The COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns that began in 2020 affected the lives of everyone in unexpected ways. For students in Samuel Merritt University (SMU)’s Doctor and Masters of Occupational Therapy...
Samuel Merritt University’s Occupational Therapy (OT) program offers a rigorous education in both the basic science and in occupation-based practice, including working in multiple clinical labs with...
When Charae McConnell, OTD ’19, read that 84% of occupational therapists (OTs) are white, she knew it was more than an abstract statistic in her class textbook. As an African American, she’d seen the...
Shefali Parikh, MOT ’99, still recalls commiserating with classmates after their occupational therapy licensing exam 23 years ago. What worried her classmates most were the hundreds of dollars it cost...
When Gul Ahmad Samimi began receiving threats from the Taliban, he made the heart-wrenching decision to leave his home and his family. He fled Afghanistan in 2015, after working for a U.S. aid agency...
Daisy Rios, OTD ’22, and Jonathan Rios Navarro, OTD ’24, are a package deal. They always have been and, according to their future plans, they always will be. The sister and brother are 28 and 24 years...
Sharon Diaz, PhD (h.c.), RN, the founding president of Samuel Merritt University who served in that capacity for nearly 37 years before her retirement, died unexpectedly on September 12. She was 75...
Wesley Chow, OTD ’21, took the University’s hands-on learning mission literally earlier this year when he printed 15 larger-than-life plastic finger bones using a 3-D printer. The finger bones were...
Samuel Merritt University has been named the best college in California for getting a job by career research website Zippia. SMU was recognized for its 94.5% employment rate 10 years after graduation...
In five years, what will Samuel Merritt University look like? What type of student will it educate? What communities will it serve? And how can the 112-year-old institution cultivate a culture of...
