Susan McGurk

Susan R. McGurk, PhD, is a Professor in the Departments of Occupational Therapy (primary appointment) and Psychological and Brain Sciences, and a researcher at the Center of Psychiatric Rehabilitation at Boston University. Dr. McGurk is a clinical psychologist and neuropsychologist. Dr. McGurk’s research interests include the role of cognitive functioning in employment in people with serious psychiatric illnesses (SMI), and developing, testing and implementing treatment programs to improve cognition and work. Drs. McGurk and Mueser developed the “Thinking Skills for Work” Program, a multi-component, evidence based cognitive remediation program designed to optimize cognitive and work functioning in persons with SMI receiving vocational rehabilitation services (SR McGurk, KT Mueser (2021). Cognitive Remediation for Successful Employment and Psychiatric Recovery: The Thinking Skills for Work Program. Guilford Publications, London).

Dr. McGurk and colleagues published the first meta-analysis of cognitive remediation programs which demonstrated that cognitive remediation programs that are integrated with psychosocial rehabilitation have substantially greater functional impact than “stand alone” cognitive remediation programs (McGurk et al., 2007). McGurk and colleagues also published the first clinical trial demonstrating the ability of the Thinking Skills for Work program to improve rehabilitation outcomes in people who have failed to respond to an evidence based vocational rehabilitation practice, the Individual Placement and Support model of supported employment, thus informing a strategic use of cognitive remediation programming in psychosocial rehabilitation (McGurk et al., 2015). Findings from a more recent rigorous, multisite, NIMH-funded clinical trial that “dismantled” the TSW program were that cognitive self management strategies alone improved cognitive and work outcomes as potently as the combination of computer cognitive training and self management strategies (McGurk et al., 2025) calling into the question that computer cognitive training should be considered an “essential ingredient” in cognitive remediation programs for people with SMI. Ongoing research includes the evaluation of TSW in older people with SMI, and on school and work outcomes in people experiencing a first episode of psychosis. Dr. McGurk has been the recipient of a National Alliance of Research in Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD) Young Investigator Award, a NARSAD Independent Investigator Award, the Rehabilitation Practitioner of Distinction Award by the National Rehabilitation Association, the Gerard Hogarty Award for Excellence in Schizophrenia Research, and the Trail Blazer Award. For more information about cognitive remediation, see the Recovery & Rehabilitation Newsletter article “Cognitive Remediation with a Spotlight on the Thinking Skills for Work Program.