SiouxRiver

Confirmed Speakers

• Brian Burrell
  Dr. Brian Burrell is an Associate Professor in the Division of Basic Biomedical Sciences at the University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine. He received his PhD at the Ohio State University and has previously held positions at Purdue University and the University of Miami School of Medicine. His research is supported by the National Science Foundation and focuses on how synapses change in response to painful stimuli and how that knowledge might be used to improve the treatment of pain.
• Denise Rotert
  Denise Rotert is an occpational therapist with over 30 years of clinical, administrative, and academic experience. Her educational background includes a BS in occupational therapy, an MA in psychology, guidance, and counseling and a PhD in sociology with emphasis on social deviance and social organization.
• John Gehm
  John Gehm has been involved with restorative justice since the early 1980s. He directed one of the first “victim-offender reconciliation programs’ in the United States. While continuing his work as a mediator and community-based practitioner, Gehm obtained his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Notre Dame. He taught in the Justice Studies programs at Central Michigan University and the University of South Dakota for over 15 years. His academic research included looking at what motivates people to participate in restorative programs as well as conducting outcome research for the National Institute of Justice examining cost benefit models as well as the social and psychological impacts on the program participants themselves. Through his Restorative Practices Group he conducts public workshops on forgiveness, facilitates individualized mediations, conducts conflict management training programs for churches.
• David Pearce
  Dr. Pearce is an internationally renowed researcher in Batten Disease, director of the Children's Health Research Center, Sanford Research and current Vice President of Research, Sanford Health. Dr. David Pearce is perhaps the man most knowledgeable about Batten Disease in the world. He has been studying the disease in his laboratory for over ten years.