Facilitating an environment to cultivate and support an increased climate of faculty research remains an essential goal of the College of Health Sciences & Professions. Current initiatives aim to bolster existing interests, promote innovation and collaboration, and reward and fund significant contributions, products, and publications.
Dr. Robert Powers serves as an Associate Professor in the Physical Therapy department and leads these efforts as the Director of the CHSP Research Council. He earned his master's of divinity from Emory University, his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Medical University of South Carolina, and was a postdoctoral fellow of endocrinology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Powers brings his seasoned wealth of knowledge to UNG from an extensive and exemplary academic career with many noted publications, presentations, abstracts and awards.
In 2020, Dr. Carolynn DeSandre and Dr. Robert Powers created the Emerging Scholars program in the CHSP. This program provides a scholarly mentoring program for a junior faculty member in each of the four departments in the CHSP for one year. Senior faculty volunteer to serve as the mentors and work collaboratively with junior faculty with a goal over the year of acquiring outside grants and scholarships to support junior faculty research initiatives.
Projected for mid-year 2021, the CHSP will unveil its first online scholarly journal, Interprofessional Journal of Healthcare & Research. The goal of this peer-reviewed journal is to highlight collaborative and innovative research across health professions that support high impact educational and research practices that promote health and wellness.