Biography
Dr. Chris Stout is a licensed clinical psychologist with a diverse background in various domains. He is the Founding Director of the Center for Global Initiatives, a top rated global health nonprofit which is Platinum Ranked by GuideStar. Through the Center, he was able to gain approval from the Tanzanian Ministry of Education to establish a kindergarten for an orphanage, amongst other global projects and collaborations serving the mission of helping in the creation of self-sustaining programs that improve access to healthcare in underserved communities throughout the world by “open-sourcing” humanitarian intervention. All services, tools, materials and consultations are free. Before retiring from academia, Chris held an appointment at the rank of Clinical Full Professor in the Department of Psychiatry in the College of Medicine at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and served as an Advisory Board Member in starting their Center for Global Health. He was a Fellow in the School of Public Health Leadership Institute and a Core Faculty at their International Center on Responses to Catastrophes as well. He also held an academic appointment at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences’ Mental Health Services and Policy Program, and was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Health Systems Management at Rush University. He is the first psychologist to have an invited appointment to the Lake County Board of Health, where he served for a decade. Chris was the Vice President and Founding Director of the Department of Clinical Research and Data Analytics, for ATI Holdings, LLC, the nation’s largest sports medicine and orthopedic rehabilitation organization, holding a $2.5B valuation, overseeing all clinical outcomes of patients with musculoskeletal injuries, and managed the clinical data resulting from over 24,000 patient visits a day. From these large datasets, he developed and served as Principal Investigator and creator of two national registries in the NIH National Library of Medicine’s ClinicalTrials.gov (Evidence-based Guide Investigating Clinical Services, NCT02285868 and Evidence-based Guide Investigating Medical and Preventative Services NCT04050319) which were listed in AHRQ’s Registry of Patient Registries. He also has experience as being the PI on National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research grants, NIMH/SAMHSA grants, and with the FDA in the area of prescription digital therapeutics (PDTx), 510(k) predicated devices, and software as a medical device (SaaMD). He is a co-inventor of a patent application for an Integrated Healthcare Monitoring System. Chris is a Fellow in four Divisions of the American Psychological Association (APA) and holds Life Member Status; he is past-President of the Illinois Psychological Association (IPA), and is a Distinguished Practitioner in the National Academies of Practice. He was appointed Federal Advocacy Coordinator for the APA and served for over a decade, going to Washington, DC each year advocating for healthcare reform and served as a Presidential Cabinet Advisor to the Department of Education on Special Education and Mental Health (for the George H. W. Bush administration). He also chaired the Legislative Affairs Committee for the IPA, formally provided testimony on healthcare needs to a government panel, and was an editorial cartoonist on healthcare advocacy and policy. In recognition of his service, the IPA named him Distinguished Psychologist of the Year (1999). In addition, he is a two-time awardee of the APA’s Jefferson Cup for his Federal Advocacy work, along with recognitions from the Association for the Advancement of Psychology (1997). Chris is a recipient of the APA’s Presidential Award for Advocacy (less than 0.5 percent of all licensed psychologists receive this recognition) and the Illinois Senate and House similarly recognized his work by proclamation of “Dr. Chris E. Stout Week” (1999). Chris was elected to APA’s Committee on International Relations in Psychology for a three-year term, during which he served as Co-Chair with Florence Kaslow, PhD. The focus of the Committee was on thinking strategically and collaboratively to promote psychology globally. He was a coauthor of APA’s Going International: A Practical Guide for Psychologists - Academics Going Abroad and Going International: A Practical Guide for Psychologists Book 2: Engaging in International Collaborative Research. Chris worked as a Non-Governmental Organization Special Representative to the United Nations through the APA and had the honor of formally speaking at the UN, authoring a position paper on The Copenhagen Declaration, and subsequently co-edited (with Harvey Langholtz, PhD) The Psychology of Diplomacy, following his book