Heather Thomas, PhD, OTR/L is an associate professor at West Coast University in Los Angeles, California. She began teaching activity analysis in 2004 at Loma Linda University. After obtaining her master's degree in occupational therapy from the University of Southern California in 1998, she studied health care administration at Touro University International in Cypress, California, and gained her PhD in health science in 2011. Thomas's clinical work focuses on the adult acute and acute rehabilitation settings. From 2000 to 2002, she was director of the Casa Colina Assistive Technology Center, and from 2007 to 2008, she served as director of Occupational Therapy Services at Casa Colina Centers for Rehabilitation in Pomona, California. She has served in multiple leadership roles within the Occupational Therapy Association of California and has presented at conferences of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA). She currently serves as the California representative on the AOTA Representative Assembly. She has also served several terms as the chair of the Los Angeles Occupational Therapy Leadership Forum. Expanding occupational therapy's reach into underserved areas, she has volunteered in Haiti to work with those who were injured during the earthquake of 2010 and then helped develop a rehabilitation technician program in that country. A yoga instructor for many years, she now enjoys practicing yoga at home in Los Angeles, snow skiing, gardening, teaching, and learning new occupations.