DHA, Medical University of South Carolina
MSA, Central Michigan University
BSHS, Thomas Edison State University

The early career of Dr. Kearns included working as a paramedic, rescue chief, and firefighter. Over 30 years, he taught emergency services programs at several community colleges in the Carolinas, spent 8 years in hospital administration, and led multiple emergency service and emergency management organizations. Dr. Kearns has been a responder to 25+ presidentially declared disasters as a local, state, and federal representative. In 2014, Dr. Kearns retired (from the State of North Carolina) as a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina, School of Medicine. After spending four years as the Healthcare Management Program Chair and an Associate Professor at the University of Mount Olive, Dr. Kearns joined the faculty here at UNO in August 2018.

Academically, Dr. Kearns has 100+ published works, including two books and chapters in three other books, with 70+ invited oral presentations across the US in the past ten years. Two of the more notable being given at the Food and Drug Administration, Emergency Management and Medical Countermeasures Directorate in Silver Spring, MD, and the National Academy of Science, Institute of Medicine for the Committee on Medical Surge Capacity in Washington, DC.

Expertscape Rankings for Oct 2023
#1 Internationally for Surge Capacity
#2 Internationally for Mass Casualty Incident
#3 Internationally for Disaster Planning
#44 Internationally for Burns (Injury)

Dr. Kearns is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives and a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health. Dr. Kearns was also recently recognized by the International Association for Emergency Managers as the first certified emergency manager to have held the international certification for 30 years.

Publication Indexes:
PubMed
Scopus
ResearchGate
ORCID

Medical and Healthcare Disaster Management, Hospital Surge Capacity, Emergency Medical Services, Burn and Trauma Care.