David Patterson Ph.D M.S.W.

David A. Patterson, Ph.D., M.S.W., is a professor emeritus of The University of Tennessee’s College of Social. He was the first Cooper-Herron Endowed Professor of Mental Health Research and Practice in the College of Social Work. He is an adjunct professor in the UT Graduate School of Medicine. Dr. Patterson was for 18 years the Principal Investigator/Director of the federally and locally funded Knoxville Homeless Management Information System (KnoxHMIS), a community outreach research endeavor of the College of Social Work. He was the founding director to the College’s Doctor of Social Work (DSW) program. He is a past-President of the University of Tennessee-Knoxville Faculty Senate. He is a Brown University Mindfulness Center certified Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher and has a daily meditation practice of more than thirty years. He has taught mindfulness and meditation practices to a number of populations in a wide array of settings. The primary teaching focus of Dr. Patterson’s 31-year academic career was on clinical social work practice. A major focus of his scholarship in recent years has been on homelessness and the application of information technology in service delivery to unhoused individuals and families. He is the author of Personal Computer Applications in the Social Services (Allyn & Bacon, 2000), Data Analysis with Spreadsheets (Allyn & Bacon, 2006), as well as numerous peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters.