Meet the ISOS Executive Board
A six-member Executive for managing ISOS is elected by the ISOS members for a term of 3 years. The members of the Executive communicate with each other via online meetings and email. Members of ISOS may login onto the website to access documents and information, and to have discussions and meetings. Members may follow all the actions of ISOS, as well as take part in decision making through Google Groups. Membership is open to people and organisations interested in occupational science research and education, and those who support the promotion of occupation for health and community development. If you are interested in becoming a member of ISOS, please visit the section Becoming a Member. You can find information about the current ISOS Executive Board Members below.
Nadine Blankvoort
ISOS Board Chair
Rebecca (Beccy) Aldrich
ISOS Board Secretary
Beccy Aldrich is an Associate Professor of Clinical Occupational Therapy at the University of Southern California. She completed her PhD in occupational science at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and her BS and MA degrees in occupational therapy at the University of Southern California. She has previously held board positions within the International Society for Occupational Science (2014-2017) and the Society for the Study of Occupation: USA (2012-2015) and is currently the Occupational Science Associate Editor for OTJR: Occupation, Participation, and Health. Beccy’s professional interests include enhancing and critiquing the theoretical foundations of occupational science; conducting community-engaged research on “wicked” problems such as unemployment; and internationalizing occupational science education. Her work has involved partnerships with colleagues from diverse geographical and disciplinary origins, spanning the northern and southern hemispheres and crossing sociological, criminological, and economic boundaries. Beccy is passionate about developing international and transdisciplinary occupational science partnerships and aims to leverage her experience in this area to help create opportunities for cohesion and innovative partnerships while preserving the diversity that is vital to occupational science.
Nadine Blankvoort, originating from Canada, currently living in the Netherlands, is a registered Occupational Therapist and Global Health professional working in research and higher education. Following the completion of a Masters in Medical Rehabilitation in Occupational Therapy in Manitoba, Canada, Nadine worked in the areas of clinical rehabilitation, as well as community development. In 2012, Nadine completed the Global Health Masters program at Maastricht University, with research conducted into the embodied experiences of stroke survivors in Surabaya, Indonesia. Nadine has since been involved first as project coordinator and now as an advisory board member for projects based in Bangalore, India around the improvement of health circumstances for individuals living in urban slums.
Nadine is currently employed as an instructor and researcher at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, where she works as an instructor in the Occupational Therapy School and the interdisciplinary minor Global Health. Nadine is also the coordinator of internationalization for the occupational therapy school. Her current professional focus in education is the development of internationalization and diversity in the curriculum for students as well as for staff in OT higher education. Additionally, she focuses on initiating and maintaining collaborations with community organizations, largely serving refugees and asylum seekers in the Amsterdam area. This focus on forced migration is also included in the PhD research of Nadine. Her research focus is a critical discourse and narrative analysis of both government programs and citizen initiatives which focused on integration of refugees in the Netherlands. Nadine currently is heading the OT-EU expert group on OT with Displaced Persons and is also took the lead of hosting the organization for the Occupational Science Europe conference in Amsterdam in August 2019.
Rodolfo Morrison
ISOS Membership Lead
Rodolfo Morrison is the current Director of the Department of Occupational Therapy and Occupational Science at the University of Chile and president of Chilean Society of Occupational Science. He has a degree in Occupational Sciences and an Occupational Therapist from the Austral University of Chile; and Master and Doctor in Logic and Philosophy of Science from the University of Salamanca. In addition, he completed a postgraduate degree in Science, Technology and Society at the Center for Human and Social Sciences of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CCHS-CSIC) of Spain. His areas of work have focused on the analysis of the history and epistemological currents present in Occupational Therapy and Science, in particular, in the incidence of classical pragmatism in the profession. Other areas of interest for him are feminist studies of science, studies on sexual diversity, occupational science and the uses of body techniques and meditation as therapeutic intervention tools.
Liesl Peters
ISOS Chair-Elect
Liesl is an occupational therapist and academic with more than 15 years of experience within community development practice in a South African context. Opportunities to contribute to the health and development of communities across the globe through knowledge and practice related to human occupation has become increasingly urgent. In the interests of this important agenda Liesl has been committed to both the research and enactment of a socially-transformative occupational science that can readily engage with the real needs of communities. Her work and teaching within community development practice has focused on ‘doing occupational science’ where occupational science knowledge is co-critiqued, used and co-generated in order to serve local practice needs. Since 2005, she has been co-developing a framework for OT practice–Occupation-based Community Development (ObCD) (Galvaan & Peters, 2017; 2018)–that seeks to engage a decolonial justice-oriented praxis towards a transformed society. The ObCD has also been used by speech-language therapists working in community contexts in Cape Town, illustrating its developing potential to contribute in transdisciplinary ways – an important imperative for occupational science. For Liesl, occupational science could be a potentially powerful discipline, but occupational scientists have not yet positioned themselves well-enough to contribute in ways that might better serve humanity in different global and local spaces. With this, Liesl wishes to contribute to the strategic growth and positioning of occupational science internationally, in order for the discipline to build its potential. To her, innovative leadership in communities such as ISOS can play an important role in this respect. Liesl views that the insights that she has co-generated with communities and colleagues in teaching and practicing for both the Global North and South could offer valuable insights to such a process.
Michael Sy
ISOS Events Lead
Michael Sy PhD is an occupational therapist (licensed in the Philippines), occupational scientist, and a health professions educator. Michael is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Occupational Therapy, Zurich University of Applied Sciences (Switzerland). His research interests largely revolve around occupational science, occupational justice, roles of occupational therapy in emerging fields, and interprofessional education and practice. His scholarship within occupational therapy and occupational science expands to international contexts with his active involvement in grant acquisition, publication, and information dissemination both in formal and alternative channels. Currently, Michael has been a pilot member of the Special Interest Group for Occupational Science (under the Philippine Academy of Occupational Therapists) and has worked in cocreating OS projects locally. Informally, Michael collaborates with occupational therapists and budding occupational scientists within Southeast Asia to reorganize the Asian Community for the Promotion of Occupation (ACPO) which was introduced in Japan in 2017. As part of Michael's commitment to the ISOS, he intends to continue the promotion of occupational science globally by harnessing local and regional occupational science knowledges, facilitating diverse dialogues, and championing knotworking practices to cocreate intentional collaboration between occupational scientists, people and institutions who aim to transform society through the power of occupations. To know more about his work, you may visit his personal website: https://www.drmikesyot.com.
Isaac Amanquarnor
ISOS Communications Lead
Isaac Amanquarnor is an occupational therapy lecturer at the School of Health and Social Wellbeing, University of the West of England (UWE). He has a BSc. in occupational therapy from the University of Ghana and a MSc. in occupational therapy from the University of Cape Town. He has experience in community occupational therapy, and occupational therapy teaching and learning. He was the past organizer for the Occupational therapy association of Ghana (OTAG) in 2018/2019. Currently he’s a member of the OTAG scientific committee responsible for organizing conferences and seeing to research activities of the organization. Also, He is a subcommittee member of the OTAG- AKROFI grant – a grant office which was established to enhance occupational therapy/science research in Ghana. Isaac’s research interest includes emancipatory disability research, Spirituality in Health and Social Care (particularly occupational therapy/science), Relevance of conceptual metaphor in person centered practice and socially transformative practice, and community development practice.