Robert J. McDermott received his B.S. (1975), M.S. (1977), and Ph.D. (1981) degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. From 1981 to 1986, he was a faculty member in the Department of Health Education, at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. His research on smokeless tobacco use among youth was cited in the Surgeon General's 1986 Report on the Health Effects of Smokeless Tobacco, and contributed to the establishment of health warning labels on these products. Dr. McDermott came to the University of South Florida College of Public Health in 1986, and served as Chair of the Department of Community and Family Health between 1993 and 2003. In 1998, he headed a successful effort that led to being awarded a Prevention Research Center by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and he continues to serve as co-Director of this Center. The Florida Prevention Research Center (FPRC) at the University of South Florida has attracted approximately $13 million in extramural funding, published approximately more than 30 refereed articles and book chapters, and has created and field tested a new model for health behavior change in communities -- community-based prevention marketing (CBPM) -- during its 12-year existence. Overall, Dr. McDermott has been principal investigator or co-principal investigator for approximately 102 grant and contract awards totaling $24 million over the career period of 1981-present.

Dr. McDermott received the 1997 Award for Research of the American School Health Association's (ASHA) Research Council. The ASHA recognized his career contributions to school health in 2002 through its William A. Howe Award, the highest citation given by that organization. In 1997, he was one of just 38 invited professionals identified to be a founder of the American Academy of Health Behavior. In December 2001, he became the first elected President of the Academy, an office that he held during 2003-04. The American Association for Health Education (AAHE) named him its Scholar for 1999 and he delivered the 2000 Scholar Address at the 2000 National AAHE Annual Meeting. Among his other activities, Dr. McDermott has been a member of the CDC's invited working group on defining Health Education in the 21st Century, a Visiting Professor at the University of Cologne (Germany), the University of Freiburg (Germany), and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, a consultant to the CDC's Division of Adolescent and School Health, for collaboration with the Russian Federation, and a consultant to the European Union's, Health Promotion for Family Caregivers of People with Alzheimer's Disease and Related Mental Disorders Project (1997), and its Communicating AIDS Project (1994). In addition to 240 scientific articles, he has contributed to more than 60 book chapters, and three books, each of which appeared in multiple editions. His course offerings at the University of South Florida include "Evaluative of Community Health Programs," "Writing for Scholarly Publication in the Health Sciences," "Professional Foundations of Health Education," "Case Studies in Health Education," and "International Health Education." In 1997, Dr. McDermott established a formal international education and research program including an inter-institutional faculty and student exchange agreement with the University of Cologne (Germany), and has taught courses there for American, Canadian, and German students from 1996 to the present. The program also includes extended visits to the University of South Florida by German faculty and student scholars. Approximately 125 graduate students and faculty have participated in the Germany-based program during its existence.

Dr. McDermott is a Fellow of the American School Health Association (1988), the American Academy of Health Behavior (1998), the Royal Institute of Public Health (2002), the American Association for Health Education (2005), and the Royal Society for Health Promotion (2007). In 2004, he founded a new E-journal for the public health community of Florida, the Florida Public Health Review. In August 2005 he became Editor of the American Journal of Health Education sponsored by AAHE, and in 2007, founding co-editor of Umwelt und Gesundheit Online (Environment and Health Online). He is the 2010 Ann E. Nolte Scholar in Health Education sponsored by Illinois State University.