Dr. Sara Houlihan ’09

Dr. Sara Houlihan ’09 earned a bachelor’s in applied health science at BGSU and now is a physical therapist at the University of Michigan. She chose BGSU in part because of the scholarships she was offered.

“I knew that I was on the path of going to graduate school, so it was going to make a big difference in my career if I could get a good scholarship for my undergraduate education,” she said.

When she toured BGSU, the friendly interactions she had with students and faculty helped her realize that as a student, “I'm not just going a be a number, I'm going to be a person that people know.”

Houlihan was a student in the Honors College at BGSU, and her senior project helped increase her research confidence. This experience led to her work on several grant-funded research projects at University of Michigan.  

After graduating from BGSU, Houlihan earned a Doctor of Physical Therapy from the University of Toledo and started work at Michigan Medicine at University of Michigan shortly afterwards. She specializes in emergency medicine and earned advanced board certification as a geriatric clinical specialist from the American Physical Therapy Association during COVID. She says studying “gave me a purpose and kept me busy” during that difficult time.

She recently returned to BGSU as a student in the MBA program. Michigan Medicine is growing and building a new tower and she hopes to put her MBA to use as she “wants to get ahead of the project management and project design jobs that will be coming.”

Houlihan has strong friendships from her undergraduate days. Like many alumni, her BGSU experience was a balance of personal connections and her academic education.

“I grew my knowledge by going to classes, but I grew as an individual by doing things outside of the classroom,” she said.