Pearson joins faculty, to receive AOTA award

On Feb. 15, the Program in Occupational Therapy welcomed Adam Cisroe Pearson, OTD, OTR/L, to its faculty as a part-time instructor in occupational therapy (PDA). Pearson earned his clinical doctoral degree from the Program in 2011, and he worked as a clinical specialist and lecturer from 2012-2014 in its Community Practice.

Raised in a family of educators, Pearson grew up in Normandy, Mo., near Ferguson, where the 2014 uprising after the murder of Mike Brown led him to clarify his occupational therapy lens towards broader principles of housing equity and parity. Already engaged in providing occupational therapy services to unhoused individuals at a then-drop-in day shelter called The Bridge, Pearson was hired in 2014 to direct the development of Garfield Place Apartments, a permanent supportive housing program at Peter & Paul Community Services (PPCS). Recognizing the need to learn more about the intersection of housing, disability and policy, he then left to work as the strategy and development manager at the Centene Center for Health Transformation at Washington University's Social Policy Institute in 2018. In this role, he managed the Center’s national research portfolio, facilitated collaboration between the Center and Centene’s National Disability Advisory Council, and assisted on several market-driven studies and initiatives centered on social determinants of health. He returned to PPCS in 2019 to become the chief operating officer, where he presently oversees their seven programs and programmatic staff, strategic planning initiatives and facilities.

Pearson will receive the 2021 Emerging and Innovative Practice Award from the American Occupational Therapy Association this spring. The award recognizes and honors colleagues who have developed innovative and/or non-traditional occupational therapy practices for underserved populations or utilized the expertise of occupational therapy in new/visionary ways to achieve significant client outcomes to keep the profession relevant and responsive to the changes occurring in health care.