LaRonda Lockhart-Keene

I am a dedicated occupational therapist with over 20 years of clinical experience across the  lifespan, serving populations from infancy through older adulthood in a variety of settings  including the NICU, outpatient pediatrics and adults, acute care hospitals, inpatient spinal  cord injury rehabilitation, work hardening, long-term care, and skilled nursing. The majority  of my career has been devoted to working with older adults, with a clinical specialty in  dementia care. I continue to remain actively engaged in practice, mentoring occupational  therapy students in a community-based outpatient pro bono clinic in southeastern  Pennsylvania. 

I am an active member of the Pennsylvania Occupational Therapy Association (POTA),  where I previously served as Chair of the Commission on Justice, Equity, Diversity, and  Inclusion, and currently represent District 5 (Philadelphia and surrounding suburbs). 

In academia, I currently serve as faculty at Widener University and have held several  leadership and teaching roles, including adjunct professor at Penn State Berks (OTA  program), instructor and part-time fieldwork coordinator at Philadelphia University’s OTA  program, and Program Director for Thomas Jefferson University’s OTA program. My teaching  responsibilities have included courses in adult and older adult assessment and  intervention; management, leadership, and human service systems; ethics; and  community and population health. 

I earned my Bachelor of Science in Occupational Therapy from Temple University in 1997  and my Post-Professional Doctorate in Occupational Therapy from Philadelphia University  (now Thomas Jefferson University). My scholarly work includes research and publications on topics such as adjunct faculty preparation, clinical reasoning in OTA students,  perceptions of occupational therapy in residential mental health settings, student  perceptions of the flipped classroom, and occupational therapy practitioners’ perspectives  on entry-level master’s versus doctoral-level preparation.

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