Dr. Hortensia Gimeno

Hortensia Gimeno is a paediatric occupational therapist and clinical academic who has worked with children and young people with neurodisability for almost three decades. She is a Clinical Reader in Child Health Research at Queen Mary University of London, Associate Director of Therapies Research at Barts Health NHS Trust, and holds an NIHR Advanced Fellowship (2024–2028). 

Her research examines how the places where children live, learn, and play shape what they can do and take part in. This includes home, school, and community, along with the cultural and psychosocial context around them. She is one of a small number of occupational therapists worldwide leading rehabilitation research in childhood dystonia and other movement disorders. Her current projects range from personalised, goal-focused interventions for these children to modelling the therapy workforce needed to support children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). She works closely with children, young people, and families, many from underserved communities and including children who communicate non-verbally, so that her research answers the questions that matter most to them. 

Hortensia built her research career mostly from within the NHS. She began with an NIHR Clinical Doctoral Fellowship while still in clinical practice. She is committed to opening similar routes for other health and care professionals: she leads the NIHR Health and Care Professional Internships programme for North London and has supported many clinicians to obtain their first research awards. In 2026, she was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Occupational Therapists, the College's highest honour.