Leonard A. Jason (born 1949) is a professor of psychology at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois, where he also directs the Center for Community Research. His chief professional interests include the study of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), violence prevention, smoking cessation, and Oxford House recovery homes for substance abuse. Jason's interest in chronic fatigue syndrome began when he was diagnosed with the condition in 1990 after having mononucleosis.
Leonard A. Jason is the son of Jay Jason, a well known comedian who entertained in the Catskills Mountains. Jason received a B.A. in psychology from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts in 1971 and a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York in 1975.
Jason is a former president of the Division of Community Psychology of the American Psychological Association (APA) and a past editor of The Community Psychologist. Jason has edited or written 27 books, and he has published over 700 articles and 90 book chapters on CFS, ME, recovery homes, the prevention of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug abuse, media interventions and program evaluation. He has served on 91 Thesis Committees (of which he chaired 62), and 95 Dissertation Committees (of which he chaired 50). He has served on the editorial boards of ten psychological journals. Jason has served on review committees of the National Institutes of Health, and he has received over $36,000,000 in federal research grants. He was also a board member and vice-president for a scientific professional organization called the International Association of CFS/ME.
He was a member the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Advisory Committee. In 1999, Jason published an epidemiological study of chronic fatigue syndrome among United States adults. Jason helped organize two major American Psychological Association sponsored conferences on research methods for community psychology and co-edited a book on this topic.