Thomas E. Backer, Ph.D.

Thomas Backer is a member of the Kunz and Company management team and is the team's leader for work involving knowledge utilization and dissemination.  He is the president of the Human Interaction Research Institute, a Los Angeles-based non-profit center that has conducted research, policy studies, and interventions concerning systems change and innovation in organizational process and practice since 1961. He is an Associate Clinical Professor of Medical Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical School.  A clinical psychologist by training, Dr. Backer has worked for the past 25 years on a diverse range of projects designed to help people, organizations, and communities improve health, mental health, rehabilitation, education, and human services, concentrating on knowledge utilization (how individuals and organizations learn about and adopt innovations), communications campaigns (using mass media to convey information to people and communities), and creativity development (methods to enhance create productivity of individuals and groups).

Dr. Backer and the Institute are currently partnering with Kunz and Company in a two-part project for the National 4-H Council to support its National Youth Smoking Prevention Project by preparing a 'lessons learned' document for the Council's implementing sites on the available scientific research as well as a history of the implementation.  Dr. Backer has partnered with Kunz and Company staff on a project for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, in which consulting and facilitation services were used by the Center's Synthesis Branch as it responded to Congressional direction to emphasize the development and application of knowledge gained through demonstration grants.  Dr. Backer and the Institute have conducted numerous projects for both Federal and foundation sponsors that center on systems change and organizational transformation.  The Institute worked with the National Council on Disability and has provided extensive consultation to the Department of Veterans Affairs on the human dynamics of major changes taking place in its system of 176 hospitals.  The Institute has consulted and assisted many other Federal agencies on the development of strategies for information dissemination, systems change, and performance benchmarking.

A licensed psychologist in California, Dr. Backer holds a doctorate in psychology from the University of California at Los Angeles.  He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA) and is past-President and the Knowledge Utilization Committee Chair of the Division of Consulting Psychology for APA.  He was the 1989-1991 President of the Knowledge Utilization Society.

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