Department of Occupational Therapy Faculty Activities in 2025
Dr. Ana Allegretti continues to be very active in her role as chair of the Special Interest Groups (SIGs) for RESNA. She is an associate editor for the Assistive Technology Journal and is very proud to announce that the journal has updated the guidelines for authors. She presented at the International Seating Symposium in Pittsburgh and at the ENOTHE in Portugal in 2025, and mentored three groups of students that were accepted to present at the AOTA in April 2026.
Dr. Autumn Clegg co-authored a published article, “Sexual intimacy in persons with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and their partners: A pilot study” (Ramirez et al., 2024). She continues to focus on IPE collaboration and has been part of collaborative grant submissions for community fall prevention initiatives. Dr. Clegg is also part of an externally funded IPE project that is focused on facilitating conversations with people with aphasia.
Dr. Mei-Ling Lin achieved significant scholarly milestones this year, including four peer-reviewed journal articles and 12 co-authored conference presentations. Notably, she serves as a co-investigator for a federally funded grant titled “Project ASPIRE: Advancing Successful Preparation of Interprofessional Related Services in Education Settings” from the Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education. She also completed the School-Based Practice Professional Certificate course through the American Occupational Therapy Association. Dr. Lin is committed to recruiting Project ASPIRE scholars in 2026 and launching a new course “Advancing Social Communication and Play,” a classroom-based autism intervention program for autistic preschoolers, as part of the enhanced pediatric curriculum outlined in the grant.
Dr. Kim Ferland joined the department in August 2025. Dr. Ferland is a retired U.S. Navy Captain (O6) with 35 years of distinguished service. She directed the tri-service Occupational Therapy Assistant program at Fort Sam Houston, served as the specialty advisor in occupational therapy to the U.S. Navy Surgeon General, and contributed to the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE) as a Roster of Accreditation Evaluator.
Her career spans school-based therapy, inpatient rehabilitation, orthopaedics and multiple overseas deployments. As a Certified Hand Therapist, Dr. Ferland is teaching biomechanics content in the curriculum, including splinting, physical agent modalities, ergonomic assessment and adult population rehabilitation processes.
Dr. Bridgett Piernik-Yoder continues to serve as the project director for the department’s $1.2 million, five-year grant from the US Department of Education Office of Special Education Program. The grant is in its second year and is supporting the development and implementation of Project ASPIRE to enhance the preparation of occupational therapy and speech-la
nguage pathology students who are committed to working with school age children. Dr. Piernik-Yoder is in her final year of a three-year term as the Chair of the AOTA Special Interest Section Council. She also serves on the leadership team of the AOTA Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Mentoring Program and Institute. Dr. Piernik-Yoder is completing her term as Immediate Past President of the University of Texas Kenneth I Shine Academy, which serves the University of Texas System (UTS) through the support and promotion of excellence in all aspects of health science education, including educational research, scholarship and leadership.
Dr. Chinyu Wu submitted a manuscript, Promoting Employment Participation for People with Mental Health Challenges: Photovoice and Advocacy, to Occupational Therapy Journal of Research (OTJR), which was published
in the special issue on Community Engaged Research. Dr. Wu was accepted to serve as a mentor for the mentorship program of the American Occupational Therapy Association's (AOTA's) Mental Health Special Interest Section (MHSIS). This was the second time that Dr. Wu served as a mentor for this program. Dr. Wu was one of the three internally selected principal investigators (PIs) to apply to Baptist Health Foundation's 2025 Strategic to Mission Grant. Dr. Wu's application was entitled, Lifestyle MIND: Improving Obesity and Diabetes Treatment for People with Serious Mental Illness.