I currently hold the Glasscock Chair and am the Deputy Director of the Children’s Mercy Research Institute, Division Director of Health Services and Outcomes Research at Children's Mercy Kansas City and Professor of Medicine and Pharmacy at the University of Missouri - Kansas City. I am a graduate of the San Diego State University / University of California, San Diego Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology where I specialized in Behavioral Medicine (1994). I served as Chief Fellow of the NIMH Postdoctoral Training Program in HIV/AIDS at the Cornell University Medical College/Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centers in New York City (1995) until being awarded the Aaron Diamond Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (1997).
I have trained a variety of practitioners in the application of MI techniques for health behavior change both domestically and internationally. I have led or collaborated on numerous NIH funded intervention studies exploring the use of Motivational Interviewing (MI) based counseling strategies to promote a wide variety of health behavior changes including antiretroviral adherence, smoking cessation, and health screenings. My research is also notable for its focus on community-based translational research efforts that have focused on impacting various healthcare settings, including primary care, infectious disease clinics, and dental treatment centers.
