Reginald Alston, Ph.D.

Reginald J. Alston, Ph.D., is the Dean of the School of Health Sciences and Professor of Counseling and Mental Health Professions at Hofstra University on Long Island, New York. He was the former Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Applied Health Sciences and a Professor of rehabilitation sciences and community health in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He also served as Associate Chancellor for Faculty Affairs for nearly five years at Illinois. His research focuses primarily on disparities in rehabilitation outcomes for ethnic minorities with disabilities, particularly African Americans. He has taught a variety of courses such as disability policy in American society, medical aspects of disability, psychosocial aspects of disability, and research methods in health sciences. In 2005, he received the King James McCristal Distinguished Scholar Award from the College of Applied Health Sciences at UIUC, and he was the recipient of the Award for Excellence in Graduate and Professional Teaching from the College of Applied Health Sciences in 2006. Also, Dr. Alston was selected by the College of Medicine at UIUC as the Medical Scholars Program Outstanding Advisor of the Year in 2006. Dr. Alston has published extensively in leading journals of rehabilitation, and he has successfully managed funded research projects as a PI, co-investigator, or coordinator. As evidence of his national reputation for scholarship, he received the James F. Garrett Award for a Distinguished Career in Rehabilitation Research from the American Rehabilitation Counseling Association in 2007. Dr. Alston is a former Editor of the Journal of Applied Rehabilitation Counseling and a former executive board member for the American Rehabilitation Counseling Association (ARCA) and the Council on Rehabilitation Education (CORE). In 2008-09, he worked on Capitol Hill in the Office of Senator Tom Harkin (D, Iowa) as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow studying disability policy. Dr. Alston is a former board member of the Francis Nelson Federally Qualified Health Center and the Unit #4 school district in Champaign, Illinois. For his engagement work with groups in the community, he received the 2009 Campus Award for Excellence in Public Engagement at the University of Illinois.