Chief of Brain Injury Rehabilitation
Harvard Medical School
As a neuroscientist and physiatrist, I serve as Chief of Brain Injury Rehabilitation at Spaulding Rehabilitation and co-Chair of Sports Concussion at Mass General Brigham. I received my SB from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, completed my MD/PhD at Boston University, and trained in physiatry residency at Stanford University before joining the faculty at Harvard Medical School. I provide clinical care to patients following traumatic injury (TBI) and conduct research to advance our clinical understanding of the acute and long-term sequelae of TBI, while supervising trainees in clinical and research practice. My work has had substantial impact on the field; my h-index is 47 and i10-index is 61, with a current citation count of 15,498. My current first author citation count is 3,425, and my current senior author citation count is 1,312.
My clinical focus seeks to improve the clinical understanding and management of individuals following single and repetitive TBI (rTBI). To improve diagnosis of acute TBI, in October 2024 I led the study of a new concussion sign, the spontaneous headshake after a kinematic event (SHAAKE), with discussion underway to validate and use it on the sidelines in multiple professional organizations including the National Football League (NFL), National Hockey League, Major League Baseball, and Professional Footballers' Assocation (the trade union for professional soccer players in the UK). I served as senior author on a consensus statement of experts convened by NFL Chief Medical Officer Allen Sills to evaluate efforts to prevent concussions and their long-term consequences. Additionally, I have led efforts to improve our clinical understanding of repetitive head impacts by refining our terminology pertaining to asymptomatic impacts and injury, including as senior author of an editorial in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, and during presentations on these concepts at national and international meetings. As a result, dozens of research teams internationally, including the University of Bath in the UK, San Camillo-Forlanini in Italy, and Massey University in New Zealand, have adopted this updated terminology, and I have been asked to serve as a panelist for the Brain Trauma Foundation and Military Traumatic Brain Injury Initiative (MTBI2) Guidelines for a Rapid Readiness Screen.
To advance the clinical management of rTBI, I led a team that designed and published a novel retrospective clinical assessment tool for informants of brain donors, which is now used by multiple research centers in North America, including Rush University Medical Center, the University of Toronto, and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Additionally, I led the creation of the first "positional exposure matrix" (PEM) to quantify head impact exposure from athletics; the PEM is being used to examine the pathophysiology of diseases including chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), and has been adapted by research groups to quantify other exposures including military blast exposure, most notably by the Naval Medical Research Command. Utilizing this PEM, I led a study in 2023 that demonstrated an association between the cumulative force of head impacts and CTE, and helped draft a White Paper later that year that argued for the creation of CTE Prevention Protocols, which are now being adopted internationally (most notably by the Professional Footballers' Association). Based on work published in our Bradford Hill review of CTE causation in 2023, I co-signed a letter to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) that resulted in NIH publicly acknowledging a causal link between rTBI and CTE later that year.
As a result of this work, I am considered a leader in the field of concussion, TBI, and their long-term sequelae, and have authored four book chapters on these subjects. Through the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R), I have been one of the clinicians that trains and certifies physicians to treat concussions as part of the Skill-Training-Evaluation-Performance program since 2024. I have also been invited to give Grand Rounds at nine institutions across the country and have been a speaker for sessions at over 30 national or international conferences, including as one of three speakers at the 2014 NIH Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Childhood Unintentional Injury Prevention: Expert Meeting, in Washington, DC. In recognition of my "significant contributions in the field of TBI," I received the 2024 Rising Star Award from the National Neurotrauma Society.
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