Nancy Dooley

Nancy R. Dooley, Ph.D., OTR/L, CDP, FAOTA, has been an occupational therapist in Rhode Island for more than twenty-five years, working with people who have mental, physical, and cognitive impairments that impact their ability to do the things they need and want to do every day. She has varied clinical experience in hospital and community mental health, including work with families experiencing homelessness and supervision of students in skilled nursing facilities, assisted living settings, and adult day programs. Dooley spent seventeen years teaching and developing the first occupational therapy master’s degree program in Rhode Island. She then taught at a state university in Massachusetts before joining the faculty of JWU’s new Occupational Therapy Doctorate program.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in Occupational Therapy from Quinnipiac College and her master’s and doctoral degrees in Occupational Therapy from New York University.

As a leader within the Rhode Island Occupational Therapy Association, she is part of an interdisciplinary group pursuing legislative efforts to improve access to non-pharmaceutical pain interventions for Rhode Islanders.

Education

• Ph.D., Occupational Therapy, New York University
• M.A., Advanced Occupational Therapy, New York University
• B.S., Occupational Therapy, Quinnipiac College

Scholarly Interests

Dooley’s research interests are the assessment of functional cognition and maximizing the quality of life for people with dementia and their family caregivers. One notable research project, “Development of the Tile Tray Assessment”, is an assessment of functional cognition based on the Allen Diagnostic Module that is reusable and more user-friendly for people with fine motor skill deficits, with M. Brinson (2016).

Courses

• OTD8240: Occupational Therapy Practice I
• OTD7020: Foundations of Occupational Therapy