<\/p>\n

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