Dr. Hamstra is Associate Professor, Department of Medical Education at the University of Michigan. He joined the faculty July 1, 2005 from the University of Toronto, where he was Director of Education Research and Evaluation, Department of Surgery, and Chair of the Research Fellowship Program at the Wilson Centre for Research in Education in the Faculty of Medicine.

Dr. Hamstra's research program includes the acquisition of technical skills in surgery, dentistry and anesthesia, involving the issue of transfer of learning from the lab to the clinical setting. He has training in experimental psychology, with a focus on assessment. Dr. Hamstra is currently developing competency assessment instruments for graduate medical education across all programs at the UM medical school.