JD Smith, PhD, MA

Dr. JD Smith is an Associate Professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences, Division of Systems Innovation and Research, Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine at the University of Utah. He is an implementation scientist and clinical psychologist. The primary focus of Dr. Smith’s research is developing and applying novel research methodologies to test implementation of evidence-based interventions in healthcare and community-based delivery systems, particularly for populations and in settings and systems with marked health disparities. He is well prepared to serve as a Mentor on Drs. Julie Fritz and Adam Gordon’s University of Utah Program to Provide Pain Research Knowledge (UP3RK) training program. Prior to joining the University of Utah (9/1/2020) where he was recruited to direct the Health Behavior Intervention Implementation and Translation (HaBiiT) Core in the Utah Diabetes and Metabolism Research Center and to lead the Implementation Science Core in the Utah Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI), Dr. Smith was Associate Director of the NIH-funded Center for Prevention Implementation Methodology (Ce-PIM) for Drug Abuse and HIV at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. In addition to being Founding Director of Dissemination and Implementation Science Core in the Utah Clinical and Translational Science Institute, Dr. Smith is currently MPI and Co-Director of the CIRCL-Chicago Implementation Research Center, funded as part of NHLBI’s DECIPHeR Alliance, focused on primary care-based interventions for hypertension among African Americans on Chicago’s South Side. He is also the Director of the Research and Methods Core of the NCI-funded HOPE & CAIRHE 2Gether Center (Contact PI David Wetter), Director of the Implementation Science Integration Core of the NICHD-funded ELEVATE Maternal Health Center of Excellence, Co-Director of the Research Design and Implementation Core of the NCI-funded Northwestern University IMPACT Research Center, and Director of the Systematic Review Core of the HIV Implementation Science Coordination Initiative (ISCI)—the national coordinating center for the Ending the HIV Epidemic Initiative (now 200+ projects funded. Dr. Smith is deeply committed to mentoring, training, and capacity building in implementation science methodology and research to speed the translation of evidence-based practices, programs, interventions, medications, and policies to real-world practice settings to reduce the burden of disease and disorder for all. The bulk of his research mentoring and training is with early-stage investigators through K Awards and the multiple training institutes in which he leads or participates. These include being Founding Co-Director of the Mountain States Partnership for Community-Engaged Dissemination and Implementation Science (MS-CEDI) (a collaboration between the University of Utah and the Arizona State University); Core Faculty of the HIV Implementation Science Training Institute housed at Johns Hopkins University; faculty mentor of the Implementation Research Institute, the NIH/OBSSR Training Institute in Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health (TIDIRH) and its sister program the NIH/NCI Training Institute in Dissemination and Implementation Research in Cancer (TIDIRC), and the DOD-funded Military Suicide Research Consortium Scholars Program. He is also committed to mentoring postdoctoral fellows and am primary mentor for a current fellow in Utah’s NLM-funded T15 training program in clinical informatics. Dr. Smith has also mentored doctoral students and is currently primary mentor on a NIH/MHLBI F31. He has also been a potential mentor on five NIH(NIMH/NCI/NIDDK) T32 programs and has a pending T32 from NIDDK for which he is the MPI. He has conducted trainings on four continents through such entities as the Global Alliance for Chronic Disease and a NIH/Fogarty funded D43 training program. Last, Dr. Smith is the Founding Director of the new Graduate Certificate Program in Implementation Science at the University of Utah that includes graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty members. He will bring extensive expertise and experience in research mentorship and training to the UP3RK training program.