Speakers

Halina M. Zyczynski, MD Professor

Dr Zyczynski is a clinically active Urogynecologist and Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests are clinical, with a focus on anatomic and functional outcomes of surgical and non-surgical treatments for pelvic organ prolapse, urinary and fecal incontinence. She is the PI of the NeurOmodulaTion for Accidental Bowel Leakage (NOTABLe) study, a multicenter randomized, sham controlled trial of PTNS conducted by the NICHD Pelvic Floor Disorders Network.

Alik S. Widge, MD PhD Assistant Professor

I am an interventional psychiatrist and neural engineer. I trained in an interdisciplinary brain-computer interface program at the University of Washington while also doing psychiatry residency. I then worked for five years in the Division of Neurotherapeutics at MGH, the highest-volume site for psychiatric neurosurgery.I developed multiple methods for closed-loop control of cognitive function and identified putative mechanisms of human neurostimulation. Most recently, I moved my lab to the University of Minnesota. Here, I care for patients receiving DBS for psychiatric illness and develop new closed-loop devices and algorithms to enable the next generation of invasive psychiatric treatments.

Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez, MD Professor and Distinguished Chair

Dr. Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez is an accomplished academic Physiatrist and Professor and Chair of the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the Long School of Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. She previously was the Medical Director of the Brain Injury and Stroke Program at a top three US News and World Report Best Hospital for Rehabilitation. Her area of clinical expertise is the care of patients with traumatic brain injury, stroke rehabilitation, and interventional spasticity management which she has practiced for over 13 years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she has developed a Post-COVID Recovery Clinic to aid in the rehabilitative recovery after infection with coronavirus. She has also published over 80 articles or chapters related to her specialty, as well as topics related to diversity and health equity.

Pritesh Topiwala, MD Medical Director, Brigham and Women's Foxborough Pain

I trained at Brigham and Women's Hospital for Anesthesiology Residency and Pain Fellowship. I have been on staff as a Pain physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital since 2019. I am the associate director of Cancer Pain Service at Brigham and Women's Hospital / Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

Bethany Thomas, DNP Epilepsy Nurse Practitioner/Lead Neurology NP

Dr. Bethany Thomas has been a nurse practitioner at Penn Epilepsy Center at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania since 2014 and is the lead Nurse Practitioner for the Department of Neurology. Dr. Thomas earned her Doctor of Nursing practice Degree (along with Bachelors and Master degree in nursing) from Thomas Jefferson University. She is the recipient of multiple Penn CARES grants (2015, 2016, 2018) and the Miriam M. Powell Scholarship (2019). She is a member of several professional societies and committees, including the American Academy of Neurology and the Pennsylvania Coalition of Nurse Practitioners, and is a founding member of the American Epilepsy Society’s Advanced Practice Provider Committee.

Natalie Strand, MD Associate Professor of Pain Medicine

Dr. Natalie Strand is an associate professor of pain medicine and anesthesiology at Mayo Clinic in Arizona. A graduate of Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine, she also completed her transitional year and fellowship at Mayo Clinic. She completed her Anesthesiology Residency at University of California, Los Angeles. She is currently the Vice Chair of Neuromodulation and the Vice Chair of Pain Research for the Division of Pain Medicine at Mayo Clinic Arizona.

Vinita Singh, MD Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology

Vinita Singh is a pain specialist in Anesthesiology, with expertise in interventional, non-opioid medication, and alternative therapy options for pain, especially cancer-related pain. She has been practicing since 2014, and has served in various leadership roles at Emory University School of Medicine including Director of Cancer Pain and the Co-Director of Research in the Pain Division and site director at the Winship Cancer Institute for Multidisciplinary Pain Fellowship at Emory. She has done dozens of invited talks and hands-on workshops in the field of pain management and served on NIH and DoD scientific review committees.

Mandeep Singh, MBBS MD MSc FRCPC Associate Professor

Dr. Mandeep Singh is an early-career clinician-scientist, uniquely dual-certified in Sleep Medicine and Anesthesiology, having completed the training from University of Toronto (UT) and practices in both the disciplines. He also completed a Masters in Clinical Epidemiology and Health Sciences Research from the Institute of Health and Policy Management and Evaluation, UT. He is Director of the inaugural Sleep, Anesthesiology and Pain medicine (SleAP) program at Women's College Hospital, and University Health Network, UT. He is the recipient of prestigious Canadian Anesthesiologists Society Career Scientist Award, Merit Award program at University of Toronto, and recently, the 2020 SASM Presidential Scholar Award. His current translational research interests include evaluating perioperative outcomes in patients with sleep health disruption, including obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), chronic insomnia and disorders of daytime hypersomnolence such as narcolepsy and idiopathic hypersomnia. Current projects include the impact of optimal sleep health on quality of life and wellness amongst health care workers, perioperative and chronic pain population; evaluation of health technology such as Point-of-Care Ultrasound (PoCUS) and other tools to measure objective sleep-health data in patients with various sleep disorders in these settings.

Anil Sharma, MD President

Dr. Sharma finished his Fellowship in interventional pain management at Cleveland clinic foundation in 1996; subsequently, he started private practice in the New Jersey, New York area with multiple locations and offices. Dr. Sharma always had a skill and interest in finance, and he started a hedge fund, Third eye capital management, in 2007, rated as one of the top in its category at Bloomberg. In 2021 he returned all the investor's money with significant profits and converted that into his family office. He still practices international pain part-time in New Jersey and spends time between New York City, New Jersey, and Miami Beach. He's also an alumnus of Wharton's school of business. The Hedge fund allowed him to start and fund the Anil and Pragati Sharma Family Foundation. This organization financially supports health education and treatments worldwide for the underprivileged. He also is a board of trustees of Monmouth Medical Center Foundation.

Michael E. Schatman, PhD Clinical Instructor

Dr. Schatman is a clinical psychologist who has spent the past 35 years working in multidisciplinary chronic pain management. He is currently on the faculties of the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative Care, & Pain Medicine and the Division of Medical Ethics in the Department of Population Health, both at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Dr. Schatman is the author of over 150 journal articles and book chapters on various aspects of chronic pain management, and lectures regularly on pain management on local, national and international bases. He is also the editor of Ethical Issues in Chronic Pain Management and Chronic Pain Management: Guidelines for Multidisciplinary Program Development, both of which were released by Informa Healthcare in 2007. Much of his current research is on opioid risk mitigation, with an emphasis on appropriate utilization of state Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs. Dr. Schatman is a member of the Editorial Boards of numerous journals. For the past 8 years, he has served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Pain Research. He is the past-Chairperson of the Ethics Special Interest Group of the American Pain Society, is currently the Chair of the Ethics Committee of the American Academy of Pain Medicine, and is on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Pain Educators – which named him 2011 Clinical Pain Educator of the Year.

Vikram R. Rao, MD PhD Associate Professor of Clinical Neurology

Dr. Rao attended the University of California (UC) Berkeley for undergraduate studies in Neurobiology before earning his M.D. and Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from UC San Francisco. He completed a Neurology residency at the Brigham & Women’s and Massachusetts General Hospitals in Boston, serving as Chief Resident in his final year. He returned to UC San Francisco for fellowship training in epilepsy and joined the faculty in 2014. He is currently an Associate Professor of Clinical Neurology, Ernest Gallo Distinguished Professor, and Chief of the Epilepsy Division in the Department of Neurology. His clinical and research interests involve applications of neurostimulation devices for drug-resistant epilepsy, neuropsychiatric disorders, and seizure forecasting.

Morteza Rabii, DNP APRN AGPCNP-BC Nurse Practitioner

Doctorally prepared Nurse Practitioner with greater than two years of interventional pain management experience in a high-volume clinic, managing intrathecal pumps, spinal cord stimulators, joint injections, and medication management. Previous experience in orthopedic total joint and spine surgery.

Elvira Pirondini, PhD Assistant Professor

Dr. Elvira Pirondini is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh. She obtained her M.Sc. degree in Bioengineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, in 2012. During this time, she was awarded a fellowship from the Bertarelli Program in Translational Neuroscience and Neuroengineering to carry out her M.Sc. thesis at Harvard Medical School. She then earned her PhD in 2017 at the EPFL, Lausanne, where she was honored with the 2017 Outstanding PhD thesis Distinction in Electrical Engineering. Her thesis focused on robotic rehabilitation for stroke patients and brain imaging. During her PhD, she was the recipient of the Brown Institute for Brain Science Scholar fellowship to conduct part of her training in the department of Neuroscience at Brown University. Dr. Pirondini conducted her post-doctoral training at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and at the Defitech Center for Interventional Neurotherapies of the CHUV hospital in Lausanne, Switzerland. She worked in parallel with human patients and animal models of stroke. Specifically, she worked on the development of a new model of subcortical stroke in primates to understand the neural mechanisms of recovery. She completed these explorations using electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in humans to study restoration mechanisms in stroke patients. She is now interested on developing new neuromodulation, and particularly deep brain stimulation, therapies to boost post-stroke recovery of motor and speech functions. In her talk she will present recent data showing the efficacy of stimulation of the motor thalamus to treat muscle weakness and control in post-stroke motor hemiparesis.

Amy Pearson, MD Interventional Pain Physician

Amy Pearson, MD, FASA is a board certified anesthesiologist and interventional pain physician. She completed her Anesthesiology Residency and Pain Fellowship at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Dr. Pearson was an Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa for nearly 5 years, during which she published over 30 articles on topics such as interventional cancer pain management, peripheral nerve and spinal cord stimulation, interventional pelvic pain management, integrative medicine, and socioeconomic influences on access to care. She has presented her research nationally and internationally. Dr. Pearson is the past president of Women in Anesthesiology and is the American Society of Regional Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine (ASRA) 2022 Annual Meeting Chair.

David M. Page, PhD Staff Scientist

David has a passion for driving product design from research through product development and on to market launch. He has background in clinical trial design and execution, market and product needs assessment, product development, and pre-clinical studies, with specific background developing novel techniques in neural engineering, sensing, and machine learning. David measures his impact by his ability to bring new technologies to the people that need them in a way that makes their life better. David has published impactful peer-reviewed research in pain and sensory disorders. He is driven to identify technologies that improve quality-of-life for people worldwide. Prior to Abbott, he held roles of increasing responsibility at Avanos Medical. David holds a PhD in Bioengineering from University of Utah and a BS in Mathematics from Brigham Young University.

Melanie New, APRN ACNS-BC MSN RN-BC

• Over 30 years experience in caring for Patients dealing with various pain processes including acute, acute on chronic and chronic interventional pain management
• Served as Director of Acute Pain Services with Anesthesiology in the Hospital setting to the Advanced Practice Provider role in the interventional pain management clinical setting

Victoria L. Morgan, PhD Professor

Dr. Morgan is a Professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences in the Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She received her BS in biomedical engineering from Wright State University, and her PhD in biomedical engineering from Vanderbilt University in 1996. She is a Fellow of the American Epilepsy Society and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. She is also a Distinguished Investigator of the American Academy for Radiological and Biomedical Engineering. Her research focuses on developing clinically translatable neuroimaging methods to improve treatment of neurological disease and injury. Her primary efforts are devoted to research to quantify functional and structural brain networks to better characterize the effects of seizures in order to improve treatment outcomes for patients with focal epilepsy.

Ashley Mears, PA HMBA Clinical Research Practitioner

Ashley is originally from Pennsylvania, where she attended Penn State studying Biology and Chemistry. She spent a few years as a Research Scientist and Technical Marketing Specialist developing, testing, and demonstrating chemical warfare detection devices. After a project aimed at developing an antidote for military personnel who had been exposed to chemical agents, she decided to pursue a career in the medical field. She attended Chatham University in Pittsburgh, PA for her MS in Physician Assistant Studies. For the last 8 years she's worked primarily in Neurosurgery with a focus in spine surgery and neuromodulation. Currently, she is affiliated with the West Virginia University Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute as a Clinical Research Practitioner with a primary focus on the surgical treatment of movement disorders using deep brain stimulation and focused ultrasound. Keeping aligned with the mission of the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, she also participates in various clinical studies to advance the future of brain health for those suffering from conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and addiction. Her dedication to improving patient outcomes led her to pursue a Healthcare MBA from West Virginia University.

Mark N. Malinowski, DO Interventional Pain Physician

I am an interventional and surgical pain physician who has been in practice for 12 years. I completed a fellowship in Pain Management at Texas Tech University with Drs Gabor Racz, Mark Boswell and Miles Day. I am board certified in Anesthesiology and Pain Management by the American Board of Anesthesiology as well as certified by the American Board of Pain Medicine and a Fellow of Interventional Pain Practice by the World Institute of Pain.

Sheng Li, MD PhD Professor

Sheng Li, M.D., Ph.D. is a Professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R) at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth. Dr. Li is board-certified in PM&R and Brain Injury Medicine. He has been practicing at #2 Rehabilitation Hospital --- TIRR Memorial Hermann Hospital for 10 years, with a clinical focus on spasticity management and neurorehabilitation after neurological impairments, mainly stroke and traumatic brain injury. Dr. Li is the Director of Neurorehabilitation Research Laboratory at TIRR Memorial Hermann Research Center. His main research focus is sensory and motor recovery after neurological impairments, including pathophysiology and management of spasticity, motor control and motor recovery after stroke, and neuropathic pain. He has published more than 120 peer-reviewed journal articles on these topics from his funded research projects.

Igor A. Lavrov, MD, PhD Assistant Professor

More than 20 years of expertise in areas of motor control, spinal cord injury, neurorehabilitation, neurology, neurophysiology, and electrophysiology. Training at the leading institutions: University of Copenhagen, Denmark; University of Louisville, USA; University of California, Los Angeles, USA.

Lynn Kohan, MD Division Chief, Program Director

Dr. Kohan graduated medical school and complete her residency in anesthesia at Georgetown University School of Medicine. She completed her pain medicine fellowship at the University of Virginia and has practiced at UVA ever sine. She currently serves as the pain fellowship program director as well as the division chief. Furthermore, she is involved in leadership positions in several pain societies and serves on editorial boards for pain medicine journals.

Niranjan Khadka, PhD Senior Biomedical Engineer

Dr. Niranjan Khadka is currently an employee of Synchron Inc. He is a result-oriented Biomedical Engineer with strong R&D skills, including computational modeling, in vitro device characterization, and translational medical devices development in SCS, DBS, and tES space for neuromodulation. During his Post-doc at the Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Khadka investigated heating-based mechanism of action of high-density SCS, multifocal transcranial electrical stimulations modality, and neurovascular-modulation. Dr. Khadka has 10+ years of experience in neuromodulation with proven track record of publications. Currently, Dr. Khadka is continuing his research in establishing novel mechanism of SCS and validating principles of neurovascular-modulation.

Frank J.P.M. Huygen, MD PhD Professor

Frank Huygen is working as an anesthesiologist pain specialist in the University Hospital Erasmusmc in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He is head of the center of pain medicine, a multidisciplinary pain clinic specialized in acute, chronic benign and oncologic pain and palliative care. In 2009 he is appointed as full Professor in Anesthesiology especially Pain Medicine. In 2020, he is also part-time appointed as full Professor in Pain Medicine at the University Medical Center Utrecht. In 2007 he graduated as fellow of interventional pain practice (World Institute of Pain). He is especially interested in the Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). In 2004, he received a PhD on writing a thesis entitled “Neuroimmune alterations in the Complex Regional Pain Syndrome”. He is principal investigator in several research lines especially focusing on CRPS and neuromodulation. He is member of the Board of Directors of the International Research Consortium for CRPS (40 collaborating research sites worldwide). Since 2004 he supervised and finished successfully 5 PhD co-promotor ships and 19 promotor ships. He authored over more than 200 peer reviewed articles (H index 47) and chapters in books and journals. He is member of the editorial boards of the journal of Pain Practice and the journal of Neuromodulation. Frank Huygen has a basic qualification for education (BKO April 2020). He is involved in the education of students at the faculty of Medicine at Erasmusmc and the UMC Utrecht and the faculty of Clinical Technology at the Technical University of Delft. He participates in the training of anesthesia residents and fellows in Pain Medicine. Frank Huygen is chair of the Education Committee of the European Pain Federation (EFIC) from 2020 till 2023.In 2019 he chaired the scientific committee of the 11th EFIC World congress of pain in Valencia. He is member of the scientific committees of the 12th EFIC World congress of pain in Dublin 2022, the 15th INS World congress of pain in Barcelona and the IASP 2022 World congress of pain in Toronto. In 2011 he received the IASP research international collaboration grant. In January 2016 he received an honorary fellowship in the faculty of pain medicine in the college of anesthetists of Ireland. Frank Huygen is member of the scientific advisory boards of the patient association in the Netherlands (Patiëntvereniging CRPS) and the United States (Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome Association). In January 2013 he is appointed as member professional for Anesthesiology Pain medicine at the Dutch central disciplinary tribunal for healthcare in The Hague.

Eric Hudak, PhD Program Director

Eric Hudak, Ph.D. is a Program Director in the Division of Translational Research at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). Dr. Hudak manages a portfolio of NINDS, HEAL Initiative, and BRAIN Initiative translational device awards in the areas of brain-computer interfaces (for prosthesis control, sensory perception, and communication), sensory prostheses, peripheral and spinal devices for pain, and neural-controlled prosthetic limbs. Additionally, Dr. Hudak is the program lead for the HEAL Initiative Translational Devices program and the HEAL Diversity Supplement program, and is a co-lead for the SPARC HORNET program. Dr. Hudak received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering with a minor in Chemistry from The University of Toledo (2004 – Toledo, OH) and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University (2011 – Cleveland, OH). As a graduate student, Dr. Hudak examined the electrochemistry of platinum and conductive-diamond electrodes to uncover potential causes of tissue damage from electrical stimulation and to point to ways of improving the use of these materials in neural stimulation applications. Before joining the NIH in 2019, Dr. Hudak was a Principal Research Scientist in the Department of Research & Technology at Advanced Bionics, a leading producer of cochlear implants. At Advanced Bionics, Dr. Hudak led research projects to enhance the properties, safety, and reliability of cochlear implant device materials and components, including electrodes, electrode arrays, feedthroughs, insulation materials, connectors, and medical batteries.

Shawn Hochman, PhD Professor

My research has spanned several decades primarily focusing on neuromodulation-based spinal plasticity involving the biogenic amine modulators serotonin, nor-epinephrine and dopamine. These transmitters have been linked to network reconfiguration of the spinal cord locomotor, autonomic and sensory systems. Recently, we use adult ex vivo isolated mammalian spinal cord, paravertebral sympathetic chain and truncal skin-nerve models as accessible systems for higher throughput studies. We also use of electric field sensors for continuous characterization of rodent physio-behavioral variables in their home-cage.

Mary M. Heinricher, PhD Professor

Dr. Mary Heinricher studies brainstem mechanisms of pain modulation. After receiving her PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience at Northwestern University, she went to UCSF for post-doctoral work with Dr. Howard Fields, and stayed there as faculty until her recruitment to Oregon Health & Science University in 1995 where she is a Professor of Neurological Surgery and Behavioral Neuroscience. Her work focuses on the properties of brainstem neurons that modulate pain by enhancing or suppressing transmission of nociceptive information from the spinal cord up to the brain. Using a combination of electrophysiology, optogenetics, behavioral testing, and pharmacological manipulation, her group has shown that the neural basis for bi-directional control of pain from the brainstem is two physiologically and pharmacologically distinct classes of neurons: 'off-cells,' which exert a net inhibitory effect on nociception, and “on-cells', which have a facilitating action. These neurons become sensitized in pathological pain states, such as following nerve injury or in chronic inflammation. She is now starting to ask how these brainstem pain-modulating systems interact with other sensory systems, and how they are engaged by higher centers to enhance or suppress pain, e.g., during stress or by non-somatic sensory stimuli.

Lee F. Hartley, PhD CTO

I am an Electrical Engineer by formal training that loves life on the boundary between medicine and engineering. I have been developing implantable medical devices and interdisciplinary systems for ~30 years. I participated in the founding of Nalu Medical in 2014 after 15 years of advancing cochlear implant technology at Advanced Bionics. My EE PhD research involved hybrid microfluidic systems for oncology related lab on chip applications and related industrialization methods. In my early career, before transitioning to med tech, I spent ~10 years designing commercial wireless optical communication chips and systems.

Ashish Gulve, MD Consultant in Pain Management

Dr Gulve is a Consultant in Pain Management at the James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough since 2006. He is a lead for the Pain Service. He has worked as an Instructor in Pain Management at the Washington University School of Medicine in Saint Louis, USA for one year in 2005. He is a President of the Neuromodulation Society of UK & Ireland and Honorary Treasurer of the British Pain Society. He is an active member of the Training and Assessment Committee of the Faculty of Pain Medicine and a National Lead for Pain Medicine in the Medical Training Initiative (MTI) scheme of the Royal College of Anaesthetists. He is a Patient Safety Ambassador across the Neurosciences Collaborative for South Tees Hospitals NHS Trust.He is specialised in interventional pain management and has got more than 15 years experience in Neuromodulation. He is interested in new innovations in the field of Neuromodulation and indeed was first in the UK to use many new innovations. He mentors younger colleagues and teaches and trains pain professionals in the UK and across Europe.He is involved in number of clinical research trials involving neuromodulation and has many national and international presentations and publications to his credit.

Warren M. Grill, PhD Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Warren M. Grill is the Edmund T. Pratt, Jr. School Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University. He received the B.S. degree in biomedical engineering from Boston University and the Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Case Western Reserve University. His research interests are in neural engineering and neuromodulation, and he has published over 235 peer reviewed journal articles and has been awarded 65 US patents. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, a Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society, and was awarded a Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award by NIH-NINDS.

Glenn Franken, PhD Postdoctoral researcher

Dr. Glenn Franken is a postdoctoral researcher at the Maastricht University Medical Centre (MUMC+), with over 6 years of experience in the field of neuromodulation and pain research. During his PhD, he investigated the efficacy and GABAergic mechanisms of action of Dorsal Root Ganglion Stimulation (DRGS) in experimental models of chronic neuropathic pain. He was recently awarded a prestigious Rubicon grant (NWO, The Netherlands) to study the effects of neuromodulatory therapies such as DRGS and Spinal Cord Stimulation (SCS) on electrophysiological responses of identified neuronal cell populations in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord at King’s College London.

Maxwell Boakye, MD MPH MBA Professor and Interim Director Spinal Cord Injury Center

Maxwell Boakye, MD MPH MBA FAANS FACS is Professor and Chief of Spinal Neurosurgery and Director of Quality Improvement and Interim Director of Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Center at the Department of Neurosurgery, University of Louisville. A clinician-scientist, he devotes about half of his time to outcomes and comparative effectiveness research, and spinal cord injury research. He also directs the University of Louisville spine fellowship. His spinal cord injury research focuses on discovering innovative treatments for paralysis. He is director of the Brain and spinal cord injury lab and is the lead neurosurgeon for the University of Louisville epidural stimulation research program. Dr. Boakye has published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts, book chapters, and abstracts and coedited one spinal cord injury textbook. He has been in practice since 2003.