Sarah Beth Spraberry’s interest in vision rehabilitation began during her time as a UAB MSOT student. After graduating from that program in 2015 and earning her OTR/L credential, she began her occupational therapy career in acute care and inpatient rehabilitation. Yet, she always knew that her future focus would be low vision.

She returned to UAB in 2020 to enroll in its Low Vision Rehabilitation Graduate Certificate program (LVRGCP) and, after earning her certificate in 2023, joined the Department of Occupational Therapy as an assistant professor. She now spends much of her time working with patients at the UAB Center for Low Vision Rehabilitation.

It’s a career Spraberry loves, and one that kindles her imagination.

“I’ve always wanted to implement my personality and creativity in my work, and working in low vision allows me to be the most creative I can be as an OT,” she says. “I want to practice at the top of my license, and it’s exciting that I can do that in a low vision setting.”

It’s the complexity of human occupations and the need to consider the whole person to provide the best care that Sarah dos Anjos, PhD, OT, MSc, assistant professor of occupational therapy, most wants to impart to her students.

“What we do is one hundred percent client centered,” she says. “We need to be able to see our clients holistically so we can understand how to help them and how to mediate the process so they can reach their goal, whatever that goal may be.”

Megan Carpenter, OTD, OTR/L, SCFES, assistant professor of occupational therapy, had spent more than a decade in clinical practice as a pediatric OT when she decided to return to school to earn her clinical doctorate in occupational therapy.

She achieved that goal in 2018, and has since played a pivotal role in the education of OT students, first as the academic fieldwork coordinator for Samford University’s Department of Occupational Therapy, and now as the inaugural doctoral capstone coordinator for UAB’s entry-level OTD program.

Jason Vice, MS, OTR/L, SCLV, assistant professor of occupational therapy, stays busy with a trio of professional responsibilities. In addition to teaching three courses and conducting vision science research, he is one of a handful of occupational therapists (OTs) in Alabama with a dedicated clinical practice focused on low vision care.

Brooks Wingo, PhD, associate professor of occupational therapy, has several goals that underlie all her research efforts. One is identifying behavioral interventions that improve the health and lives of people with complex medical conditions and that can move rapidly from successful scientific investigation into widespread clinical care.

That’s her hope for her current multisite randomized controlled trial, which will test the effects of a low glycemic load diet and calorie restriction in people with multiple sclerosis (MS). She and her colleagues hope to start enrollment in January 2023 for the trial, which will recruit participants at UAB and Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL).