TOWSON, MD (July 8, 2025) -Cynthia Chude, a joint PhD student at the Wharton School of theUniversity of Pennsylvania, and M.D. student at Meharry Medical School has beenawarded the 2025 Mobility is Freedom Fund PhD Scholar Award.  Thiscompetitive award comprises a one-year grant of $50,000 to support Ms. Chude’sdoctoral training.  Her research is focused on the impediments to qualityamputee patient care, in her study “Administrative Barriers: UnderstandingPatient Burdens in Amputee Care Delivery,” among these the integratedmulti-disciplinary care model and patient care outcomes. 

Ms.Chude was recognized for her achievement by Mobility isFreedom Fund President and Founder, Charles H. Dankmeyer CPO, who stated, “Our entire Mobility is Freedom Fund team joins me in congratulating Cynthia Chude as our 2025 PhD Scholar grant recipient. We are unanimous in our excitement that she is a gifted health professional who is pursuing extraordinarily promising research. Her demonstrated patient care talents, combined with her academic and research focus, will certainly provide her along and distinguished career for the benefit of amputees and other mobility-impaired persons.” 

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Wharton PhD student Cynthia Chude was presented with an award and a check for $50,000 to support her three-year research project. Chude, an Associate LDI Fellow has won the 2025 Mobility is Freedom-PhD Scholar Award. Presenting the symbolic check to Chude and Penn (right) is Thomas Fise, Vice President of the Mobility is Freedom Foundation. At left is one of Chude’s Penn mentors, LDI Senior Fellow Michael Anne Kyle, PhD, RN. (Photo: Hoag Levins

Ms. Chude received the organization’s $50,000 check from its vice president, Thomas Fise, at a ceremony at the Wharton School,University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.  Ms. Chude thanked her faculty sponsors and mentors, Guy David PhD, Claudio Lucarelli PhD, Marissa King PhD, and Michael Anne Kyle RN, MPH, PhD, in her comments while accepting the award. The2025 Mobility is Freedom Fund PhD Scholar Award was made possible, in part, thanks to a grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Foundation. 

 

Mobility is Freedom Fund’s objective is to provide doctoral scholarships and educational grant support needed to remedy the lackof multi-disciplinary integrated care models. The Fund supports doctoral scholar’s research aimed at the serious unmet need of optimizing care, improving mobility, independence, and empowerment of persons with limb loss.   Graduate PhD scholars provide the essential research, leadership, and education to guide clinicians providing care across multiple disciplines. The ultimate goal of this funding mechanism is to identify optimal methods for providing healthcare for persons with limb loss and mobility issues to be fully functioning in society without prejudice or limitations. 

 The Mobility is Freedom Fund issues a Request forProposal (RFP) annually soliciting grant applications for work conducted inconjunction with a PhD program in the United States.  The RFP release date for the 2025 Mobility is Freedom Fund PhD Scholar program is September 30, 2025, with a deadline for receipt of completed applications onMarch 31, 2026.   

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TheMobility is Freedom Fund (MiFF) is a nonprofit organization and we are a team of forward-thinking education innovators in education, developing strategies to enhance higher education in rehabilitation sciences with a focus on amputee care. We believe that all persons who experience limb loss have a right to access multidisciplinary rehabilitation treatment.

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Contact: Thomas Fise, 202-270-7630,AGRM@mindspring.com 

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