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Planning Committee, Speaker, and Moderator Biographies

Maheen Mausoof Adamson, Ph.D., is a Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery (Affiliated) at Stanford School of Medicine, Director of Research for Women’s Operational Military Exposure Network Center of Excellence (WOMENCOE), and Senior Scientist for Rehabilitation Services at VA Palo Alto Healthcare System. Dr. Adamson’s expertise and interests span employing translational neuroscience methodologies for diagnostic and neuromodulation treatments (such as repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) for frequent health problems in patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI), psychiatric problems, and Alzheimer’s disease. Adamson completed her undergraduate degrees in neurobiology and women’s studies at the University of California, Irvine. She completed her Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Southern California and a postdoctoral fellowship in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford School of Medicine. She also has a Masters in Healthcare Leadership from the School of Public Health from Brown University and is a faculty fellow for Stanford Byers Biodesign Program.

Patricia Adell is Managing Partner at Real Estate Solutions Group, a company that provides real estate and finance advisory services to developers, nonprofits, and the public sector. Adell has recovered from multiple traumatic brain injuries resulting from a trip and fall on a sidewalk caused by multitasking while walking. She received care services to support her recovery at a local hospital initially and then at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia with Dr. Master. The interventions included physical therapy. These experiences equip her with firsthand insights into the landscape of traumatic brain injury (TBI) care and motivate her advocacy for integrated

and patient-centered health care solutions. She is particularly passionate about the importance of physical therapy and not the traditional approach advised by her primary doctor to “sit in the dark and wait for it to get better” when it comes to developing innovations for people living with and recovering from TBI.

Kristy Arbogast, Ph.D., is the scientific director for the Center for Injury Research and Prevention and the R. Anderson Pew Distinguished Chair of Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She is also a professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Arbogast’s research interests are pediatric injury biomechanics, injury causation, and the effectiveness of safety products for children with a concentration in pediatric concussion and brain health, as well as the safety of children and youth in motor vehicle crashes. Dr. Arbogast served on the Institute of Medicine Committee on Sports Concussion in Youth and coleads Children’s Hospital’s clinical research effort in concussions with a focus on the use of head impact sensors to understand the biomechanics, using bioengineering technology for objective measures of concussion diagnosis and using the electronic health record to define the natural history of concussions in children. She also coleads an initiative for the National Football League (NFL) and NFL Players Association to design and implement head impact sensors to understand the loading conditions in professional football with the goal of enhancing head protection through improvements in protective equipment. Dr. Arbogast earned their doctorate in Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania in 1997.

Michel Baudry, Ph.D., is a Professor of Biomedical Sciences and the Dean of the Graduate College of Biomedical Sciences at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California. Previously, he was a Professor of Biological Sciences, Neurology, and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California. Dr. Baudry has also been involved in several biopharmaceutical startup companies. In 1986, he was one of the cofounders of Synaptics, Inc., the Human Interface company. In 1991, he cofounded Eukarion, Inc., and more recently participated in the transformation of Eukarion into MindSet, Rx. In 2007, he also cofounded Rhenovia Pharma, a drug discovery and development company located in Mulhouse, France. In February 2016, in collaboration with several faculty members at Western University and entrepreneurs, he started NeurAegis, a neuroscience company directed at developing neuroprotective drugs for the treatment of a variety of neurodegenerative diseases. For achievements in neuroscience, Dr. Baudry was inducted as a Fellow of the American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2021. His research interests include elucidating the neuropathological processes accompanying brain injury.

Jeffrey Bazarian, Ph.D., is a tenured Professor of Emergency Medicine and Neurology at the University of Rochester. His research uses advanced brain imaging, helmet sensors, and blood sampling to investigate the effects of concussion and repetitive head hits on the brain. Dr. Bazarian was the lead author on the 2018 Lancet Neurology publication detailing the results of the multinational study that was used to support U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for the first blood-based biomarkers of traumatic brain injury in the United States. He currently sees concussion patients at the University of Rochester Medical Center’s Child Neurology Clinic. He is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.

J. Kevin DeMarco, M.D., is a neuroradiologist with the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. He received his medical degree from Saint Louis University School of Medicine and has been in practice for more than 20 years. He has also served in the Armed Forces, first as a General Medical Officer aboard the USS Kansas City and later, as director of magnetic resonance (MR) imaging at the Navy’s flagship west coast hospital in San Diego. In San Diego, Dr. DeMarco published the first article demonstrating excellent correlation of MR angiography (MRA) and digital subtraction angiography (DSA) in depicting carotid stenosis using improved postprocessing techniques. Since moving to Walter Reed, he continues a more than 20-year collaboration with General Electric (GE) toward exciting new developments in ultrahigh-performance neuroimaging.

Ramon Diaz-Arrastia, M.D., Ph.D., is a Professor of Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he leads the TBI Clinical Research Initiative. His research interests are focused on understanding the molecular, cellular, and tissue-level mechanisms of neuronal injury and neuroregeneration, with the goal of developing neuroprotective and neuroregenerative therapies. Prior to coming to UPenn, he served as faculty at the University of Texas Southwestern, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). Dr. Diaz-Arrastia has published over 250 primary research papers, as well as over 40 invited reviews and book chapters. He has also served on several national committees related to traumatic brain injury, epilepsy, and dementia convened by the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, the Veterans Administration, and the National Academy of Medicine. He serves as a scientific advisory board member or consultant on behalf of various health technology companies. These include BrainBox Solutions, NovaSignal, NeurAegis, Danager, Inc., Meso Scale Discovery, and Ischemix, Inc. Dr. Diaz-Arrastia received his M.D. and Ph.D. from

Baylor College of Medicine and completed postgraduate training at Harvard and Columbia.

E. Wesley Ely, M.D., M.P.H., is an internist, pulmonologist, and critical care physician. Dr. Ely earned his M.D. at Tulane University School of Medicine, in conjunction with a Masters in Public Health. He serves as the Grant W. Liddle endowed chair in medicine and is a physician-scientist and tenured professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He is also the associate director of aging research for the Tennessee Valley Veteran’s Affairs Geriatric Research Education Clinical Center (GRECC). He is the founder and codirector of the Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction, and Survivorship (CIBS) Center, and a pioneer in the investigation of delirium and long-term cognitive outcomes, including dementia, in survivors of critical illness. Dr. Ely has had numerous studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and the Lancet, and his writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, USA TODAY, State News, the Daily Beast, and numerous other publications. Dr. Ely is the author of Every Deep-Drawn Breath, from which he is donating 100 percent of net proceeds to help COVID survivors and family members rebuild their lives.

Adam Ferguson, M.S., Ph.D., is a Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of California San Francisco, Director of Data Science in the Brain and Spinal Injury Center (BASIC) at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, and Principal Investigator in the San Francisco VA Healthcare System. Their research interests are mechanistic neuroscience in model organisms to large-scale clinical data science and precision medicine research for TBI and spinal cord injury. Dr. Ferguson directs a diverse team of researchers performing a hybrid of bench neuroscience in the laboratory and translational data science, supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, Department of Veterans Affairs, and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and nonprofits. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers focusing on neuroscience and the role of big-data analytics for accelerating scientific discovery and health care decision support. Dr. Ferguson serves as the President of the National Neurotrauma Society. Dr. Ferguson has also served as the founding Principal Investigator and codirector of the International Open Data Commons for Spinal Cord Injury and traumatic brain injury. In addition, Dr. Ferguson participates in business partnerships with the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, Neuronasal Inc. (developer of a drug delivery device to treat neurological disorders), SpineX Inc. (a medical technology company for spinal cord injury), and DataRobot: AI for Good. He earned his doctorate degree in Psychology (Behavioral and Cellular Neuroscience) at Texas A&M University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience at the Ohio State University College of Medicine.

Cynthia Grossman, Ph.D., is the former Head of Real-World Research Networks at Biogen Digital Health. Dr. Grossman has spent her career applying her social and behavioral science expertise transforming research programs to better address unmet health needs of patients and communities. She is an experienced leader across industry, government, nonprofit, and academia and is passionate about advancing better health outcomes for all through data and bringing the lived experience of patients into decision-making. Prior to Biogen, Dr. Grossman was Director, Science of Patient Input, at with the Milken Institute’s FasterCures initiative. Earlier in her career, she directed funding for HIV-related research programs at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Grossman has received multiple grants and awards from Phi Beta Kappa, NIH, and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). She retains equity holdings in Biogen Digital Health. She received her doctoral degree in clinical psychology from the University of Vermont, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in pediatric clinical psychology at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

William Haskins, Ph.D., is CEO and cofounder of Gryphon Bio and of Owl Therapeutics. He previously led teams for research and development of gene therapies, therapeutic antibody, and antibody-drug conjugates from research through phase I/II/III clinical trials for small and large biotechnology companies, including Genentech. Dr. Haskins is well respected for developing and applying out-of-the-box solutions to challenging problems. He is highly experienced with analytical and bioanalytical chemistry, proteomics, bioinformatics, central nervous system (CNS) biomarkers, and large molecule drug development (Ocrevus, Kadcyla, Polivy, etc.). He has authored or coauthored more than 73 peer-reviewed publications and numerous patents, and he is the Principal Investigator for several federal grant awards. Lastly, Dr. Haskins completed postdoctoral fellowships at the McKnight Brain Institute and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories after earning his Ph.D. in Bioanalytical Chemistry from the University of Florida in 2003.

Richard Kent, Ph.D., is the Frederick Tracy Morse Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Orthopedic Surgery at the University of Virginia (UVA) and the chair of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering department at UVA. Dr. Kent cofounded the UVA Center for Applied Biomechanics, a joint venture of the UVA Schools of Engineering and Medicine, which conducts injury biomechanics research to support traffic safety policies and the design of vehicle safety systems. A Fellow of the Society of Automotive Engineers and the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine, Dr. Kent has written over 200 articles on topics related to injury prevention, including the reduction of traumatic brain injury risk in automobile crashes.

Frederick Korley, M.D., Ph.D., is a Professor of Emergency Medicine and the Associate Chair for Research at the University of Michigan Emergency Department. He is the Scientific Director of Massey TBI Grand Challenge at the Weill Institute, University of Michigan. His research work is focused on the development of diagnostics and therapeutics for traumatic brain injury (TBI). He is a co-investigator of the largest observational study of TBI in the United States (Transforming Research and Clinical Knowledge in TBI, TRACK-TBI). He is also a national principal investigator of two federally funded multi-center studies run by the Strategies to Innovate Emergency Clinical Care Trials (SIREN) network that are investigating the use of biofluid-based biomarkers for subject selection in clinical trials and monitoring individual patient response to neuroprotective agents. With regards to the development of novel diagnostics, Dr. Korley has two patents for biofluid-based biomarkers for brain injury detection and outcome prognostication. In collaboration with colleagues in engineering, Dr. Korley is developing a credit card-sized microfluidic device for point-of-care measurement of TBI biofluid biomarkers. He received his medical and emergency medicine education at Northwestern University School of Medicine (2003) and doctoral training in clinical investigation at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health with election to Phi Beta Kappa (2013).

Jennifer Langton serves as Senior Vice President of Player Health and Innovation for the National Football League (NFL), managing the NFL’s Innovation and Engineering portfolio. Harnessing technology, analytics, and insights, she and her team are creating breakthroughs that support the health and safety of NFL players and the game, with the goal of ultimately delivering impact well beyond sports. These efforts involve data-driven initiatives that are harnessing AI and other emerging technologies to help the NFL better predict and prevent injuries, reduce head impacts, improve protective equipment, and more. Before joining the NFL, Langton served as the Chief Financial Officer, North America, of Atari, the interactive entertainment company.

Michelle LaPlaca, Ph.D., is a Professor at the Wallce H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University and the Director of the Neurotrauma and Translational Bioengineering Laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The laboratory is a member of the Industry-University Cooperative Research Center for Building Reliable Advances and Innovations in Neurotechnology (the BRAIN Center), whose industry partners include biotechnology research and development companies. Dr. LaPlaca also coleads an Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where supporting members include companies in the auto-

motive space. Dr. LaPlaca’s research interests are in neurotrauma, injury biomechanics, and neuroengineering as they relate to TBI. Her lab works to better understand acute injury mechanisms in order to develop strategies for neuroprotection, neural repair, and more sensitive diagnostics. Dr. LaPlaca and colleagues have developed and patented an abbreviated, objective clinical neuropsychological tool (Display Enhanced Testing for Cognitive Impairment and Traumatic Brain Injury, [DETECT]) to assess cognitive impairment associated with concussion and mild cognitive impairment. She serves on the scientific advisory board and holds equity in Brain for Care. Dr. LaPlaca earned her Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at UPenn’s Department of Neurosurgery.

Daniel Laskowitz, Ph.D., is Professor of Neurology, Assistant Dean for Scholarly Education, Director of the Clinical Research Institute, and Vice Chair for Academic Affairs in the Department of Neurology at Duke University. His research interests include developing new therapies that address unmet clinical needs in acute brain injuries (such as traumatic brain injury, stroke, and intracranial hemorrhage), as well as chronic neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. The motivation for this research efforts stems from his more than 25 years of personal experience caring for patients with stroke, trauma, intracranial hemorrhage, and neurological disease. The laboratory uses molecular biology, cell culture, and animal modeling techniques to examine the central nervous system response to acute injury.

Kathy Lee, M.S., CRNP, ANP-BC, CNRN, currently serves as the Director of Casualty Management Policy & Programs and is the lead for the U.S. Department of Defense Warfighter Brain Health program supporting the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Readiness Policy and Oversight. She brings considerable clinical, educational, and research experience in the field of neuroscience and neurotrauma, including more than 200 regional, national, and international presentations and more than 30 peer-reviewed publications. Ms. Lee has served in a variety of leadership, advisory, and operational roles in the U.S. Department of the Army and U.S. Department of Defense for over 15 years, including the Assistant Chief of the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC), Deputy Director for the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, Deputy Director for the Clinical and Educational Affairs Office for DVBIC, and the manager of the Office of Clinical Standards at DVBIC. Prior to working in Washington, D.C., Ms Lee worked in two academic/Level I trauma centers as a nurse practitioner/clinical care coordinator at the University of Louisville Hospital, and clinical research

coordinator in the Division of Neurosurgery at the Medical College of Virginia Hospitals/Virginia Commonwealth University. Ms. Lee holds both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in nursing from Virginia Commonwealth University, as well as a Bachelor of Science in family and child development from Virginia Tech University.

Roger Lewis, M.D., is a Senior Physician in the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, Professor of Emergency Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles, and a Senior Medical Scientist at Berry Consultants, LLC, a group that specializes in innovative clinical trial design. Dr. Lewis is also the senior statistical editor for JAMA and editor of the JAMA series titled JAMA Guides to Statistics and Methods. His expertise centers on adaptive and Bayesian clinical trials, including platform trials, general clinical research methodology, data and safety monitoring boards, and the oversight of clinical trials. Dr. Lewis was elected to membership in the National Academy of Medicine in 2009. He is a fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians, the American Statistical Association, and the Society for Clinical Trials. Dr. Lewis received his Ph.D. in Biophysics and his M.D. from Stanford University.

Geoffrey S. F. Ling, M.D., Ph.D., is a medical doctor, TBI specialist, and retired United States Army colonel. He is a Professor of Neurology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, where he serves as the founding director of the Neuro Trauma Laboratory. Here, his research team models and characterizes clinical phenotypes of explosive blast TBI and penetrating ballistic TBI to better characterize, mitigate, and treat these conditions. He is also a Professor of Neurology and Attending Physician in Neuro Critical Care at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He also serves as the deputy director of the Defense Sciences Office. Previously, he served as the founding director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Biological Technologies Office. As it relates to TBI, his research interests include the prevention of violent, explosive neurologic trauma. Dr. Ling is a recipient of the Humanitarian Award from the Brain Mapping Foundation. Dr. Ling serves on the board of advisors for the National Football League Player’s Association and the National Football League Health Foundation. He has business relationships with companies in health care consulting and biotechnology development, including MindRhythm (brain health monitoring systems), On Demand Pharmaceuticals (drug development), Photonics657 (neurotechnology systems), and Northwell Health Feinstein Institute (health care consulting). Dr. Ling earned his doctorate in pharmacology from Cornell University School of Medicine and an M.D. from Georgetown University School of Medicine. He completed postdoctoral training in neuropharmacology at the Sloan-Kettering Memo-

rial Cancer Center. Both his neurology internship and later residency were completed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Ling also completed a Neurosciences Critical Care Unit (NCCU) fellowship at Johns Hopkins University.

Shari M. Ling, M.D., is the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Deputy Chief Medical Officer serving in the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality (CCSQ), responsible for assisting the CMS Chief Medical Officer in the agency’s pursuit of higher-quality health care, healthier populations, and lower cost through quality improvement. Dr. Ling’s long-standing focus is on the achievement of meaningful health outcomes through delivery of high-quality, beneficiary-centered care across all care settings, with a special interest in the care of persons with multiple chronic conditions and functional limitations, and reducing health disparities. Dr. Ling has served as the lead coordinator and facilitator of the CCSQ Measures Forum. Dr. Ling represents CMS on the Health and Human Services (HHS) Multiple Chronic Conditions workgroup, and the National Quality Forum Measures Application Partnership Post-acute Care/Long-Term Care workgroup, and chairs the Measures and Data sources sub-workgroup for the HHS Action Plan for Healthcare Associated Infection (HAI) Prevention in Long-Term Care facilities. Dr. Ling also serves as the clinical subgroup lead for the HHS National Alzheimer’s Project Act. Dr. Ling is a Geriatrician and Rheumatologist who received her medical training at Georgetown University School of Medicine where she graduated as a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society. Dr. Ling received her clinical training in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology at Georgetown University Medical Center, and completed Geriatric Medicine studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Thurmon Lockhart, Ph.D., is the Inaugural MORE Foundation Professor of Life in Motion Professor in the Biomedical Engineering program in the School of Biological Health and Systems Engineering at Arizona State University. Dr. Lockhart’s research interests include the identification of injury mechanisms and the quantification of sensorimotor deficits and movement disorders associated with aging and neurological disorders on fall accidents. As PI or co-Investigator on several National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and Department of Defense grants, Dr. Lockhart led groundbreaking work toward developing effective measures of instability, frailty, stress, and fatigue associated with aging, obesity, osteoporosis, and Parkinson’s disease using wearable sensors and computational nonlinear dynamics. Current research directions include collection of real-time physiological data about an individual’s health behaviors (e.g., fall risk, fatigue, frailty) and performances (e.g., wearable systems measuring heart rate variability, gait stability, and other characteristics). For recognition of excel-

lence in research, Lockhart and coworkers were awarded the Alexander C. Williams, Jr., Design Award from the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society in 2008.

Christopher Loftus, M.D., is the Chief Medical Officer in the Division of Neurological and Physical Medicine Devices at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Dr. Loftus, who is board certified in neurosurgery, is also the Professor of Neurosurgery at Temple University Lewis Katz School of Medicine. Dr. Loftus serves as the Vice President of the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies. His research interests are instrument and device design, hemostasis and anticoagulation, and regulatory matters at the FDA level. Dr. Loftus earned their medical degree from SUNY-Downstate Medical Center and then did their Residency in Neurosurgery at the Neurological Institute of New York, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York.

Luca Marinelli, Ph.D., is Senior Principal Scientist at the GE HealthCare, Technology & Innovation Center. During his time at GE HealthCare, Dr. Marinelli has led the clinical research study part of the GE/NFL Head Health Initiative, a partnership between GE and the National Football League on traumatic brain injury. He is currently co-PI on the GE-MIT performing team for DARPA Measuring Biological Aptitude, a study focused on biological drivers of human performance. His research interests are quantitative MRI, fast MRI imaging, and advanced algorithms for accelerated image acquisition and reconstruction, including the development of early compressed sensing applications to MRI, and diffusion imaging in the brain. Dr. Marinelli is a coauthor on over 100 journal publications, book chapters, and conference proceedings. Dr. Marinelli also serves on the scientific advisory board of the ALS Finding a Cure Foundation. Dr. Marinelli completed a Ph.D. in Physics at Harvard University, after which he completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Information Theory and Wireless Telecommunications at Bell-Laboratories-Lucent Technologies.

Christina L. Master, M.D., is a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Dr. Master is also a pediatric and adolescent primary care sports medicine specialist and an academic general pediatrician at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). Additionally, she is the cofounding director of the Minds Matter Concussion Program, a CHOP Frontier Program that provides comprehensive cutting-edge and multidisciplinary clinical care and rehabilitation for concussion, community advocacy, and outreach. The Minds Matter Concussion Program also advances the field of concussion and mild traumatic

brain injury in children, youth, and young adults through translational clinical research. Her research focuses on visual deficits following concussion, its role in persistent post-concussive symptoms, its potential as a target for active intervention and treatment, and its usefulness as an objective physiological measure serving as a quantitative biomarker of injury and recovery. She is board certified in Pediatrics, Sports Medicine, and Brain Injury Medicine, and is also an elected fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine. She treats over 800 children, youth, and young adults with concussion annually in her clinical sports medicine practice while also continuing in her 28th year of general academic pediatric practice. She completed her undergraduate studies at Princeton University with an A.B. in Molecular Biology and graduated summa cum laude from the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. She completed pediatric residency training with an additional year as chief resident at CHOP. Subsequently, she completed a Sports Medicine fellowship at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and went on to serve for 14 years as the Associate and Vice Program Director for the Pediatric Residency Program.

Linda Papa, M.D., M.Sc., is an Emergency Medicine Physician and Director of Academic Clinical Research for the Orlando Health Orlando Regional Medical Center Level 1 trauma center. She is a Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Central Florida, an Associated Professor of Medicine at Florida State University, and an Adjunct Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Florida, as well as an Adjunct Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill University. Dr. Papa holds a Master’s Degree in Clinical Epidemiology and Community Medicine and has worked closely with various groups and agencies across the country to improve outcomes and advocate for patients with trauma and traumatic brain injury. She was part of a task force in Florida that helped to pass Florida’s Youth Athlete Concussion bill (HB-291) that provides concussion guidelines to ensure young athletes are adequately evaluated during sports. She is the recipient of several National Institutes of Health and Department of Defense grants to improve the care of patients with traumatic brain injury. Most notable was her involvement in the discovery and validation of the very first FDA-approved blood test for traumatic brain injury (GFAP and UCH-L1), a journey that began over 20 years ago with a pilot study she designed and conducted in the emergency department on a shoestring budget. This study led to the first publication demonstrating the accuracy of GFAP in detecting intracranial lesions after a mild traumatic brain injury in 2008. As traumatic brain injury biomarker point-of-care devices are entering the market for clinical use, Dr. Papa is actively involved in evaluating their effect on clinical practice, further defining their journey from bench to bedside.

CAPT Travis Polk, M.D., has served as the Director of the Combat Casualty Care Research Program, U.S. Department of Defense, since July 2020. As Director of the Combat Casualty Care Research Program and Chair of the Joint Program Committee-6, CAPT Polk is responsible for the strategic planning and management of the DoD science and technology investment that supports the development of knowledge and material solutions for combat-related trauma on the current and future battlefield. In this role, he exercises primary planning, programming, budgeting, and execution of the integrated Combat Casualty Care research portfolio for the Defense Health Program and U.S. Army (approximately $150 million in FY 2021), including programs in neurotrauma, prolonged care, severe burns, en route care, battlefield resuscitation of combat casualties, medical photonics, medical simulation, and medical assist support technologies. CAPT Polk received his Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Norwich University in 1997 and his Doctor of Medicine from the Uniformed Services University in 2001. He completed his general surgery training at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth in 2008 and a fellowship in traumatology, surgical critical care, and emergency surgery at the University of Pennsylvania in 2012. He is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the Uniformed Services University and is board certified in general surgery with an added qualification in surgical critical care. CAPT Polk’s awards include the Meritorious Service Medal (five awards), the Navy Commendation Medal (two awards), and Surface Warfare Medical Department Officer qualification device.

Leslie S. Prichep, Ph.D., is the Chief Scientific Officer of BrainScope, a medical device neurotechnology company. Here, she directs research and algorithm development efforts that use machine learning to identify scientifically validated biomarkers of traumatic brain injury and concussion. Dr. Prichep’s research interests are in quantitative electrophysiology, clinically applied translational research, source localization, and multivariate classification methodology. Throughout her career, her focus on quantitative electrophysiology and translational research has been applied to several brain-related disease states including traumatic brain injury, dementia, addiction, depression, pain, and schizophrenia. Dr. Prichep has successfully led programs integrating objective measures of brain function into commercially available medical devices, from concept through FDA clearance, for several applications. Dr. Prichep has led the BrainScope team to eight FDA clearances, and eight Department of Defense research contracts for product development, substantially adding to the company’s patent portfolio. Previously, Dr. Prichep was the Director of the Brain Research Laboratories (BRL) and a Professor of Psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine, where she remains a professor in retirement. At BRL, Dr. Prichep and her colleagues were the first to publish normative equations

demonstrating features of the EEG as a function of age. She has published in over 130 peer-reviewed journals, with another 55 book chapters, books, published proceedings, and monographs to her name. In 2019, she was elected as a Fellow to the National Academy of Inventors.

Uzma Samadani, M.D., Ph.D., FACS, FAANS, is a neurosurgeon and neurotrauma researcher in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the University of Minnesota with a graduate faculty appointment in Neuroscience. She is also an attending neurosurgeon at the Minneapolis Veterans Administration Medical Center and founder of the neurodiagnostic startup, Oculogica Inc., which has developed the first baseline-free concussion diagnostic cleared for marketing approval by FDA. She is on the Executive Committee of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons/Congress of Neurological Surgeons Joint Section on Neurotrauma and Critical Care and served as Scientific Program Chair for their meeting in conjunction with the National Neurotrauma Society from 2014–2017. She has received more than $6 million dollars in research grants from national and international competitive funding agencies to study diagnostics, risks, outcomes, and treatments for brain and spinal cord injury. She is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and American Association of Neurological Surgeons. She has published more than 80 peer-reviewed scientific papers and an additional 30 reviews and chapters in the Journal of Neurotrauma, JAMA Neurology, Journal of Neurosurgery, and the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Samadani also served as an unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant to the National Football League from 2015 to 2018.

Wesley Ilana Schnapp is a Christine Mirzayan Science & Technology Policy Fellow at the National Academies, working with the Forum on Neuroscience and Nervous System Disorders. Wesley’s journey into neuroscience was catalyzed by a transformative experience during her high school years—a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) from an alpine ski racing accident. Emerging from a coma and facing a long, challenging path to full recovery, Wesley’s personal encounter ignited a deep-seated passion for understanding the complexities of the brain. This drive led her to pursue a Neurobiology degree with a Psychology minor at Cornell University. She is now finishing up her Ph.D. in the University of Arizona’s Neuroscience Graduate Interdisciplinary Program, researching how neural circuits in the amygdala regulate eating behavior and energy balance and, more specifically, their role in the development of the eating disorder, anorexia nervosa. Alongside her academic pursuits, Wesley is committed to bridging the gap between scientific inquiry, societal impact, and public engagement through

science communication and outreach. Recently, she has been working with a local nonprofit in Arizona to develop and use a curriculum for primary through high school students that introduces neuroscience to foster an understanding of brain function, emotional behavior, and social interactions while promoting brain health awareness.

Suzanne Schrandt, J.D., is a patient advocate and patient engagement expert with a health and disability policy background. She is the Founder and CEO of ExPPect, a patient engagement initiative focused on improving health care and research through the expertise and partnership of skilled patient partners. Ms. Schrandt previously served as Director of Patient Engagement at the Arthritis Foundation, and as Deputy Director of Patient Engagement for the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). Her career spans work in health reform, bioethics, genetic discrimination, and chronic disease self-management, as well as a long history in patient-led health professions education. Schrandt is one of nine voting members on the FDA’s inaugural Patient Engagement Advisory Committee, the Chairperson for the International Society of Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research Global Patient Council, and has been an invited speaker at numerous U.S. and international conferences. Ms. Schrandt received her law degree from the University of Kansas and has coauthored multiple peer-reviewed articles on health policy and the value of patient engagement.

Leslie Wise, J.D., is CEO of EvidenceMatters, a Global Market Access consulting firm. Before starting EvidenceMatters, Leslie worked for Bristol Myers-Squib, Sanofi, Biomet Orthopedics, and AngioDynamics, where her reimbursement, value evidence generation, clinical research strategy and frontline regulatory and payer experience substantially added to the bottom line. The experience gained working in the Pharma, MedTech, and Payers verticals honed her into a strategic and sought-after game changer in the health care commercialization space. With more than 20 years of experience across multiple verticals, Leslie uses this knowledge and global experience to support market access efforts for both early-stage and established medical technology companies. Leslie advises her clients on defining their market access strategy, which includes development of their value platform, evidence planning, publishing strategy, product launch planning, communication tools, payer management, and the integration of regulatory and reimbursement strategy.