Dr. Mohammadreza Hojat is Research Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior and the Director of Jefferson Longitu­dinal Study at the Center. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to the development of the longitudinal database of medical students and graduates, he has pio­neered new instruments measuring psychosocial factors and student personal qualities in relation to academic and clinical performance. Dr. Hojat has led the development of the following four scales that measure aspects of professionalism in medicine: Jefferson Scale of Empathy, Jeffer­son Scale of Physician Lifelong Learning, Jef­ferson Scale of Attitudes Toward Physician–Nurse Collaboration, and Scale of Attitudes Toward Physician-Pharmacist Collaboration.  He has more than 30 years experience in educa­tional and psychological research, and has pub­lished over 180 articles in peer reviewed journals and 10 book chapters. He is a manuscript refe­ree for several American and European profes­sional journals, and has served as a guest co-editor for thematic issues of the Journal of So­cial Behavior and Personality (on loneliness), Academic Medicine (on assessments in medical school and beyond), and Evaluation, the Health Professions (on changes in the health care sys­tem).

Dr. Hojat is a licensed psychologist, and in addition to medical education, other areas of his research interest include physician empathy, physician lifelong learning, inter-professional collaboration, psychosocial factors in academic and professional performance, mother-child at­tachment, psychodynamic study of loneliness, cross-cultural studies, and personality develop­ment and measurement.  Dr. Hojat is a coauthor of two books: Loneliness: Theory, Research, and Applications (Springer, 1987), and Assess­ment Measures in Medical School, Residency, and Practice: The Connections (Springer, 1993). Dr. Hojat’s book: Empathy in Patient Care: Antecedents, Development and Outcomes was published by Springer in 2007.