Tom Seekins

Tom Seekins is a retired professor of psychology and was Director of the Research and Training Center on Disability in Rural Communities at the University of Montana. He was the Principal Investigator of RTC:Rural from 1993 until 2016, and retired in October 2017.

He received his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas in 1983. His research emphasizes issues of rural health and disability, rural community and economic development, rural policy, and disability among American Indian tribes and reservations.  He has served as President of the American Association on Health and Disability and as President of the National Association of Rehabilitation Research and Training Centers.  He has been the recipient of the Earl Walden Award for outstanding achievement in rural advocacy, awarded by the Association of Programs for Rural Independent Living 2001; the Allan Myers award from the Disability Forum of the American Public Health Association in 2006 and the Americans with Disability Act Award from the University of Montana in 2014.