Freya McGregor

Freya McGregor, OTR/L, CIG is an occupational therapist and the owner of the consulting and training business Access Birding. With a clinical background in blindness and low vision services, her own experiences as a disabled birder, and her passion for social justice, she works to create a more accessible and inclusive birding community and the outdoors, particularly for disabled birders. In the Dayer Lab, she is involved in projects related to disability, birding, access, inclusion and using birding as a therapeutic tool. She has written on these topics for Audubon, Birding and Legacy magazines and the LA Times, and is currently working on the first travel guidebook for disabled birders in the US (to be published by Princeton University Press in 2026). 

 

Freya holds a Bachelor of Occupational Therapy from La Trobe University and a Masters of Science (Occupational Therapy) from Tufts University. Thinking outside the box from the beginning, her first passion in occupational therapy was menstrual hygiene management for menstruators who are blind or have low vision, and her research on this topic was the first journal article published addressing this. She was the first occupational therapist to serve on board the USNS Comfort as a civilian volunteer, spending four months providing free healthcare in Central America and the Caribbean alongside US Navy service members. As an occupational therapist, she brings knowledge and skills to the Dayer Lab around disabilities, universal design, modifying the physical, social, cultural and institutional environments to support participation, and adapting tasks and equipment to the needs of the user.

 

Originally from Australia and now a US military spouse, she loves traveling, camping and birding, especially with her husband. In her spare time she works for the popular radio show and podcast Talkin’ Birds, and draws comics to educate birders in concrete ways about being welcoming and inclusive of others, which she shares on Instagram @the.ot.birder