Charles Peek, PhD

C.J. Peek, PhD, is professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Minnesota Medical School. A clinical psychologist trained at University of Colorado Boulder, he first began integrating behavioral health and primary care as clinician, supervisor, and program implementer in a large Twin Cities health system. In academic family medicine, he has focused on harmonizing care; education and research; building research and scholarship capacity; organizational and leadership effectiveness; and productive conversations across disciplines, roles, and organizational areas. He gravitates toward situations where cacophony of terms and language can confuse and divide, listening with groups to evolve the shared language needed to reduce ambiguity and conflict while enabling action with their shared work.

He has published and presented on a blend of clinical, organizational, lexical, and leadership topics in family medicine journals and organizations such as STFM, NAPCRG, and ADFM, and was an early shaper of their Building Research Capacity (BRC) program. In his department, he helps leaders bring together manifold programs, faculty, and missions into a coherent whole, co-facilitating department-wide initiatives that improve function and culture and lead to faculty publications.