Empowering Voices, Expanding Opportunity

By Jackie Kofron '27, June 10, 2026

Muriel Quintana MS’13 and Jessica Romans MS’13 are giving back to their community with Ithaca Therapy Works.

Children can learn via hippotherapy at Ithaca Therapy Works

Ithaca Therapy Works was founded by Muriel Quintana and Jessica Romans, both 2013 grads from the Speech-Language Pathology program. A distinguishing service at Ithaca Therapy Works is hippotherapy—the use of equine movement.

Romans (L) and Quinata (R) on the Bjorem Speech Conference "Speech Cruise" - a week long learning experience. They are joined by Cari Ebert, a well-regarded, neurodiversity-affirming speech therapist. Photo Submitted.

Muriel Quintana and Jessica Romans, both 2013 master of science graduates, became best friends while on South Hill. As speech-language pathology majors, they dreamt about one day opening a practice together. Little did they know it would happen right where they had met. Ithaca Therapy Works, their speech-language pathology and occupational therapy practice, is located right across the street from IC, at the South Hill Business Campus.

Quintana’s first two years as a clinician were spent with an agency that served school districts near Albany. After that, she was employed by Saratoga Springs city schools before moving back to Ithaca to work with children and families privately.

Romans had moved to Rhode Island and then to North Carolina after graduation. During the pandemic, she and her family considered moving back to the Ithaca area. By then, Quintana was working privately with clients, and the two saw an opportunity to make, as she described it, “their dreams of opening a private practice together a reality.”

Ithaca Therapy Works employees are IC graduates. “We don’t mean to do it, but they’re well trained!” said Romans. Photo Submitted.

Over Zoom calls with their spouses, the couples discussed the entangled logistics of starting a business, as well as their careers and childcare needs (both families had young children), and they decided to go for it. Quintana recounted, “School wasn’t in session, and I was doing open-air, distanced speech therapy sessions in my garage. That’s how the private practice sort of started.”

IC has remained an integral part of their business. As Romans explained, Ithaca Therapy Works relied on IC’s on-campus speech clinic—the Sir Alexander Ewing–Ithaca College Speech and Hearing Clinic—for support when they were starting out. Now coming full circle, all of their in-office employees are Ithaca College graduates. “We don’t mean to do it, but they’re well trained!” said Romans.

A distinguishing service at Ithaca Therapy Works is hippotherapy—the use of equine movement by licensed therapists and pathologists as a tool to engage sensory, neuromotor, and cognitive systems in promoting functional outcomes for clients. Sara Drucker ’16, the company’s lead occupational therapist and a part owner at Ithaca Therapy Works, offers this approach at an outdoor arena at Flying Pig Farm in Trumansburg, New York.

On the horizon for Ithaca Therapy Works is to be able to serve more families. “One of our goals this coming year is to get a network with different insurance companies, so our services can become more accessible,” said Romans.

South Hill has seen Quintana and Romans through many of life’s important moments—from classmates and best friends to business partners and IC associates—and now they are giving back in the community that has given them so much.

Empower Voices.

Passions for health sciences, wellness, and physical fitness are developed at the School of Health Sciences and Human Performance. The Speech-Language Pathology program prepares our students with small class sizes and a wide professional network to take you where you want to go.