Continuing & Professional Studies, Palo Alto University

Dr. Rick DeMier has been engaged in independent practice in forensic psychology since January 2017. For over 22 years, he practiced clinical and forensic psychology at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, a major medical referral center within the Federal Bureau of Prisons. At that facility, he conducted forensic evaluations for federal courts throughout the country. The most common referral questions included competence to proceed, restoration of competency, mental state at the time of an alleged offense, and risk assessment. He also conducted evaluations of sentenced federal prisoners to determine whether they required inpatient mental health hospitalization, and he was sometimes called to participate in civil commitment proceedings. In addition to his clinical duties, he spent eleven years as Director of Clinical Training for the facility’s APA-accredited predoctoral internship. In 1984, Dr. DeMier received his Bachelor’s degree in psychology at the University of Missouri, and in 1994, he earned his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He completed his internship in clinical psychology at the Florida Mental Health Institute, a component of the University of South Florida in Tampa. Following graduation, he began his career at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, where he completed a postdoctoral fellowship in forensic psychology prior to obtaining a staff position. He became board certified in forensic psychology in 2001. Between 2008 and 2015, he served as a member of the Faculty of Examiners for the American Board of Forensic Psychology. In that role, he reviewed practice samples and served as an oral examiner for candidates for board certification. In 2014, he was elected to a six-year term as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Board of Forensic Psychology. He served in the roles of National Chair of Examinations (2017-2019) and President (2020). He contributed a chapter, Forensic Report Writing, to the second edition of the Handbook of Forensic Psychology. He is co-author with Randy Otto, Ph.D., and Marcus Boccaccini, Ph.D., of Forensic Reports and Testimony: A Guide to Effective Communication for Psychologists and Psychiatrists, which was published by Wiley in 2014.