Alan Jette Named Editor-in-Chief of Physical Therapy Journal.

Alan Jette, director of the Health & Disabilities Research Institute at SPH, has been named the next editor-in-chief of Physical Therapy (PTJ), the scientific journal of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA).

Jette, a professor of health policy and management, will begin his five-year term on January 1, 2016. In the role, he will be responsible for leading the journal’s editorial board in its determination of the scientific, clinical, and other editorial content of PTJ.

Jette’s research interests include late-life exercise; evaluation of rehabilitation treatment outcomes; and the measurement, cause, and prevention of disability. He has had more than 200 peer-reviewed articles published in numerous international scientific journals, and in 2013 was named a member of the Institute of Medicine for his insightful and innovative work in disability assessment.

Jette directs the Boston Rehabilitation Outcome Measurement Center, funded by the NIH National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research (NCMRR); serves on the Executive Committee of the Boston Roybal Center for Active Lifestyle Interventions, funded by the NIH’s National Institute on Aging; and is director of the New England Regional Spinal Cord Injury Center, funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDDR).

For the past 14 years, Jette has directed the Boston University Post-Doctoral Fellowship Program in Outcomes Research; he also served as dean of BU’s Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences from 1996 to 2004.

“I am deeply honored to be given this opportunity to serve my profession in this capacity, building on the distinguished contributions of current editor-in-chief, Dr. Rebecca Craik,” said Jette. “I have become increasingly interested in fostering the research of others, and I believe that serving as editor-in-chief will be a natural extension of this process. Now is a time of major changes in scholarly publishing, so I look forward to strategic planning that keeps PTJ and APTA in the vanguard. “

Founded in 1921, PTJ is the official publication of the American Physical Therapy Association and is an international scholarly peer-reviewed journal. The American Physical Therapy Association represents more than 90,000 physical therapists, physical therapist assistants, and students of physical therapy nationwide.