Known for her care and compassion, Lynn Gerber has devoted her professional life to improving the lives of those with disabling conditions. She has helped develop new ways to measure human motion, leading to the new design of braces and orthotics to enable disabled children to walk, and has been instrumental in developing new approaches to enable (mainly) women and with arthritis to be more functional. Her work has also helped to set standards of care for those with breast cancer.

Lynn’s career as a physician scientist began at Smith, where she took advantage of a summer research fellowship at the National Institutes of Health, followed by one at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Those life-changing experiences cemented her determination to pursue a medical career, which eventually spanned several decades. Lynn graduated from Tufts University School of Medicine, diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine, Rheumatology sub-specialty and the American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. After 30 years in the Clinical Center, NIH, Lynn retired as Chief of the Rehabilitation Medicine Department in 2005. While at NIH she promoted research in the rehabilitation of children with osteogenesis imperfect and in adults with arthritis and cancer, and established the laboratory of motion analysis.

The following year she started her next career at George Mason University, as University Professor of Rehabilitation Science. She is currently the Director, Center for the Study of Chronic Illness and Disability. She is developing a doctoral program in that field and creating and directing a new Center for the Study of Chronic Illness and and disability in chronic illness. In addition, she is medical director of the outcomes program at Inova Health System’s Center for Integrated Research.

Lynn is a member of the Institute of Medicine. She is a recipient of National Science Foundation, NIH and Department of Defense funding. Lynn has authored or co-authored more than 100 peer reviewed publications, numerous chapters and has received many speaking invitations at national and international meetings. She serves on several advisory boards to foundations. Current research is collaborative with investigators in Volgenau School, George Mason University, Inova Health System, and NIH.

She is known for her willingness to serve on medical foundation advisory boards, to address patient support groups and to volunteer in medical clinics. For more than 30 years, she has advocated for and encouraged students from underserved minority groups and economically disadvantaged backgrounds to pursue science and biomedical careers. Among her many awards is the 2006 Distinguished Public Service Award from the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.

Lynn credits her Smith College education with providing a supportive and individualized approach to science education, which fueled her passion for science.

Lynn has two daughters, Alexandra, a doctoral candidate in Sociology at U Michigan and Suzannah, a master's candidate in museum science at NYU. Lynn's husband,Leonard Seeff, is a hepatologist (liver specialist), formerly on staff at the Veterans' Administration and the NIH. She is an enthusiastic and competitive tennis player (member of USTA adult and super tennis team) and is helping develop a wheelchair tennis program for people with physical disabilities. She is currently writing a manual to describe a program to increase performance through strategies to improve body movement and fitness for beginning and aging tennis players. Her goal is to enable tennis players of all ages and levels of disability to play successfully throughout life.