Bio

Dr. Adam Cisroe Pearson is a St. Louis native, raised in a family of educators. He grew up in Normandy, near Ferguson, where the 2014 uprising after the murder of Mike Brown led him to clarify his occupational therapy lens towards broader principles of housing equity and parity.

Already engaged in providing occupational therapy services to unhoused individuals at a then-drop-in day shelter called The Bridge, he was hired to direct the development of Garfield Place Apartments, a permanent supportive housing program at Peter & Paul Community Services (PPCS). He hired and led a team of clinicians and support staff to provide services for four years. Recognizing the need to learn more about the intersection of housing, disability, and policy, he then left to work as the strategy and development manager at the Centene Center for Health Transformation at the Washington University Social Policy Institute. In this role he managed the Center’s national research portfolio, facilitated collaboration between the Center and Centene’s National Disability Advisory Council, and assisted on several market-driven studies and initiatives centered on social determinants of health.

Dr. Pearson then returned to PPCS as the chief operating officer, where he presently oversees the organization’s seven programs and programmatic staff, strategic planning initiatives, and facilities. He is hoping to channel this work into targeted advocacy for local and national policies that advance affordable housing for everyone who wants it. Outside of his primary day job, Dr. Pearson is an instructor with the Program in Occupational Therapy at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine.

He is also a member of the Coalition of Occupational Therapy Advocates. He joined  early on as the interprofessional coordinator, always interested in working to improve coordination between OTs who are doing the vital justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion work. Dr. Pearson is married to a rockstar of a wife, Courtney; and has two children that keep him young, honest, humble, fulfilled, and ultimately exhausted.