John M. Jurist is a biophysicist. At the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), he earned a bachelor’s degree in physics with concentration in atomic and nuclear physics. He earned master’s degrees in biophysics and nuclear medicine, and a doctorate in biophysics at the UCLA School of Medicine. His postdoctoral training in medical physics was obtained in the Department of Radiology at the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
Dr. Jurist held a faculty position in the Division of Orthopedic Surgery at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and was Associate Director of the Biomedical Engineering Center at that same institution. Dr. Jurist is currently Adjunct Professor of Space Studies in the Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks and Adjunct Professor of Biophysics and Aviation at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana.
Among other professional associations, Dr. Jurist is an Associate Fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association, a Life Member of the International Association of Military Flight Surgeon Pilots, and an Emeritus Member of the Orthopaedic Research Society. He is also a Fellow of the Gerontological Society.
He has been a coinvestigator on grants funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the old Atomic Energy Commission (now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission), and has been principal investigator on grants funded by the National Institutes of Health and on privately funded grants. He has served as a reviewer for the Veteran’s Administration, the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and such journals as the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research, Physics in Medicine and Biology, the Journal of Biomechanics, Medical Physics, and for Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Dr. Jurist earned a patent for a device to noninvasively measure bone density, is the author of a chapter in the textbook Orthopaedic Mechanics: Procedures and Devices, the author of three sections in the textbook Space Mission Engineering: The New SMAD, and is an author of more than 80 articles and abstracts published in multiple scientific and medical journals. He has presented more than 200 papers and invited seminars. He has consulted for the United States Veteran’s Administration, the United States Air Force, the United States Marine Corps, the United States Department of Justice, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Montana Attorney General on various scientific and medical matters.