Jeffrey B. Palmer

Palmer, professor emeritus and a director of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Johns Hopkins, was born in New York. After initial piano studies at the Juilliard School in New York, Palmer obtained his undergraduate and medical degrees from New York University in 1976 and 1980, respectively. He then completed a residency in physical medicine and rehabilitation at the University of Washington in Seattle. 

Palmer joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins in 1983 and reached the rank of professor in 2002. From 2004 through 2014, he served as the Lawrence Cardinal Shehan Professor and Chair of the department and physiatrist-in-chief of The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Under Palmer’s guidance, the department earned a reputation as one of the strongest programs in the country and was ranked in the top fifteen in total National Institutes of Health research funding. He is also a visiting professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin and at Fujita Health University in Japan.

Palmer is internationally known for his research on dysphagia, which focuses on neural control of mastication and swallowing, and dynamic imaging of swallowing with videofluoroscopy and high-resolution computed tomography. He was director of Johns Hopkins’ Oral Functional and Swallowing Laboratory. Palmer has pioneered the development of dysphagia rehabilitation and research in the United States and in Japan, where it is a common health problem.

The first editor-in-chief of Current Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Reports, Palmer also serves on the editorial advisory boards of Dysphagia and the Japanese Journal of Comprehensive Rehabilitation Sciences. He is a past president of the Dysphagia Research Society and has held leadership roles in the Association of Academic Physiatrists. Palmer has received numerous honors in the United States and abroad.