Dr. Jerry Parker is a Clinical Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Associate Dean for Research at the MU School of Medicine. Dr. Parker is also the director of Research Projects and principal investigator for the Missouri Arthritis Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (MARRTC). Prior to his current roles, Dr. Parker was Associate Chief of Staff for Research and Development at the Harry S Truman Memorial Veteran’s Hospital; he also has served as Director, Behavioral Health at the HSTMVH

He has served as a member of the National Advisory Board for Arthritis and Musculorskeletal Diseases, and he is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (Health Psychology). Parker has been awarded the Arthritis Health Professions Association (AHPA) Merit Award for Outstanding Scholarship, the Outstanding VA Research Psychologist Award from (APA Psychologists in Public Service), and the Outstanding VA Administrator Psychologist Award (APA Psychologists in Public Service).

Dr. Parker has a deep and long-standing commitment to training; he was the founder and first Training Director for the Missouri Health Sciences Psychology Internship Consortium, and he has continued to supervise trainees, interns, and residents to the present time. In 1991, Dr. Parker (PI), along with other colleagues from MU, received the first of a series of Advanced Rehabilitation Research Training Awards from the National Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation Research for a novel program entitled Research Enrichment Program (REP) for Physiatrists; this program was designed to provide extended research mentoring for senior residents and junior faculty in the field of physiatry from across the country. The REP operated for 14 years and provided research mentoring for 110 early-career physiatrists. The core REP research curriculum has been adopted as a model for research training in numerous PM&R departments across the country.

Dr. John Hewett will serve as Co-director of the training program. Dr. Hewett is Director of the Biostatistics Group, School of Medicine, University of Missouri-Columbia, with an adjunct appointment in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. He is also Professor Emeritus of Statistics, having been a faculty member in the Department of Statistics for 35 years. Hewett also served as the Ph.D. thesis advisor for thirteen students in the Department of Statistics. He has authored or co-authored over 130 scientific papers published in a variety of statistics and applied journals and in 1999 was selected as “Distinguished Scholar” by the Association of Rheumatology Health Professions.

Hewett’s many service activities include serving as a member of the Committee on Publications of the American College of Rheumatology. He has also served as a proposal reviewer for NIDRR for several years. Each year, for the past fourteen years, Hewett has presented workshops at the annual meeting of the Association of Rheumatology Health Professionals, which is a subset of the American College of Rheumatology. He has also provided statistic consultations to applied investigators at the University of Missouri Health Care Center and to other investigators across the campus for over thirty years. Hewett has been a host faculty member of all the Research Enrichment Programs conducted by UMC. Not only will trainees benefit from Hewett’s extensive statistical knowledge, Hewett will also serve as a role model and mentor for commitment and contributions to professional organizations.

Dr. Chris Fulcher primary research interest includes using emerging information technologies to evaluate the socio-economic and environmental impacts of group decision making at the state, regional and community level. Current research focuses on incorporating tacit and explicit knowledge into decision support systems that help private landowners, citizen groups and government agencies make better management decisions. Fulcher has published articles in Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation and Water Science and Technology. He co-authored a book chapter and has made numerous presentations at national and international conferences including the Annual Environmental Systems Research Institute User Conference, the International Workshop on Advanced Multimedia Communication Network in Asia-Pacific Area, and the Rural Development Corporation, Ansan City, Kyonggi-do, Korea. Fulcher is a member of the International Society for Ecological Economics and the Soil and Water Conservation Society.

Dr. David Mount, Psy.D., M.A., is faculty member in the Department of Internal Medicine and the Maya Angelou Research Center on Minority Health at Wake Forest University Health Sciences. Dr. Mount is a designated Health Disparities Scholar through the NIH-National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities. Dr. Mount’s clinical research focuses on type 2 diabetes, with attention to understanding how cognition and behavior serve as pathways for maximizing human potential in diabetes, diabetes self-management, and diabetes related medical outcomes.

Linked to his research in type 2 diabetes and related health disparities, Dr. Mount is continuing to develop competency in the area of psychometrics (Item Response Theory) and related measurement issues supported through his previous NIH T-32 Post-Doctoral Research Fellow (2003-05). Dr. Mount also completed a two-year clinical residency in Clinical Neuropsychology and Rehabilitation Psychology. In addition, he has been awarded a Behavioral Sciences Fellowship through the Epilepsy Foundation of America (2002-03) with projects investigating differences in employment outcomes for persons with disabilities based on race, gender, socioeconomic status, age, and rural/urban residency. He earned his doctoral degree in clinical psychology from Argosy University and his bachelor's degree from Alabama State University.