David Braddock, PhD
David Braddock is Associate Vice President of the University of Colorado (CU) System and Executive Director of the Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities. He also holds the endowed Coleman-Turner Chair in Cognitive Disability and is a tenured Professor of Psychiatry in the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine at the Anschutz Medical Campus.
Braddock was previously at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) for over 20 years and is Professor Emeritus there. He was founding head of UIC’s academic Department of Disability and Human Development and instrumental in establishing several innovative programs there including the nation’s first PhD program in Disability Studies, the Illinois University Center of Excellence in Developmental Disabilities, the State of the States in Developmental Disabilities Project, the CDC-funded National Center on Physical Activity and Disability, and centers in assistive technology, aging, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Prior to UIC, he held positions in Washington, DC including the HEW Secretary’s Committee on Mental Retardation and the Council for Exceptional Children.
Braddock’s more than 240 publications primarily focus on long term care services for people with developmental disabilities, health promotion and disease prevention, and public policy toward disability. He has given over 400 presentations in 48 states and seven foreign countries, consulted with numerous federal agencies and congressional committees, and testified in the legislatures of 15 states. His research has influenced developmental disabilities legislation, civil rights litigation, and appropriations decisions in many states and nationally. Honors include career research awards from the Association for Retarded Citizens of the United States (ARC, 1987) and the American Association on Mental Retardation (AAMR, 1998); the University Scholar Award from the President of the University of Illinois System (1998); the ARC-United States Franklin Smith Award for Distinguished National Service to the Field of Mental Retardation (2000); and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Public Health Association’s Disability Forum (2006). He was inducted into Delta Omega, the public health honorary society, in 1991, and was president of AAMR during 1993-94. He serves on the Board of Directors of Special Olympics International and the the Coleman Colorado Fundation.