Brandon M. Imamshah, DrOT, MOT, OTR/L, CHC, CSRS, CKTP, CAFS
Adjunct Instructor
School of Occupational Therapy
University of Puget Sound
Tacoma, Washington
Dr. Imamshah earned his entry-level Master of Occupational Therapy (2010) and post-professional Doctor of Occupational Therapy (2019) from the University of Puget Sound (UPS) in Tacoma, WA. He has been a licensed occupational therapist since 2011 and has worked exclusively with young to older adults in inpatient, outpatient, and long-term care settings (skilled nursing facilities, assisted living, inpatient brain injury rehabilitation, industrial/work rehabilitation, and outpatient upper extremity and stroke rehabilitation). Dr. Imamshah also briefly owned and operated a private practice that focused on health promotion in the areas of performance optimization and enhancement. His clinical interests include health promotion approaches to health, well-being, participation, and performance. He is a Certified Health Coach (CHC), Certified Stroke Rehabilitation Specialist (CSRS™), Certified Kinesio Taping® Practitioner (CKTP), and has advanced training in movement- and manual-based approaches to evaluation and intervention, including a Certification in Applied Functional Science® (CAFS).
In 2018, Dr. Imamshah began teaching as an adjunct instructor at UPS and transitioned to full-time teaching as an assistant professor in 2020 at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, MT. He served as an Assistant Professor (2021-2025) in the developing School of Occupational Therapy at Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences in Yakima, WA. He returned to the University of Puget Sound in 2025, where he currently teaches as an Adjunct Instructor. Dr. Imamshah’s teaching expertise includes fundamental/introductory concepts and principles of occupational therapy practice, movement sciences, and community-based program development.
His program of research is fundamentally concerned with promoting health and well-being, reducing health disparities, and increasing health equity among rural and medically underserved populations. This work includes developing, implementing, and evaluating theoretically-informed, culturally-appropriate, and occupation-based health promotion programs integrated into occupational therapy services. Dr. Imamshah’s current work focuses on the development and implementation of health promotion programs that emphasize the prescription of culturally-relevant physical activities and that address the social and environmental determinants of health behaviors. His work also includes the critical interrogation of concepts, language, frameworks, models, and theories that are used to guide health promotion practices. Finally, he is in the process of developing and testing an occupation-based health promotion practice model and occupation-based movement screening and assessment protocols.
Wendell M. Nakamura, DrOT, MOT, OTR/L, CLA
Associate Professor
School of Occupational Therapy
Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences
Yakima, Washington
Dr. Nakamura earned his entry-level Master of Occupational Therapy (1998) and post-professional Doctor of Occupational Therapy (2017) from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA. He has 18 years of clinical experience as an occupational therapist, primarily in adult physical rehab with a focus in acute care, including cardiopulmonary rehab, ICU care, orthopedics, and neurotreatment. He has also worked in outpatient pediatrics, skilled nursing facilities, assisted living facilities, and home health organizations.
Dr. Nakamura has been an educator since 2012 in occupational therapy programs at the University of Puget Sound and Rocky Mountain College in Billings, MT. His expertise includes occupation-based functional anatomy and neuroscience, assistive technology, accessibility to built environments (ADA, Titles II and III), community mobility and driving, gerontology, community-based program development, legislative policy and advocacy, leadership, and management. He is a Credentialed Leader in Academia (CLA) by the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA), served as Co-Chair of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee of the Academy of Communication in Healthcare, is a Certified CarFit® Event Coordinator, and is a member of the Planetary Heath Alliance.
Dr. Nakamura’s clinical interests include adult physical rehabilitation, particularly in the areas of cardiopulmonary rehabilitation, intensive care medicine, assistive technology, and driver rehabilitation. His program of research has been fundamentally related to communication and the development of therapeutic relationships, particularly in client education.
Contributing Authors
Amy L. Jennings, OTD, OTR/L, BCPR, CSRS
Assistant Professor
School of Occupational Therapy
Pacific Northwest University of health Sciences
Yakima, Washington
Dr. Amy L. Jennings earned her Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience from Regis University in Denver, Colorado, and her Occupational Therapy Doctorate from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. She completed her doctoral capstone focused on the importance of standardized evaluation, client-centered care, and cultural competency in Quito, Ecuador. Dr. Jennings has been in clinical practice since 2013 working primarily in hospital-based, outpatient neurorehabilitation in rural North Central Washington. She has helped develop a driving safety program, an interdisciplinary wheelchair clinic, and a therapeutic Parkinson’s program. She has also facilitated various support groups including stroke, traumatic brain injury, Parkinson’s, and spinal cord injury. In 2021, Dr. Jennings was promoted to Rehabilitation Services Manager where she helped improve schedule utilization, billing optimization, regulatory compliance, and employee engagement.
Dr. Jennings’ clinical interests include Neurorehabilitation, Board Certified in Physical Rehabilitation (BCPR), Certified Stroke Rehabilitation Specialist (CSRS), LSVT BIG, wheelchair evaluations, home safety assessments, driving safety, and integrating OT practitioners into Primary Care, Occupational Medicine, and Emergency Departments.
Her research interests include Chaos and Complexity Theory, occupational science, resilience training, neuromotor learning principles, practical application of neuromotor interventions, and rural health care and marginalized populations.