Barbara Hemphill, DMin, OTR/L, FAOTA

Biography

Barbara Hemphill, DMin, OTR/L, FAOTA is an associate professor emeritus from Western Michigan University. Her undergraduate degree in occupational therapy is from the University of Iowa and her Master’s degree is from Colorado State University. She has a doctoral of Ministry from the Ecumenical Theological Seminary in Detroit. Her emphasis is spirituality. She provides insight into occupational therapy education and practice from the vantage point of her diversified and lengthy background in the field. Her area of expertise is mental health and spirituality.

Dr. Hemphill is widely known as a national and international conference presenter, consultant, and writer. She has served as editor of and contributor to three occupational therapy textbooks: The Evaluative Process in Psychiatric Occupational Therapy, which has been translated into Japanese; Mental Health Assessment in Occupational Therapy; and Assessments in Occupational Therapy Mental Health: An Integrative Approach. Her current project, entitled Spirituality for the Common Good: A Theology of Occupation, is in progress. She is a fellow of the American Occupational Therapy Association and fellow of the Michigan Occupational Therapy Association for her contributions in teaching, research, and publication. In addition, she has been an item writer for the national board for occupational therapy certification and has served on two national committees and the editorial boards of two professional journals.

Dr. Hemphill was appointed to the State of Michigan Ethics Board for Occupational Therapist and was elected Chair of the Ethics Commission to the American Occupational Therapy Association in 2009. In this position she serves on the Representative Assembly of AOTA and was a member of the AOTA Procedural & Organizational Change Ad Hoc Committee.