Sept. 10, 2025
Lisa Lopez Snyder
Sarah Anderson, PhD, OTD, OTR/L, clinical assistant professor, was named president of the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (HRS) Alumni Society.
In her new role, Dr. Anderson applauds the work the HRS Alumni Society has been doing with events and fundraising, particularly the HRS Student Welcome Event (August), the HRS Homecoming Tailgate (October) and Donate to Skate (December) are three favorite events.
Her goal in the coming term: Strengthen those efforts by focusing on ways to engage with new alumni and connect current students and faculty.
With an undergraduate degree from Carnegie Mellon, Dr. Anderson says she was excited to join a high caliber program at Ohio State when she began her doctorate work in 2016. “The program here really challenged students and offered opportunities like research that I had never been exposed to before,” she says. While working on her doctorate in Occupational Therapy (2019) and on her PhD in Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (2023), Dr. Anderson served in various research assistant and associateship roles.
Now, as a faculty member in the Division of Occupational Therapy doing innovative work using virtual reality technologies for training the next generation of providers, she is using the already strong connections she has with students, faculty, staff and administration to advance alumni engagement and student scholarship funding.
“In this stronger stewardship role as president, I have an opportunity to work with all the other board members to ensure that we're doing our best by our mission and vision, and to improve each year,” she says. New ideas to support alumni engagement that the board is exploring include opportunities for continuing education and networking. One idea, she notes, is to ensure that the HRS Alumni Society is represented at more student events, much as what happens with the annual welcome back to school event and football tailgates.
She also envisions opportunities to connect more regularly with students while they're still in school, so that, for example, once they graduate, they can be tapped to help sustain the alumni board, offering new ideas for continued alumni engagement.
“We don't have a representation from a lot of the graduating classes on our board, or even representatives from all the programs, so I feel like there are some ways that we can make a stronger connection there,” she says.
“We want students to know that even when they graduate, there's still lots of ways that they can be involved and feel connected to HRS, and also so that our younger alumni, especially, see themselves represented on our board. I’m thrilled to see what we can do to make that happen.”