Rebecca Ehretsman

Rebecca L. Ehretsman (formerly von der Heyde and Neiduski; born September 6, 1972) is an American occupational therapist and academic administrator serving as the eighteenth president of Wartburg College since 2022. She is a hand therapist specialized in flexor tendon rehabilitation.

Life Ehretsman was born September 6, 1972, in Chicago in a Lutheran family. Both of her parents were educators. In 1997, she earned a M.S. in occupational therapy from Washington University in St. Louis. Ehretsman's master's thesis titled, Subjective Recovery of Nerve Graft Donor Site, was published in the Annals of Plastic Surgery in 1999.

She is a certified hand therapist specializing in flexor tendon rehabilitation. She graduated with a Ph.D. in education from Saint Louis University in 2009. In 2025 the Board of Regents approved an extension to her contract through to May 2031.

Ehretsman is a member of the board of the Guatemala Healing Hands Foundation. She has volunteered on over 20 missions, providing hand surgery and therapy to children and education for professionals and students.

Selected works