Rate My Professor Benjamin Darter

Benjamin J. Darter, PT, PhD, is the Chair and Program Director of the Department of Physical Therapy at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he also serves as an Associate Professor and Director of the Applied Movement Performance Lab. Additionally, he holds a position as a Research Physical Therapist in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Central Virginia Veterans Healthcare System in Richmond, VA. Darter obtained his PhD in Physical Rehabilitation Science from the University of Iowa in 2007, MS in Clinical and Translational Sciences from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2018, MS in Physical Therapy from Ithaca College in 1999, and BS in Clinical Science from Ithaca College in 1998. He previously served as Interim Chair of the Department of Physical Therapy from September 2022 to May 2023 and has been Associate Professor since July 2018. His teaching responsibilities include the Orthotics and Prosthetics course in the entry-level Doctor of Physical Therapy program.

Darter's primary research and clinical interests lie in rehabilitation following extremity amputation and optimization of gait performance. Current projects under his leadership include developing self-report measures of prosthetic attention—the cognitive effort associated with using a prosthesis—and assessing the effects of prosthesis technology on prosthetic attention. His research is funded by the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Key publications include "Reliability and minimal detectible change values for gait kinematics and kinetics in healthy adults" (Gait & Posture, 2012), "Gait Training With Virtual Reality–Based Real-Time Feedback: Improving Gait Performance Following Transfemoral Amputation" (Physical Therapy, 2011), "Factors Influencing Functional Outcomes and Return-to-Work After Amputation: A Review of the Literature" (Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, 2018), and "Principles of Normal and Pathologic Gait" (Atlas of Orthoses and Assistive Devices, 2019). With over 1,200 citations, his work has influenced the field of physical rehabilitation. Darter contributes to the profession as the Virginia Delegate to the APTA House of Delegates, Education co-chair for the Amputation Care Special Interest Group in the Federal section of the American Physical Therapy Association, Associate Editor for Prosthetics and Orthotics International, and manuscript reviewer for journals such as Journal of Biomechanics, Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and Gait & Posture.