Stafford is only Native PTA Program Director

According to 2022 PTA Program Data released by the Commission of Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE), Shakira Stafford, PT, is the only Native American PTA Program Director in the Nation. Check out the data online.

Stafford earned an Associate of Science Degree at Eastern Oklahoma State College in 1993, a Bachelor of Science Degree at the University of Central Oklahoma in 1995 and a Master of Physical Therapy Degree at Wichita State University in 1997.

Stafford served as a Commission Corp Officer from 1998-2002, earning the rank of Lieutenant—duty station Gallup Indian Medical Center (Gallup, New Mexico).

She returned to Oklahoma and worked in outpatient, home health, skilled nursing, and the school systems in central Oklahoma until she began employment in therapy education.

Stafford began employment with Gordon Cooper Technology Center and Seminole State College in 2016 to write and develop a Physical Therapist Assistant Program. She has received full accreditation by CAPTE in April of 2019 to deliver the Associate of Applied Science in Physical Therapist Assistant Degree. She has served as Program Director and Assistant Professor. Stafford recently started the 6th cohort of PTA students and now serves as Program Director and Director of Clinical Education.

She is married to Adam Stafford, Undersecretary of Finance Operations for the Chickasaw Nation and her daughter, Chiara Carpenter, is currently a freshman at the University of Oklahoma majoring in Biomedical Engineering with a Pre-Med emphasis and minoring in Music.

Her father is 90-year-old citizen Walter F. Strickland of Shawnee, Oklahoma, and her grandmother was original enrollee Rhoda Hancock.