Sandra is a retired professor emeritus from the University of Louisville, where she founded the first Master's program in Art Therapy and a few years later created The Institute for Expressive Therapies. Her background has rendered her approach, both in practice and theory as very integrated, from the neurobiological model to the psychoanalytic . She is a specialist in grief, trauma and forensics, having testified and been an expert witness in numerous wrongful death, PTSD, sex abuse and custody cases. She is past president of The American Art Therapy Association and on the board of Expressive Media, Inc.