Shriners Children's Portland Therapy Services

Elena Absalon, PT, D.P.T., is a physical therapist at Shriners Children’s Portland. She started her physical therapy career working in early intervention and outpatient pediatric clinic settings in Southern California prior to joining the team at Shriners Children’s. Elena earned her board certification in pediatric physical therapy in 2024. She enjoys working with a wide variety of patients with orthopedic and neurological diagnoses in multiple levels of their care, including inpatient and outpatient settings. Elena works in the multidisciplinary spina bifida clinic and is a part of the sports medicine team.

Elena has additional training in neurodevelopmental disorders and torticollis. She has an interest in supporting adaptive athletes, enjoys volunteering with the Shriners Children’s recreation therapy programs and hosts a Spanish language group for the rehabilitation team.

Elena believes in working toward goals that are meaningful to kids and parents to promote independence and autonomy. She is intentional about making therapy sessions fun and promoting strategies to allow carryover to daily life. 

Ben Bertrand, PT, D.P.T., MHA, is the director of therapy services at Shriners Children’s Portland. His love for movement and exercise developed while attending Oregon State University and competing in intercollegiate athletics. Numerous injuries over his young life led him to physical therapists who helped him recover and stay on the field. The opportunity to blend athletics with helping people was his initial draw to the profession.

He believes that providing highly-skilled and competent pediatric physical therapy requires the practitioner to consider the overall health and well-being of each child, including the physical, emotional and social needs. Therapists work closely with the family and integrate treatment into the child’s natural environments, such as home, school, sporting and recreational lives.

Ben graduated from Pacific University in Forest Grove with both master's and doctoral degrees in physical therapy. After spending five years in private practice treating all populations, Ben accepted a position as the manager of a small rural hospital therapy department in Baker City, Oregon, which then led him to become the director of rehabilitation at Tuality Healthcare in Hillsboro for nine years. Ben joined the Shriners Children’s therapy team in 2019.

Joel Cowley, PT, D.P.T., is a physical therapist at Shriners Children’s Portland. He has been a member of the therapy team since 2018. Shriners Children’s is very fortunate to have him on staff. He easily engages kids of all ages and establishes a rapport with them to get them to enjoy coming to therapy. Joel has been one of the main therapists who sees our sports medicine patients, and establishes protocols for that population as a whole. He treats a wide variety of neurologic and orthopedic diagnoses with skill and confidence.

Stephanie Crawford, MS, CCC-SLP, is a speech-language pathologist at Shriners Children’s Portland. She obtained her master's degree in speech-language pathology from the MGH Institute of Health Professions in 2004. Since that time, she has worked in a variety of settings focusing on augmentative and alternative communication in early intervention programs, schools and outpatient clinics. She is especially passionate about finding communication solutions for people with complex access needs. She enjoys working with families and school staff to expand a child's communication.

Stephanie believes in a functional, play-based and family-centered approach to therapy. She looks for communication opportunities that are meaningful and motivating within the context of a family’s day. She prioritizes collaboration with all team members (school, family, other therapists) in developing a plan that will ultimately lead to increased communication independence.

Deedee Dolp, LPTA, is a physical therapist assistant at Shriners Children’s Portland. While attending college, Deedee volunteered every Friday afternoon at Shriners Children's Portland in the child life department. When she graduated with her Bachelor of Science degree, she worked for a year in sales and decided that she would like to do something more meaningful in rehabilitation. She returned to school and graduated with an associate degree in physical therapist assistance (PTA). Her first PTA position was nearby at the Veterans Affairs hospital. The whole time she eagerly awaited an open position with the Shriners Children’s Portland therapy services department. Deedee started at Shriners Children’s Portland in 2002, and finds much pride and joy in her position. 

Meagan Dugan, MOT, OTR/L, is an occupational therapist (OT) at Shriners Children’s Portland. She has been an OT since 2016, earning her Master of Occupational Therapy degree from Saint Louis University. Meagan always knew she wanted to work with children, because of their playfulness and resiliency. She has worked as an OT with children and their families in many settings, including in the school system, a hospital-based outpatient pediatric clinic and a sensory integration clinic.

Meagan discovered her passion for pediatric hand therapy in 2020. Since then, she has pursued continuing education and mentorship opportunities to further advance her skills in treating this specialty. Meagan is experienced in rehabilitation of the hand and arm, orthosis fabrication, therapeutic elastic taping and physical agent modalities. She moved with her family to the Portland area from San Diego, California, in 2024 and started at Shriners Children’s Portland soon after.

Brandon Eddy, MA, CCC-SLP, is a speech-language pathologist at Shriners Children’s Portland, with clinical expertise in augmentative and alternative communication and cleft/craniofacial disorders. Brandon primarily serves the Shriners Children's Portland cleft lip and palate clinic. He is also an associate clinical professor in the Department of Speech & Hearing Sciences at Portland State University. Brandon received his Bachelor of Science in exercise science at Pacific University Oregon and completed his Master of Arts in speech-language pathology at the University of Iowa. He also completed an interdisciplinary training fellowship through the Oregon Leadership Education in neurodevelopmental and related disabilities program at the Institute on Development and Disability.

Nancy Ellis, PT, D.P.T., is a physical therapist at Shriners Children’s Portland. She received her doctorate in physical therapy from Pacific University and her Bachelor of Arts from Smith College. She has a professional background in dance and theater performance, as well as in fundraising and executive leadership of nonprofit arts organizations. Her clinical areas of interest include trauma-informed care, gross motor and developmental delay, performing artists/athletes and interdisciplinary rehabilitation in collaboration with recreational therapy, orthotics and prosthetics, and occupational and speech therapies. 

Michelle Foss, PT, D.P.T., PCS, is a physical therapist at Shriners Children's Portland and has worked there for her entire career. She has worked with a diversity of patients, including those with different health conditions, ages and interests. Michelle has been working with and continuing to build the spine program and sports medicine program at Shriners Children's Portland. She has a passion for working with athletes, as she grew up playing team sports like basketball, volleyball and soccer.

Michelle works with patients and families to create goals, and works with physicians in a multidisciplinary collaboration for optimal care. She works together with patients and families to help them be successful, including adapting home exercise programs to work for the child. This includes working towards autonomy with the exercises. She also utilizes all resources needed to help children and their families be successful.

Shannon Kelly, MPT, PCS, is a physical therapist (PT) at Shriners Children’s Portland and has spent the majority of her career there. Shannon has been an integral part of the spine and limb deficiency teams at Shriners Children’s since 1998. She works closely in this multidisciplinary setting with physicians and prosthetists to treat patients with congenital amputations, acquired amputations and limb salvage procedures, with excellent results. She has presented multiple times on a national level with this team and contributed to several published articles. She was the co-author of an article for the Association of PeriOperative Registered Nurses that won the “article of the year” award.

Shannon strives to provide individualized and family-focused care to assist her patients in achieving the highest possible level of function and in promoting their self-determination. She bases her treatment plans on patient-centered goals, optimizing each patient’s strengths and ultimate potential.

Shannon has been a guest lecturer at several PT schools in the Pacific Northwest on the topic of prosthetic rehabilitation. She was one of the first Schroth-based certified scoliosis specific exercises therapists in the department.

Megan Knight, MS, CCC-SLP, is a pediatric speech-language pathologist at Shriners Children’s Portland. She obtained her master's degree in speech-language pathology from Gallaudet University in 2017. Since 2018, she has been employed at Shriners Children’s Portland, where she has played a key role in enhancing and maintaining the expertise of assistive technology in the field of speech-language pathology. Throughout her professional tenure, Megan has exclusively focused her work on pediatric care and has found tremendous fulfillment in this area. She is particularly passionate about utilizing technology to facilitate communication for children with special needs.

Kok-Ming Koh, LPTA, is a physical therapist assistant at Shriners Children’s Portland. Ming was born in Singapore and spent part of his childhood there before moving to the U.S. at a young age. He studied engineering in college and had a career developing and testing inkjet printers for many years before he decided to switch gears. He draws on his life experience as a person with a disability to develop a natural rapport with his patients, and channels his problem-solving skills and attention to detail into their treatments. He has also used his engineering background to help develop, modify and maintain a wide selection of adaptive devices and durable medical equipment. Some of these are customized for specific patients, including those undergoing complex spine surgery.

Deneé Kroeger, MOT, R/L, is an occupational therapist (OT) at Shriners Children’s Portland. She graduated with her master’s degree in occupational therapy from the University of Puget Sound in 2006 and has worked at Shriners Children’s Portland since 2007, during which she has helped to advance and keep current the hospital’s assistive technology program. She occasionally guest lectures at various conferences and for Pacific University’s OT program. In 2019, she received her assistive technology professional certification, which affirms her knowledge and experience in the field of assistive technology.

Deneé is especially passionate about helping children with complex orthopedic needs gain independence using alternate access methods for powered mobility. She thrives in helping children with special needs, finding unique solutions to help them gain the independence they did not think was possible. 

Eva Ma, OTR/L, ATP, is an occupational therapist at Shriners Children’s Portland. She graduated from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, in 1987. She received her credentials through the Rehabilitation Engineering Society of North America as an assistive technology professional in 1997. Eva completed level 1 advanced intensive mentorship at the Sensory Processing Disorder Foundation in Colorado, in 2014. She is certified in administering and interpretation of the sensory integration and Praxis test. Eva is a training leader of the DIR/Floortime® approach.

Eva has dedicated time to projects around the world in numerous developing countries for fitting and training for customized wheelchair seating and position equipment.

Eva has extensive experience supporting individuals with various differences in neurological, neuromuscular and sensory-motor challenges that impact their capacities to maximize their developmental potential. She is passionate about applying a strengths-based approach to working with infants, children, adolescents, young adults and their families who experience growing challenges related to dyspraxia, hypotonia, torticollis, autism, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, incoordination, learning disabilities and other developmental delays. Her extensive experience covers early intervention and early childhood education programs for 0- to 5-year-olds, and services for pre-kindergarten and school-age through middle and high school with disabilities.

In addition to practicing, Eva lectures and mentors to parents and professionals’ groups internationally. She is passionate about supporting individuals and their families where they are and providing scaffolding for them to connect in meaningful ways. She believes that collaboration and communication among parents, therapists and children, as well as with educational and healthcare professionals, are the pillars for positive changes.

Sally Moeggenberg, MPT, is a physical therapist at Shriners Children’s Portland, and has spent her career at Shriners Children’s. She has always had a caseload consisting of children with a variety of orthopedic conditions, and much of her focus has been on children with cerebral palsy and neuromuscular disorders. In collaboration with the Muscular Dystrophy Association, she helped establish the neuromuscular clinic at Shriners Children’s.

Sally advocates and participates in multidisciplinary collaboration for optimal care. She works with families to identify their primary concerns as well as their personal goals in order to establish a focused treatment plan, and draws in resources from within the hospital and outside community to support each child’s needs.

Sally has spent most of her career at Shriners Children’s in supervisory positions within the therapy services department, but has continued to participate in patient care.

Anne Murphy-Hagan, OTD, OTR/L, BCP, is a bilingual (Spanish and English) senior occupational therapist at Shriners Children’s Portland. She received a clinical Doctorate of Occupational Therapy from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and completed her clinical rotations at Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis and Child Development and Rehabilitation Center at OHSU Doernbecher in Portland, Oregon.

Her clinical focus is hand and upper extremities sports medicine and developmental delays. Her treatment philosophy is that the family is the expert on their child, children do not need fixing, therapy is a partnership and shared responsibility between therapist and family.

Anne is an American Occupational Therapy Association board-certified specialist in pediatrics. She was first introduced to occupational therapy during her former career as a family advocate for Head Start. The rehabilitation field presented a natural blend of her passions – educating families, child development and active play. Anne is passionate about pushing kids to realize their full potential. As a former college athlete, she especially enjoys working on rehabilitation of the hand and upper extremity. Several peer-reviewed journals have published her articles on the subject of peer mentorship and educational innovations in occupational therapy.

Caroline Scott, CTRS, studied recreational therapy at University of North Carolina Wilmington, completing an internship at National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Before moving to Portland in 2018, she worked as a recreational therapist at an adaptive outdoor adventure program in Breckenridge, Colorado. While with the organization, she led multi-day overnight programs with children and adults who have a variety of disabilities.

Caroline aims to promote an active and healthy lifestyle for patients, while encouraging increased quality of life through outdoor adventure, sports, creative movement, art and social engagement. She is passionate about empowering individuals of all abilities through access to adaptive and inclusive recreation.

Amanda Stoltz, PT, D.P.T., PCS, is a physical therapist (PT) and is a board-certified clinical specialist in pediatrics. She has been a PT at Shriners Children’s Portland since 2004 and sees children with a wide variety of neurological and orthopedic diagnoses. Amanda has been an integral part of the tone management program, working with physicians to evaluate and treat spasticity in children with cerebral palsy. Amanda also supports the multidisciplinary skeletal dysplasia clinic, where she works regularly with children who have osteogenesis imperfecta and other skeletal dysplasias.

Amanda is one of the first on the team to become a BSPTS Schroth-based scoliosis specific exercise therapist, working with children with adolescent scoliosis. Amanda has presented at national conferences and is a published contributor to chapters from the Physical Therapy Case Files series of books. 

April Trenaman, OTR/L, is an occupational therapist, and has worked at Shriners Children’s Portland since 1993. She earned her occupational therapy degree from Pacific University in 1992. April is a member of the multi-disciplinary skeletal dysplasia team. She is a long-term member of the neuromuscular program, as well. April has years of experience in treating pediatric patients with complex neuromuscular diseases, and children with a variety of orthopedic conditions who have a need for orthopedic rehabilitation, including developmental delays, fine motor skills and activities of daily living needs.

Stacia Torborg, D.P.T., is a physical therapist at Shriners Children’s Portland. Prior to becoming a physical therapist, Stacia worked in education as an after-school teacher, and in the arts as a theatrical stage manager and wedding photographer. She loves that working as a pediatric physical therapist allows her to use her creativity while making a difference in the lives of children and their families.

Stacia believes treatment should be focused on empowering patients and families to reach goals that are personally meaningful, promoting autonomy to help patients manage their own health and well-being, particularly as they approach adulthood. Her approach is to maximize patients’ opportunities for participation, mobility and joy in movement using evidence-based interventions.

Alison Wall, MS, CCC-SLP, is a speech-language pathologist at Shriners Children's Portland. Her clinical focus is childhood apraxia of speech, dysarthria, developmental disabilities, receptive and expressive language, cleft lip and palate, and augmentative and alternative communication.

She obtained her bachelor’s and graduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. As an undergraduate, she grew her passion for learning about children with developmental disabilities as a line therapist.

She has experience as an early interventionist, providing home speech-language therapy and over 17 years in the pediatric outpatient children’s hospital rehabilitation setting, working in co-treatment with occupational therapists, social group and language group treatment. She has provided language facilitation training for parents of children with language delays utilizing the Hanen approach. Alison enjoys engaging in the inpatient rehabilitation, cleft lip and palate, and craniofacial teams. She provides augmentative and alternative communication care for children with a variety of diagnoses.

Kirsten Zilke, PT, D.P.T., is a physical therapist at Shriners Children’s Portland, where she has been since 1996. Kirsten is the primary physical therapist in our comprehensive multi-disciplinary neuromuscular clinic, serving children and families with all forms of neuromuscular diagnoses. In addition to clinical care, Kirsten works in our clinical research department as well as OHSU Pediatric Neurology Research Department, participating in clinical trials on a national level. Kirsten's work in research has fueled her determination for establishing evidence-based practices in physical therapy.

Kirsten's treatment philosophy is to provide effective and functionally supportive therapy that is based on the best available and most current evidence. She strives to always keep the child and family at the forefront of all clinical and goal-setting decisions, so that therapies impact not only the musculoskeletal system, but more importantly, positively impacts quality of life. Kirsten believes that therapy should not make a person a patient but should make them more able to participate in the things that bring joy and purpose to their lives.