On The air

Robin Akselrud, OTD, OTR/L, is an occupational therapist with fifteen years of experience in a variety of clinical practice areas. As a certified early intervention provider, she has worked in several treatment settings, including schools, home care for medically fragile infants and children, and hand therapy and splinting for infants and toddlers. In addition to her clinical work, Robin was an As...

Diane Knoll, OTR/L, is an occupational therapist who works as the founder and director of Vibrant Palette Arts Center, a non-profit visual arts day program for adults with disabilities in the city of Seattle. With 15 years of experience working in both school settings and pediatric therapy clinics, delivering quality care to clients ages three through adulthood, Diane enjoys working with clients w...

Kokeb Girma McDonald, OTR/L, is a pediatric occupational therapist, the founder of Polaris Therapy, an online parent and service provider coach, and a best-seller author to Integrating Primitive Reflexes Through Play and Exercise: An Interactive Guide to the Moro Reflex for Parents, Teachers, and Service Providers. She has 15+ years hands-on experience working with children from diverse background...

Research tells us that many older adults wish they could spend more time with people other than those their own age, and it also indicates that there are benefits to both younger people and older adults when those in the two groups interact and form relationships. On this episode of On The Air, two occupational therapy students from Quinnipiac University, Michelle Zubko and Julia Kowal, share abou...

Kathryn Ellis, OTR, OTD, is the CEO and founder of the Institute for Sex, Intimacy and Occupational Therapy, which offers continuing education services for occupational therapy professionals and client services for sexuality counseling. Kathryn is a Doctor of Occupational Therapy and an AASECT certified sexuality counselor. Her mission is to dismantle restrictive norms related to sexuality and int...

Helen Valencia is an occupational therapist who was born in Colombia and migrated to the U.S. at age 7. Helen grew up in Queens, NY, and earned an undergraduate degree from Queens College. She worked in advertisement sales for A&E TV and then worked for the United Nations as a staff assistant in two different offices, the last one being the office of the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and So...

Kripa Sundar, PhD, is an independent researcher and a learning detective. As a cognitive scientist and leader in the field of education and educational research, Kripa earned her doctorate in educational psychology with an emphasis on instructional strategies, with and without multimedia. She managed the Course of Mind project from the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) as th...

Meghan Fox is the lead occupational therapist in a school district in Southern California where she lives with her with husband, two sons, and dog. A Midwest transplant, Meghan attended the University of Illinois-Champaign for her undergraduate educate where she earned a Bachelors of Science in kinesiology before moving to Los Angeles to attend the University of Southern California for her Masters...

Today's guest is an OT who's kind of a big deal on social media these days. Nicole Julia, OTR/L, OTD, - the mastermind behind the social media sensation, the Able Fables - holds a clinical doctorate in occupational therapy from Belmont Univ. in Nashville, TN. In addition to being an OT, Nicole is a self-described lover of people and a believer in a more inclusive, universally designed world - and...

Hoang ("Wong") Tran - a Certified Hand Therapist (CHT) and the owner of Hands-on Therapy Services and the online community of practice CHT Secrets - has been practicing as an OT for about 20 years. She started Hands-on Therapy Services about 6 years ago in an effort to help more people with hand and arm injuries be more active and pain free while avoiding pills, injections, and surgery. As a CHT,...

Cheryl Crow is an occupational therapist who has lived with rheumatoid arthritis for 16 years. In 2019 she created a video and social media channel called Arthritis Life to educate, empower and inspire patients with arthritis and their providers. On Arthritis Life, she shares life hacks from the OT perspective, patient stories, provider interviews, and product reviews in a fun, talk show-style for...

David Puder, MD, is a physician who practices medicine as a psychiatrist. David hosts a podcast called the Psychiatry & Psychotherapy Podcast and has an interest in helping students overcome test anxiety. On this episode, David talks about how test anxiety can serve as a barrier for people who are trying to get into occupational therapy (OT) school as well as for those in OT school and OT students...

Maureen Warden has been an occupational therapist for 23 years. After earning a bachelor's degree in health science from SUNY Cortland in central New York, she completed a master's in occupational therapy at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Her early career was in a general hospital setting, working primarily within the inpatient and stroke population. As part of that hospital position...

Michelle Finet is an occupational therapist who has worked with children and youth for over 20 years specializing in the areas of sensory integration and autism. She has worked with clients with a wide range of diagnoses including but not limited to Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, spina bifida, torticollis, developmentally delays, brachial plexus injuries, cognitive impairment, muscular dystrophy,...

Meghann Rose has been a pediatric OT for almost 14 years. Her first 12 years were spent working at a Children's Hospital in Rochester, NY, where she helped establish a team-based approach to occupational therapy in the NICU and where she focused on infant feeding, positioning and transition to home. In 2007, Meg and neurologist Jennifer Kwon established the Brachial Plexus Outpatient Clinic and in...

Polly Benson, OTR/L, is a licensed occupational therapist with 28 years of experience treating patients in multiple settings. She currently works for Comprehensive Therapy Consultants in Atlanta, GA as a school based OT. She is a graduate of The Ohio State University. Polly has extensive experience in technology apps and strategies designed to assist clients for achieving therapy goals. She is a d...

Susan Masie, OTR/L, is an occupational therapist and CEO & Founder of Pediatric Therapies. She graduated from Quinnipiac College (now Quinnipiac University) in Hamden, Connecticut in 1983. While having early experience in adult acute care, rehab, and home health, Susan has specialized in pediatrics for more than 30 years. She began her pediatric career in schools and home care, eventually moving t...

Narrative medicine is an approach that used in clinical practice, research, and education to promote growth, learning, and/or healing through the use of story (or narrative). That story may be communicated in a variety of ways, including through the use of theater, and that's what the guest on this episode has done in her work as an occupational therapist and an occupational therapy educator. Sall...

Ali Isso and Holly Masters are both Certified Occupational Therapy Assistants (COTAs) who work with the older adult population in nursing homes and hospitals. Through their work, Ali and Holly have observed depression and loneliness, which are overwhelmingly prevalent with older adults and which have been linked to loss of independence, decreased motivation, and social withdrawal. In fact, accordi...

Erin Grujic has been an occupational therapist for 19 years. She had a dream many years ago about having a mobile sensory clinic to rural communities in Southern Alberta. Two years ago, she started working as an OT practitioner in the private sector and then one year ago was able to bring her dream to life through the creation of a mobile sensory integration clinic, which she says aligns well with...

Occupational therapist Becca McCaskey, MOT, OTR/L, grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, and attended UT-Knoxville to earn an undergrad degree in Therapeutic Recreation. She completed her Master's degree in Occupational Therapy in 2015 at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis and then began her career working in outpatient private pediatric therapy. After recognizing some of the...

Rebecca Kadowaki is an occupational therapist who has developed an evidence-based toolkit connecting contact with nature and executive functioning in pediatrics as part of the work she's doing in the post-professional OTD program in which she is enrolled at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI). Becca has developed a resource called "Nature + Occupational Therapy" which is a...

Physical therapist Karen Malone, an expert in stroke and stroke rehab after over 30 years in practice, is the guest on this episode of On The Air. In the interview, Karen reminisces about her days in PT school and her first job as a PT working at a small Southern California hospital in stroke rehab. She talks about her experiences in stroke rehab Tijuana and China where she worked for 20 years and...

Karen Dobyns is an occupational therapist who lives in Southern California. She loves pediatrics and mental health and is adjunct faculty in an occupational therapy assistant college program. Karen was interviewed about her path into the field of occupational therapy on Episode 10 in January 2018 and is back to talk about her experiences in writing a children's book centered around the concept of...

Kami Bible is an occupational therapist who specializes in school-based occupational therapy delivered via teletherapy. In addition to a degree in OT from Newman University in Wichita, KS, Kami also holds a Master's degree in Business Administration. She has experience working in the field as an Allied Health Recruiter for a large hospital system in Oklahoma City, a national presenter for the Bure...