Nancy graduated from Tufts University in Boston, MA with a bachelor’s degree in occupational therapy and later received her doctorate degree in occupational therapy at Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions in 2013. She is currently a senior hand therapist at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco and specializes in the areas of UE rehabilitation with clients after traumatic and chronic hand injuries. Nancy has given numerous presentations locally, nationally and internationally addressing area of a therapist’s management of mutilating hand injuries, burns, flap and grafts, tendon injuries and orthotic fabrication. She is also a clinical instructor and an adjunct professor at Samuel Merritt University in Oakland, CA, instructing in areas of kinesiology, clinical modalities and interventions including orthotic fabrication for Masters and Doctoral level occupational therapy students.
Nancy’s interest and skills as a hand therapist have led her to opportunities to volunteer and work abroad on medical mission trips through ReSurge International since 2003 and other non-government organizations (NGOs), sharing her knowledge and skills as an occupational/hand therapist to local health care professionals in underserved countries. Her travels have taken her to the countries of Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, India, Nepal, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka and Vietnam working alongside hand surgeons, nurses and therapists. Nancy took up the urgent call for volunteers shortly after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, providing urgently needed therapy services to earthquake survivors at treatment sites managed by Handicap International and Doctors Without Borders. Because of her ongoing volunteer work, Nancy was honored with the ASHT Paul Brand Award for Professional Excellence in 2005.