Richard E. D'Alli

Rick D’Alli is Associate Professor Emeritus, Department of Psychiatry, University of Florida College of Medicine. From 2015-2022 he served as Associate Division Chief for Mental Health Services, UF Health Division of General Academic Pediatrics, where he recruited, organized, and managed a group of physicians, nurse practitioners, psychologists, and psychotherapists to provide psychiatric and psychological care for children, adolescents, and their families. His work in the UF Department of Psychiatry included supervision of trainees treating young patients with autism, membership on the inaugural steering committee of the UF Health Center for Autism and Neurodevelopment, and direct patient care in UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital. He graduated from the University of Arizona College of Medicine and completed residency training in general psychiatry and fellowship training in child psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center. Previous appointments include Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, Director of Community Programs at Johns Hopkins Medicine Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics, Duke University Medical Center Departments of Pediatrics and Psychiatry.

Medicine was a mid-career change for Dr. D’Alli. Graduating from the University of Florida with a BS in physics (1967) and MEd (1971), he taught physics and coached at a suburban Atlanta public high school. Four years later he entered graduate school at Brown University for a ScM in planetary geology (1977), when he participated in NASA’s 1976 Viking Mars Lander Imaging team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. Following work at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C, he was recruited in 1978 by NASA HQ to develop a series of summer short courses for western university faculty in planetary geology at Arizona State University. A 1979 serendipitous guest appearance on the Phoenix NBC TV affiliate, KPNX, resulted in part-time appearances as an on-air science reporter. Two years later he was hired by Arizona PBS TV (KAET 8) as an on-air science editor and back-up anchor. On February 23, 1983, he anchored the first, live, prime time network television broadcast of open-heart surgery, originating from a Phoenix hospital and carried internationally via satellite. This and similar experiences in science and medical reporting persuaded him to become a physician and educator. He and his wife, Arlene, a retired medical social worker, have two grown daughters and two grandchildren.