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Mary-Ellen Devitt

Business Manager, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC)

Sensory Motor Performance Program (SMPP), MARS-RERC

345 East Superior Street, Suite 1301; Chicago, IL  60611

Phone: (312) 238-2910; SMPP Office:  (312) 238-3381

FAX: (312) 238-2208

Mary-Ellen (aka “Mimi”) is a life-long resident of the Chicagoland area, but has also lived and worked in Washington, D.C. She brings federal, state, and local policy analysis and research administration experience to the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.

In January 2003, Mary-Ellen was hired as the business manager for the Machines Assisting Recovery from Stroke (MARS) Research Project at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. Affiliated with Northwestern, MARS-RERC is one of number of Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers (RERCs) around the country and has received five years of funding from the Department of Education, National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR).  MARS-RERC focuses its research efforts on rehabilitation robotics and distance rehabilitation therapy for stroke patients.

In her personal life, Mary-Ellen has been active in politics since college and continues this interest as a member of the League of Women Voters (LWV).  She is currently serving her second year as the 2^nd Vice-President for Membership for the LWV LaGrange Area.  Additionally, in 2003 Mary-Ellen was selected from a state-wide pool of applicants to be one of 11 Lincoln Series Fellow (http://www.lincolnseries.com/), where she was involved in a year-long training program dedicated to increasing the number of women in politics and government service.

Mary-Ellen has also held a number of paid legislative and policy positions. During college, she worked as the Lyndon B. Johnson Intern for Congressman Harris W. Fawell in both his district and Washington, D.C. offices. After graduating from the University of Iowa with a Degree in Political Science and English, Mary-Ellen worked as a policy analyst for the Illinois General Assembly Minority Leader and assisted with legislative redistricting.

In pursuit of higher education, Mary-Ellen was certified as an environmental and corporate paralegal and earned her masters degree in public policy from the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.   During graduate school, Mary-Ellen worked as a public affairs intern at Fleishman-Hillard in Chicago and was responsible for coordinating a legislative conference for state diabetes educators by writing white papers on health issues and promoting grassroots activities. She has also worked as a non-profit conservation intern at the Openlands Project to provide economic and environmental consulting to local communities.

Subsequent to completing her graduate work, Mary-Ellen accepted a position in the Midwestern Office of the Council of State Governments where she wrote issue briefs on health care and welfare reform and provided legislative research services for two state legislative staffs. In 1997, Mary-Ellen went back to D.C. for four years and worked for the State Agriculture Experiment Station Directors as their environmental scientific and policy liaison to Federal Agencies and Congress, where she aided in increasing natural resource research funding for Land Grant Universities by over $17 million.  After returning to Chicago in 2001, Mary-Ellen worked as a contract negotiator and grants manager in the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of Illinois at Chicago.