Kimberly Kirklin, MA, ALC, NCC, director of UAB Arts in Medicine (AIM), joined the Department of Occupational Therapy on December 1 as an assistant professor. She will divide her time between AIM and the department, where she will help develop new arts in health initiatives, including a graduate certificate and continuing education courses.
She noted, “This role builds on years of collaboration and creates exciting opportunities to deepen the integration of arts and health across occupational therapy and other health professions, while expanding research, education, and innovative practice.”
Kirklin, whose background includes arts administration, theater, expressive arts, community-based programming, and mental health counseling, has been a leader in UAB’s arts in health efforts for more than 15 years. She helped launch AIM in 2013, when bringing storytelling, painting, music, dance, and other creative practices into hospital settings was still uncommon in the region.
As AIM’s first director of programming, and later its director, she helped build the program into a comprehensive service that now provides more than 100 hours per week of arts-based activities across UAB Hospital, Children’s of Alabama, and community sites. AIM’s team includes teaching artists-in-residence, music and arts therapists, and a yoga therapist who offer bedside engagement, expressive writing, visual arts, movement, and quilting tailored to patient, family, and staff needs.
“Rooted in arts-and-crafts movements, occupational therapy has long recognized creativity as a pathway to health and participation,” said Gavin Jenkins, PhD, OTR/L, professor and chair of the Department of Occupational Therapy. “We are delighted to welcome Kimberly to our faculty to help us advance learning and scholarship that honors that past, creates opportunities for the present, and boldly looks to the role of the arts in the future.”
Appointment Strengthens Existing Ties
Kirklin’s appointment formalizes long-standing collaborations with the Department of Occupational Therapy. She has supported the department’s annual summer Magic Camps, which use performance and illusion to promote motor, social, and emotional skills in children with disabilities. She has also served as co-investigator on several research projects with Professor of Occupational Therapy and Director of Research Hon K. Yuen, PhD, OTR/L.
These projects include expressive writing programs for adults with spinal cord injury and arts-based interventions to promote social connection and emotional resilience. Most recently, Kirklin served as a co-investigator on a randomized controlled trial showing that a theater-experience training program improved static balance and reduced falls among older adults living in subsidized housing.
