Speakers

Hank Bink, PhD Principal Biomedical Engineer

Hank Bink, PhD is a Principal Biomedical Engineer in the Neuromodulation Research and Technology group at Medtronic. He earned his BS in Electrical Engineering at Lafayette College and his PhD in Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania researching novel recording and stimulation technologies and methods for drug-resistant epilepsy. During his time at Medtronic, he has been involved with pre-clinical and clinical research and the development of next-generation devices in the SCS and SNM therapy areas.

Ausaf A. Bari, MD PhD, Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery

Dr. Bari specializes in the neurosurgical repair and restoration of brain and nerve function. Following his neurosurgery residency training at UCLA, Dr. Bari was awarded the prestigious William P. Van Wagenen Fellowship to train at the world-renowned functional neurosurgery program at the University of Toronto. He has extensive clinical and research experience in the use of deep brain stimulation (DBS) in the treatment of both movement and psychiatric disorders. Dr. Bari's clinical practice includes DBS surgery for Parkinson's disease, tremor, dystonia, depression and OCD. A native of California, Dr. Bari completed his neurosurgery residency training at UCLA after receiving his MD and PhD degrees from Boston University. He completed his undergraduate training at UC Berkeley in the field of neurobiology.

Eiman Azim, PhD Associate Professor, William Scandling Developmental Chair

Eiman Azim is an Associate Professor and the William Scandling Developmental Chair in the Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Eiman explores how the brain controls movement of the body, focusing on dexterous behaviors, such as grasping a cup of coffee or catching a ball. These kinds of movements are central to our daily experience, and unfortunately, they are particularly susceptible to injury and disease of the nervous system. His laboratory takes advantage of cutting-edge genetic and viral tools, techniques for recording the activity of the brain and spinal cord, detailed motor behavioral tests, and computational approaches to piece together the underpinnings of movements. This type of knowledge could clarify how the brain achieves such astounding coordination and pave the way for improved diagnosis and treatment when neural circuits are disrupted. Eiman earned a B.S. in Biology and a B.A. in Philosophy of Science from Stanford and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Harvard before completing postdoctoral training at Columbia. Eiman is also an Assistant Adjunct Professor in Neurobiology at UC San Diego. He is a recent recipient of the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the NIH Pathway to Independence Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and was named a Searle Scholar, a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences, a Kathryn W. Davis Aging Brain Scholar, and a McKnight Scholar.

Michael J. Joyner, MD Professor of Anesthesiology

Michael J. Joyner, M.D., is a consultant and vice chair for research in the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, with joint appointments in the Division of Clinical Pharmacology, Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, and the Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering. Dr. Joyner joined the staff of Mayo Clinic in 1992 and holds the academic rank of professor of anesthesiology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. He is recognized with the distinction of the Frank R. and Shari Caywood Professorship in Anesthesiology.

Focus area:

• Convalescent plasma. Dr. Joyner is leading a national program sponsored by the U.S. Government to coordinate the collection and distribution of COVID-19 convalescent plasma for the treatment of individuals with severe or life-threatening disease.
• Blood flow during exercise. Blood flow to exercising skeletal muscle can increase 50 to 100 times above resting values. Dr. Joyner's group is interested in the mechanisms that drive this increase in flow.              
• Blood pressure regulation. Blood pressure is regulated by complex interactions among the nervous system, heart and blood vessels. Dr. Joyner's group is interested in how these interactions are affected by the sex and age of the subject.          
• Blood glucose regulation. Glucose levels in the blood are tightly regulated to guard against hypoglycemia. Dr. Joyner and his collaborators are studying the novel idea that sensors in the body that respond to hypoxia also control blood glucose.  
• Breathing in heart failure. In heart failure, breathing during exercise can be excessive. Dr. Joyner and his collaborators have novel data suggesting that signals from the exercising muscle are driving ventilation in heart failure.     
• Physiology of elite athletes. Elite athletic performances are experiments in nature on the limits of human physiology. Dr. Joyner uses data from real-world competitions to understand the limits of human physiology.               
• Cognitive impairment and heart disease. Cognitive impairment is associated with risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Dr. Joyner and his collaborators are studying how aging and fitness influence brain blood vessels in humans.

Robert S. Kaplan, PhD Professor

Robert S. Kaplan is Senior Fellow and Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development, Emeritus at the Harvard Business School. He joined the HBS faculty in 1984 after spending 16 years on the faculty of the business school at Carnegie-Mellon University, where he served as Dean from 1977 to 1983. Kaplan has co-developed both activity-based costing (ABC) and the Balanced Scorecard (BSC), widely recognized as seminal contributions to management theory and practice. His current research applies these innovations to important problems at the intersection of business and society, including collaborative work with Michael Porter on value-based health care, with Karthik Ramanna on accounting for corporate GHG emissions and societal impact, and with Palladium on extending the Balanced Scorecard strategy execution system to inclusive growth strategies that deliver triple bottom line performance.Kaplan has authored or co-authored 14 books and 250 papers, including three dozen in Harvard Business Review. He received a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from M.I.T., a Ph.D. in Operations Research from Cornell University, and honorary doctorates from four international universities. He received the Outstanding Accounting Educator Award in 1988 from the American Accounting Association and inducted into the Accounting Hall of Fame in 2006.

Sandy Christiansen, MD Assistant Professor

Dr. Christiansen is a double board certified physician in anesthesiology and pain medicine who specializes in chronic pain management. Dr. Christiansen joined the faculty of the Comprehensive Pain Center in 2016 after completing her fellowship in pain medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She currently sees patients in the Center for Health and Healing - Comprehensive Pain Center. She specializes in the treatment of cancer, neuropathic and spine related pain advocating a multimodal approach to all patients.

Patrick D. Ganzer, PhD Assistant Professor

Patrick D. Ganzer, Ph.D. is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Miami (jointly appointed at The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis and the Department of Biomedical Engineering). He received his undergraduate degree in 2008 from King’s College in Neuroscience. In 2013, he received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering and Science from Drexel University, conducting research in preclinical models of spinal cord injury. Dr. Ganzer then completed his postdoctoral fellowship in 2017 at the University of Texas at Dallas and the Texas Biomedical Device Center with Drs. Robert Rennaker and Michael Kilgard (research focused on enhancing neuroplasticity after sensorimotor injury using targeted vagus nerve stimulation). Dr. Ganzer also has significant experience researching and developing neurotechnology in industry, working at Battelle Memorial Institute from 2017-2021 in the Medical Devices and Neuromodulation division. At Battelle, Dr. Ganzer was PI for both the internally funded Bioelectronic Medicine program and the N3 program funded by DARPA. Dr. Ganzer’s neurotechnology teams have received multiple awards for their impact on the field of translational neurotechnology. Their research has been published in several high impact journals (e.g., Cell, Nature Communications, Science Advances, and eLife), highlighted in the popular press (e.g., US News, Wired Magazine, Reuters, and MATLAB), and importantly translated to multiple clinical trials to help people with disease and dysfunction.

Joshua Prager, MD MS DABPM Executive Director

Dr. Prager is a founding member of NANS and has served two terms as President of the Society. He has been the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award (2012) and the Distinguished Service Award (2018) from NANS. A Harvard (MGH), UCLA, and Stanford trained physician, he has been recognized by the International Neuromodulation Society (INS) for outstanding contributions and dedication (2013) and has received three awards (2007) (2018) (2019) from complex regional pain syndrome organizations for his contributions to the field of CRPS and his care of patients. He was the lead author of a for a Best Practices for Intrathecal therapy publication in Neuromodulation summarizing the findings of a blue ribbon inter-disciplinary international panel.

Erika A. Petersen, MD Professor

Dr. Erika A. Petersen directs the Section of Functional and Restorative Neurosurgery at UAMS Medical Center. She is a professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at UAMS. Dr. Petersen is a board certified neurosurgeon whose clinical practice focuses on neuromodulation, treating movement disorders, spasticity, and chronic pain through surgical procedures and stereotactic radiosurgery. Dr. Petersen's research interests focus on developing new devices, indications, and methods for treating chronic pain using neuromodulation. Dr. Petersen completed her undergraduate education at Princeton University and received her medical degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She trained in neurosurgery at the University of Texas Southwestern with a fellowship in deep brain stimulation at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London. Dr. Petersen serves on the Joint Section on Pain of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS)/Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS) and the ASSFN Scientific Programming Committee and sits on the Executive Board of the American Society of Pain and Neuroscience where she is President-elect. She is associate editor of stereotactic and functional neurosurgery for Operative Neurosurgery, and is on the editorial board of Neuromodulation and the Journal of Pain Research. Dr. Petersen lectures frequently at national and international meetings on deep brain stimulation, emerging applications of neuromodulation, and chronic pain management. She has authored numerous articles and book chapters in stereotactic and functional neurosurgery, neuromodulation, and neuroscience.

Megan A. Filoramo, MSN RN-BC, APRN-BC, PGMT-BC, AP-PMN, IHWNC-BC Nurse Practitioner

Megan Filoramo, APN has been part of the pain team at New Jersey Pain Consultants/Altair Health for the last 23 years. She specializes in the care and maintenance of the chronic pain patient through medication management, complementary modalities, referral for interventional procedures, and neuromodulation selection and education. In addition, she serves as Master Faculty for the American Society for Pain Management Nursing, as Co-Chair for the Pain Management Specialty Practice Group for the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, and as the Membership Chair for the NANS Advanced Practice Provider group. Megan is also a board certified Integrative Health and Wellness Nurse Coach. In addition to using this certification in her pain management practice, she has a private coaching practice focusing on wellness promotion and burnout prevention for nurses in the workforce. As a dedicated educator, she actively seeks out opportunities to add to the pain management knowledge base and the overall health of her peers and her patients.

Tianhe Zhang, PhD Advanced Principal Research Scientist

Tianhe Zhang received a Bachelor's of Science and Engineering in Biomedical Engineering and Electrical Engineering in 2009,a Masters of Science in Biomedical Engineering in 2013, and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering in 2015 from Warren Grill at Duke University. Since 2015, Tianhe has been working at Boston Scientific Neuromodulation within the Neuromodulation Research and Advanced Concepts team to investigate the mechanisms of action underlying spinal cord stimulation and to develop novel stimulation algorithms and approaches to improve the efficacy and efficiency of therapy.

Jessie Dawson, MD Professor

Jesse Dawson is a Professor of Stroke Medicine at the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences and Associate at the School of Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing, University of Glasgow. Professor Dawson is a Consultant Physician in the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow. He is Clinical Lead for the Scottish Stroke Research Network and recently chaired European Stroke Organization Conference. Professor Dawson has research interests in clinical trials on prevention and rehabilitation in stroke survivors, with special focus on improving long-term outcomes.

Jaleesa Jackson, MD Assistant Professor, Director of DEI, UAMS Anesthesia

Dr. Jaleesa Jackson is a native of Jacksonville, Florida. She attended medical school at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She then moved to Boston to train in Anesthesiology and Interventional Pain Medicine at the Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital program for both residency and fellowship. She now practices as an Interventional Pain physician at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Her main clinical interests include the treatment of cancer pain and sickle cell disease related pain. She also serves as the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the Department of Anesthesia at UAMS.

Christine Hunt, DO Assistant Professor

Dr. Hunt is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pain Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL. She completed residency in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation prior to completing a Pain Medicine fellowship at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Although she treats a wide variety of pain conditions, she has particular clinical and research interests in regenerative medicine, neuromodulation, and treatment of neuropathic pain in spinal cord injury, brachial plexus avulsion injury and complex regional pain syndrome.

Ryan D'Souza, MD Physician

Ryan D'Souza completed his anesthesiology residency training (2020) and pain medicine fellowship training (2021) in Mayo Clinic Rochester. He is currently working as an interventional pain medicine physician, assistant professor, and director of neuromodulation at Mayo Clinic Rochester. He is passionate about research in neuromodulation, regenerative medicine, and fibromyalgia patient outcomes. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications and is excited to continue pursuing his goal of being a physician-scientist in pain medicine. He serves as an Associate Editor for Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine (RAPM) Journal and as an Assistant Editor for Anesthesia and Analgesia (A&A) Journal.

Andreas Horn, MD PhD Associate Professor

Andreas is interested in connectivity and causality in the brain, the human connectome and its structure-function relationship. As a clinical case of connectomics, he studies effects of deep brain stimulation on aberrant circuitries that lead to movement disorders. Both interests are often realized by furthering development of an openly available processing toolbox (www.lead-dbs.org / www.leadsuite.io). Academic home at www.netstim.org.

Jennifer M. Hah, MD MS Assistant Professor

Dr. Jennifer Hah is triple boarded in anesthesiology, pain medicine, and addiction medicine. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative, and Pain Medicine at Stanford University. She has practiced pain medicine over a decade educating trainees and clinicians in ultrasound-guided interventions, neuromodulation, and evidence-based treatments at the cutting edge. As a clinical epidemiologist and physician-scientist, she leads NIH-funded research at the intersection between mood, pain and medication use. She is the director of the Stanford Pelvic Pain program with a clinical focus on treating both men and women suffering from a wide range of conditions including endometriosis, pelvic floor myalgias, vulvodynia and painful bladder syndrome.

Vwaire Orhurhu, MD MPH Interventional Pain Physician

Vwaire Orhurhu, MD, MPH, is an interventional pain physician at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Williamsport Pennsylvania. He had his medical training at Mayo Medical School and completed his residencies at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School (General Surgery Internship) and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School (Anesthesiology). He subsequently completed his chronic pain fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. He is very vast in the clinical research, diagnosis and treatment of patients with chronic pain conditions.Dr. Orhurhu has a Master’s in Public Health from Harvard University School of Public Health. His masters focused on quantitative methods (research study designs and statistical analysis). He has published over 120 peer reviewed articles as well as multiple book chapters in the field of anesthesiology and chronic pain management.Dr. Orhurhu has received numerous awards, including outstanding resident teaching award at Harvard Medical School as well as numerous “Best Oral Research Presentation” awards at prominent interventional pain meetings. Dr. Orhurhu’s research activities have been accepted into highly regarded journals such as JAMA Surgery, Anesthesia and Analgesia, Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine, The Spine Journal Pain Medicine, Pain Physician, Neuromodulation and many more. He is also a reviewer for numerous Pain journals in the United States.

Sharona Ben-Haim, MD Assistant Professor of Neurological Surgery

Sharona Ben-Haim is an Assistant Professor and functional neurosurgeon at UC San Diego. She received her undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley, and completed medical school at UCSD. She then went to complete a research fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital at Harvard University before starting her neurosurgical residency at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. She went on to complete a fellowship in Epilepsy Surgery at Yale University, followed by a visiting fellowship in functional neurosurgery at Oxford. She then came back to UC San Diego as a faculty member, where she has focused on bringing in new technology to enhance the safety and efficacy of a variety of stereotactic procedures. She currently serves as the Director of Epilepsy Surgery and the Associate Residency Program Director in the Department of Neurosurgery.

Nathaniel M. Schuster, MD Associate Professor and Associate Clinic Director

Dr. Nathaniel Schuster is a headache and pain neurologist and is associate professor and associate clinic director at the UC San Diego Center for Pain Medicine. He is executive vice president of the World Headache Society, recipient of the Migraine Research Foundation 2018 Impact Award, and section editor for the Neuropathic Pain section for the journal Pain Medicine. He graduated from University of Michigan Medical School and completed neurology residency at UCLA, headache fellowship at Montefiore Headache Center, and pain fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital. His research interests include headache and neuropathic pain and he is currently conducting the first placebo-controlled trial of cannabis for acute migraine.

Chelsey Hoffmann, PA-C, MS, RD Academic Co-Director

Chelsey is currently Academic Co-Director of the Mayo Clinic Physician Assistant Program in Rochester, Minnesota. Prior to her full-time appointment in education, she was a PA for nearly 8 years with the Mayo Clinic Department of Anesthesiology, Division of Pain Medicine, practicing pain management in both the inpatient and outpatient settings. She is Chair of the NANS APP Subcommittee and Co-Director for the annual Mayo Clinic Physician Assistant Board Review Course. Her current research interests include: student wellness in PA education, PA educator and pain medicine provider burnout, spinal cord stimulation for chronic pain, and management of temporary peripheral nerve stimulators..

Doris D. Wang, MD PhD Assistant Professor

Dr. Doris Wang is an assistant Professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery at UCSF with a clinical and research focus in Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery. Dr. Wang’s clinical interest include treating movement disorders using neuromodulation and ablative procedures. Her research is focused on understanding the neural mechanisms that underlie human motor control, studying the pathophysiology when these circuits are disrupted in movement disorders, and restoring these diseased circuits to their normal states using neuromodulation. Dr. Wang finished her neurosurgery residency training in 2017, fellowship training in 2018, and has been on faculty at UCSF since 2018.

David M. Dickerson, MD Section Chief, Pain Medicine

David M. Dickerson, MD is an anesthesia-trained, pain medicine physician and section chief for pain medicine at the NorthShore University HealthSystem. He is a clinical associate professor at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and is the current chair of the ASA’s pain medicine committee. He serves as an advisory board member for the National Rx and Drug Abuse Summit and the National MALS Foundation and is a member of the board of directors for the Midwest Pain Society. His primary clinical and research interests are novel applications of neurostimulation, pain care ecosystem transformation, and minimally invasive spine procedures.

Kerry Bradley, MS Senior Director, Research

12 years working in paresthesia-based SCS, 7 years working in paresthesia-independent SCS.

Andrei Sdrulla, MD PhD Assistant Professor

I'm an anesthesiologist, pain fellowship trained physician and have been in an academic practice for 5 years.

Lawrence Poree, MD PhD MPH Director of Neuromodulation

Dr. Poree is director of the neuromodulation service in the department of anesthesia at the University of California at San Francisco. He has been in private and academic practice for over 20 years and has served on both the national and international neuromodulation societies. He is also a consultant for various neuromodulation companies.

Marc A. Russo, MD Pain Specialist Physician

Dr. Russo is a Specialist Pain Medicine Physician who has treated over 45,000 patients having established Hunter Pain Specialists (formerly Hunter Pain Clinic), Australia's first multidisciplinary private pain clinic in 1999.He is currently Director of Hunter Pain Specialists, and Director of Hamilton Day Surgery, Genesis Research Services, and Co-Director of Innervate Pain Management Services. He is the founding president of the Neuromodulation Society of Australia and New Zealand, a former Secretary of the International Neuromodulation Society, Scientific Convenor of the INS meeting 2019 and current President of the INS. He is on the Faculty of Pain Medicine Research Committee and the Interventional working Group and is an Examiner for FPM. He has published over 60 papers in the field of pain medicine and is a reviewer for National Health and Medical Research Council as well as a number of international journals. He is a Conjoint Associate Professor at Newcastle University and Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong. He has conducted a number of world first implants of Spinal Cord Stimulation as well as First in Man pain studies. His passion is furthering the boundaries of pain medicine and teaching colleagues in state of the art pain management.

Michael F. Saulino, MD PhD Chair of PMR

Dr. Michael Saulino is chair of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Cooper University Hospital. He is board certified in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Spinal Cord Injury Medicine and Pain Management. Dr. Saulino earned his PhD (Biological Chemistry) and MD degrees from the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine in 1993. He has an academic appointment in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University. Dr. Saulino’s areas of clinical and research interest include pain management, spasticity management, neuromodulation, peripheral nerve stimulation and intrathecal therapy.

Brittney Misercola, APRN, FNP-C Lead APP, Director of APP Education

Brittney Misercola, MSN, APRN, FNP-C Brittney is a Board Certified Family Nurse Practitioner with over 25 years of clinical experience in a variety of settings. For the last 8 years she has been practicing at Pain Specialists of America, a large Interventional Pain Medicine practice near Austin, Texas, where she serves as the Lead NP/ Director of APP Clinical Education. Beyond clinical practice she stays active participating in clinical research projects, and serves as Faculty for many National Advanced Practice Provider Educational Programs.

Narayan R. Kissoon, MD Assistant Professor

Narayan R. Kissoon, MD is an assistant professor with a dual appointment in Neurology and Anesthesia that is board certified in Neurology, Pain Medicine, and Headache. His clinical practice primarily involves interventional pain management, but with a focus in interventional management of craniofacial pain and neuromodulation. He has a special interest in the evaluation and management of trigeminal autonomic cephalalgias (e.g. cluster headache, SUNCT syndrome, hemicrania continua). He studies the mechanisms of action and clinical outcomes in treatments for headache and chronic pain. This research includes clinical trials investigating the efficacy of medications and minimally invasive percutaneous interventions as well as the impact of pain treatments on nervous system function. Dr. Kissoon also investigates the abnormal function and structural causes of pain disorders. As part of his research, he reviews the clinical features that predict successful treatment outcomes.

Ashley Comer, MSN APRN FNP-C Nurse Practitioner

Ashley Comer is an AANP Board Certified Nurse Practitioner at The Spine and Nerve Center of the Virginias. Born and raised in Charleston, WV she has become a leader in advanced practice provider education in both the United States and in the international community. Ashley has served on several society committees in leadership positions establishing training protocols and programs to enhance the field of Interventional Spine and Nerve treatment. She also has played a role in many device and procedural studies to achieve Food and Drug Administration approval or enhanced patient access. Ashley’s professional interests include implantable therapies, minimally invasive procedures, and research.

Teresita Devera, MSN ANP-BC Nurse Practitioner

Teresita DeVera is a nurse practitioner in the department of neurosurgery at Jefferson University Hospital and has recently transitioned into the role of Lead Advanced Practice Provider for the Neuroscience Enterprise. She has 20 years of experience in both spinal and functional neurosurgery. She collaborates with her physicians, managing and educating patients with chronic pain, epilepsy, and movement disorders. One of her primary roles as a nurse practitioner is to promote the advancement of other APPs, maximizing their roles in the field of neuromodulation and neuroscience as well share her knowledge and experience in order to improve patient outcomes at all points of the healthcare spectrum.