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Planning Committee and Speaker Biographies

Frederick Rivara, M.D., M.P.H., (Chair) is the Seattle Children’s Guild Association Endowed Chair in Pediatric Research, vice-chair and professor of pediatrics, and adjunct professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington. He has contributed to landmark studies and global initiatives aimed at reducing injury-related deaths, especially among children and adolescents. He is the founding director of the Harborview Injury and Research Center in Seattle and has devoted his career to studying injury and injury prevention. He has received numerous honors. These include the Charles C. Shepard Science Award from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; the American Public Health Association - Injury Control and Emergency Health Services Section Distinguished Career Award; the American Academy of Pediatrics - Section on Injury and Poison Prevention Physician Achievement Award; and the University of Washington School of Public Health Distinguished Alumni Award. Dr. Rivara was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2005 and is a founding board member of the Washington State Academy of Science. He earned his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.P.H. from the University of Washington. He completed his residencies at the Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston and the University of Washington.

Michael Alosco, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical neuropsychologist and an associate professor of neurology at the Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. He also serves as the research vice chair, codirector of clinical research at the Boston University Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) Center, and leader of the Boston University Alzheimer’s

Disease Research Center Clinical Core. Dr. Alosco has published extensively in the fields of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, including CTE, and he is the principal investigator (PI) of multiple National Institutes of Health– (NIH-)funded grants. His institute has received research support from Life Molecular Imaging, Inc., to study their tau PET tracer in the detection of long-term neurological disorders associated with repetitive head impacts (RHI). His research has set the stage for biomarker discovery in CTE and the long-term effects of RHI on the white matter, and he has made major contributions to plasma biomarker development and validation in Alzheimer’s disease. He has written numerous book chapters, and he is the coeditor of the Oxford Handbook of Adult Cognitive Disorders published by Oxford University Press in 2019. Dr. Alosco earned his doctorate in clinical psychology with a focus on neuropsychology from Kent State University. He completed his clinical internship in neuropsychology at the VA Boston Healthcare System. Dr. Alosco completed his postdoctoral studies in neuropsychology via NIH-funded training awards at the Boston University Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and CTE Center.

Kristy Arbogast, Ph.D., is the scientific director for the Center for Injury Research and Prevention, R. Anderson Pew Distinguished Chair of Pediatrics, and codirector of the Minds Matter Concussion Program at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She is also the R. Anderson Pew Distinguished Chair and professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. 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. Her research has been supported by funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of War, National Institutes of Health, Toyota Way Forward Fund, and Football Research, Inc., a nonprofit corporation supported by the NFL. Dr. Arbogast served on the National Academies of Medicine Committee on Sports Concussion in Youth. Dr. Arbogast’s concussion research focuses on the use of head impact sensors to understand the biomechanics and bioengineering technology for objective measures of diagnosis and monitoring. She has established rigorous methods of data collection and processing to quantify repetitive head impacts across multiple sports in male and female youth, leading a consensus conference on the topic from which best practices have been published. She is a consultant on injury prevention topics for the NFL Players Association and serves on the NFL Engineering Committee, interpreting multiple data streams for mitigation of head injuries through improved equipment, rules of the game, and playing technique. Dr. Arbogast earned her doctorate in bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania in 1997.

Jeffrey Bazarian, M.D., M.P.H., is a professor of emergency medicine and neurology at the University of Rochester Medical Center with an active concussion clinic and research program. He has served on traumatic brain injury-related task forces and panels for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the National Academy of Medicine. In 2008, he worked with the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center to develop mild traumatic brain injury (concussion) management guidelines for returning troops.

Benjamin Brett, Ph.D., is a clinical neuropsychologist and assistant professor in the departments of neurosurgery and neurology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. As a faculty member of the Brain Injury Research Program and the Center for Neurotrauma Research, Dr. Brett studies the acute and chronic effects of traumatic brain injury (TBI) and his research receives funding from the National Institutes of Health. He holds committee positions across various organizations including the Sports Neuropsychological Society, American Academy of Clinical Neuropsychology, and National Neurotrauma Society. Dr. Brett is coinvestigator on a number of multicenter studies examining acute and chronic effects of TBI. In clinical practice, Dr. Brett specializes in the neuropsychological evaluation of adults with diverse neurologic and neurobehavioral presentations.

Jaclyn Caccese, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and a faculty member in the Ohio State University Chronic Brain Injury Program. Her research focuses on the neurodevelopmental effects of youth tackle football, TBI assessment, repetitive head impacts, and low-level blast exposures in law enforcement officers. Her work is funded by research grants from the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of War. With over 55 peer-reviewed publications, Dr. Caccese is a leading expert in sport and tactical athlete concussion management, influencing injury prevention legislation and policies for youth tackle football players and law enforcement officers. She has played a key role in developing guidelines for head acceleration measurement technology, helping to set new standards for research and practice in this field. Dr. Caccese earned her doctorate in biomechanics and movement science at the University of Delaware and completed her postdoctoral studies at Temple University and the University of Delaware.

Avinash Chandran, Ph.D., FACSM, is the chief science officer and managing director of the NCAA Injury Surveillance Program at the Datalys Center for Sports Injury Research and Prevention, a nonprofit organization founded by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), BioCrossroads, and American College of Sports Medicine. He is also managing director

of the NCAA Injury Surveillance Program and serves as a consultant for Major League Soccer. Dr. Chandran is a quantitative epidemiologist. His research interests include injury epidemiology and surveillance, longitudinal study design and analytical methods, as well as Bayesian inference using observational data. His research program centers on the application of advanced quantitative methods in injury epidemiology and in the study of athlete health and wellness across the lifespan. Previously, Dr. Chandran served as a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Exercise and Sport Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he concurrently worked within the Matthew-Gfeller Sport-Related TBI Research Center, the Center for Study of Retired Athletes, and the Injury Prevention Research Center. Dr. Chandran has been the recipient of various research grants and has received funding from the NCAA, North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute, Atlantic Coast Conference Center for Research in Intercollegiate Athletics, Canadian Institutes of Health Research- Human Development, Child and Youth Health Institute, and his work has been published in a variety of journals across the sports medicine, epidemiology, and statistical literature. He serves on the leadership team of the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine Clinical Research Network, the editorial/education team of the Football Medicine and Performance Association publication and on the editorial boards of the Journal of Sport Rehabilitation, the Journal of Physical Activity and Health, and the injury prevention and rehabilitation specialty section of Frontiers in Sports and Active Living. Dr. Chandran completed his master of science in epidemiology and his doctorate in epidemiology at the George Washington University.

George Chiampas, D.O., is an assistant professor in emergency and sports medicine at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago. Dr. Chiampas serves multiple roles in the sports medicine world including team physician, emergency management and response, and mass event planning. He currently serves as team physician for the Northwestern University Wildcats and Chicago Blackhawks, and travels and provides medical coverage for U.S. Soccer and the men’s national team locally and internationally. He has been the medical director of the Bank of America Chicago Marathon with 45,000 runners annually and the Shamrock 8k shuffle with 40,000 participants. He works closely with city, state, and federal agencies in the planning of these events and has incorporated and led the way with the unified command approach for mass sporting events and medical coverage. He currently is president of the American Road Race Medical Society. He has lectured nationally and internationally and authored book chapters and journal articles on topics including mass event

management, EMS, and communication in a unified command approach. In 2010 Dr. Chiampas led and coauthored the medical chapter for the U.S. bid for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup. In Chicago, Dr. Chiampas is involved with several shorter and larger running events and since 2009 has also served as comedical director of the Hustle up the Hancock climb for lung disease research. He is involved in and a member of several national emergency and sports medicine societies where his focus has become emergency management and mass event preparedness.

Katie Culver, Ph.D., is a professional learning specialist with the Office of Leadership Development of the School District of Philadelphia and a parent of three multisport youth athletes. In her professional work, Culver designs and facilitates equity professional development, supports school leaders in maintaining inclusive learning practices, and develops and trains equity professional development facilitators. She is also a consultant and facilitator with EQuicentric Consulting and formerly an adjunct professor at Temple University. She received her B.A. in sociology from Villanova University and Ph.D. in urban education from Temple University.

Carolyn Emery, P.T., Ph.D., is a physiotherapist and epidemiologist and a professor in the faculty of kinesiology at the University of Calgary. She holds joint appointments in pediatrics and community health sciences in the Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary. Emery holds a Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Concussion, is Chair of the Sport Injury Prevention Research Centre at the University of Calgary (1 of 11 International Olympic Committee Centres for Prevention of Injury and Protection of Athlete Health) and is the scientific director of the Institutes of Trans-disciplinary Scholarship at the University of Calgary. She is a fellow in the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and the Royal Society of Canada. Emery completed her B.Sc. in physiotherapy at Queens University in 1988 and after several years of practice in pediatric rehabilitation and sport medicine, she completed her M.Sc. in epidemiology (Community Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine) at the University of Calgary in 1999 and her Ph.D. in epidemiology (Public Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine) from the University of Alberta in 2004. Dr. Emery is a member of the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute, O’Brien Institute of Public Health, Hotchkiss Brain Institute, and the McCaig Institute of Bone and Joint Health. The focus of her research is the prevention of youth sport-related injuries and their consequences, concussion, and pediatric rehabilitation. She leads SHRed Injuries: Preventing Injuries and their Consequences in Youth Sport and Recreation and SHRed Concussions: Surveillance in High Schools to Reduce the Risk of Concussions and their Consequences. She aims to keep kids participating in the sports they love.

Lee Gabler, Ph.D., is a senior engineer at Biomechanics Consulting and Research (Biocore LLC). His background is in brain injury biomechanics and the development of head impact metrics. He has extensive experience in head impact measurement and analysis through his work with professional and collegiate football data and Biocore LLC has received funding for an instrumented mouthguard from the NFL and Football Research, Inc. Dr. Gabler specializes in the use of sophisticated tools including finite element models of the human head and constitutive models for brain tissue to answer fundamental questions in brain injury biomechanics. These include determining how mechanical forces translate to brain injury and what effects these forces have on the structure of brain tissue. Dr. Gabler earned a Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Virginia in 2017.

Gerard Gioia, Ph.D., is the director of the Safe Concussion Outcome, Recovery & Education (SCORE) Program at Children’s National Hospital. He is also a professor at the George Washington University School of Medicine. He directs the Neurobehavioral Core research laboratories for Children’s National’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute and the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center. Dr. Gioia treats persons and families with brain injuries with dual areas of interest in disorders involving the executive functions and pediatric concussion/mild traumatic brain injury. He has been the principal investigator of several multisite Centers for Disease Control and Prevention– (CDC-)funded research studies of pediatric mild TBI with a focus on the development of methods and tools for the evaluation of the executive functions and postconcussion neuropsychological functioning. He has developed several smartphone apps, Concussion Recognition & Response and Concussion Assessment and Response (CARE Sport), the Acute Concussion Evaluation (ACE) and ACE Care Plan, a pediatric neurocognitive test for concussion, and postconcussion symptom scales for children and parents. He works closely with the CDC on its Heads Up concussion educational programs, as a contributing author to the toolkits. Dr. Gioia has been an active participant in multiple International Concussion in Sport Group Consensus meetings and was on the American Academy of Neurology Sports Concussion Guideline Author panel. He is the team neuropsychologist for the NHL’s Washington Capitals and the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens, school systems, and numerous youth sports organizations in the Baltimore-Washington region. He consults with the local and national governing organizations of ice hockey, lacrosse, football, rugby, and soccer related to concussion management and is on the Medical Advisory Committee for USA Football and the National Advisory Board of the Positive Coaching Alliance. Dr.

Gioia earned his doctorate in school psychology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, completed his internship in pediatric psychology at University of Maryland, and completed his postdoctoral studies in pediatric neuropsychology at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Christopher Giza, M.D., is a professor of pediatrics and neurosurgery and the Rubin Brown Chair and Chief of Pediatric Neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Children’s Hospital. He established and directs the UCLA Steve Tisch BrainSPORT program, a comprehensive sports neurology/concussion/mild TBI program for prevention, outreach, research, and treatment. Additionally, he serves on the Major League Soccer Concussion Program Committee and the National Basketball Association Concussion Committee. He has served as vice-chair for the California State Athletic Commission, on the Center for Disease Control’s Pediatric Mild TBI Committee and the NCAA Concussion Task Force, and holds equity in HighMark Interactive, a brain health assessment technology company. He has served as a consultant for organizations including the NBA, MLS, U.S. Soccer Federation, NHL/NHL Players Association, NFL, LA Lakers, and LA Chargers. His research interests include neuroplasticity, recovery from injury, sport-related concussions, posttraumatic epilepsy, and brain development. Previously, he served as a civilian advisor to the Department of War and traveled to Afghanistan in 2011. In 2012, he received the Professional in the Field Award from the Brain Injury Association of California. Dr. Giza cochaired the American Academy of Neurology’s committee that developed an evidence-based Practice Guideline for Management of Sports Concussions in 2013. Dr. Giza earned his medical degree from West Virginia University, and completed a clinical internship in internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He completed his residency in neurology and fellowship in pediatric neurology at the UCLA School of Medicine.

Tamerah Hunt, Ph.D., ATC, FACSM, is a professor in the Department of Health Sciences and Kinesiology at Georgia Southern University. Dr. Hunt is a Certified Athletic Trainer and has worked at every level of sports during her career. Her research focuses on youth concussion examining the effects of the social determinants of health on incidence, management, and recovery outcomes; youth recovery patterns; effort on assessment; and comorbidities. Dr. Hunt has secured numerous grants, published concussion and brain injury research, and has given numerous presentations regionally, nationally, and internationally. She serves on numerous professional committees to enhance inclusion and diversity in the clinical and research setting. She has served as an Allied Health and Education Board of Trustee for the American College of Sports Medicine and is currently the National

Athletic Trainers’ Association Research and Education Foundation District 9 Director.

Keisuke Kawata, Ph.D., is a clinical neuroscientist and associate professor in the Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington, where he studies effects of repetitive head impacts using sensor-installed mouthguards, blood biomarkers, eye tracking, cognitive assessment, and advanced neuroimaging. His sports medicine training was with the NFL Detroit Lions, MLS Sporting Kansas City, MLB Atlanta Braves, and ESPN Wide World of Sports. He completed both his M.S. focusing on molecular neuroscience and Ph.D. in clinical neuroscience at Temple University, where he gained extensive experience across a spectrum of brain injury models. His research program is supported by federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and Department of War, as well as the Indiana State Department of Health. His research employs a multimodal approach to studying neurological injuries and neurodegeneration due to exposure to repetitive head impacts.

Laura Keyes, L.S.W., CBIS, has been a social worker for over 15 years and has worked in various areas including child welfare, school-based therapy, and home and community-based services. Currently, Keyes is the program social worker for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Minds Matter Concussion Program. She has a special interest in traumatic brain injury and holds certification as a certified brain injury specialist.

Emily Kroshus-Havril, Sc.D., M.P.H., is a professor at University of Washington’s School of Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics. She is also a principal investigator at Seattle Children’s Research Institute’s Center for Child Health, Behavior, and Development. She conducts research on health promotion in social settings, including shared decision making by families about sport participation after recovery from pediatric concussion. She obtained her doctoral degree in 2014 from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, with a concentration in health communication. Prior to coming to the University of Washington she was a postdoctoral research fellow at the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Sport Science Institute, where she worked on research and program development related to concussion and mental health in college sports.

Rebekah Mannix, M.D., M.P.H., is chief of the division of emergency medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital and professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Mannix serves as the primary investigator for her Traumatic Brain Injury Lab and is coinvestigator of the

Neurologic Function across the Lifespan: A LONGitudinal Translational Study for Former National Football League Players (NFL-LONG Study). Her clinical research interest is the identification of new serum and imaging biomarkers for diagnosing and managing mild traumatic brain injury, and her work has been funded by grants from the Department of War, National Institutes of Health, National Football League Charitable Foundation, Abbott Laboratories, Boston Children’s Hospital, and others. Dr. Mannix earned her medical degree at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and completed her M.P.H. at the Harvard School of Public Health. She completed her residency and fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Luca Marinelli, Ph.D., is a senior principal scientist at GE HealthCare, Technology & Innovation Center. During his time at GE, 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 earned a Ph.D. in physics at Harvard University, after which he completed a postdoctoral fellowship in information theory and wireless telecommunications at Bell-LaboratoriesLucent Technologies.

Christina Master, M.D., FAAP, CAQSM, FACSM, FAMSSM, is a professor of pediatrics and orthopaedic surgery at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and a pediatric and adolescent primary care sports medicine specialist and academic general pediatrician at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). Additionally, she is the cofounding codirector of the Minds Matter Concussion Program, which provides comprehensive cutting-edge and multidisciplinary clinical care and rehabilitation for concussion, community advocacy, and outreach. 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 has past or current research funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of War, National Collegiate Athletic Association, and National Institutes of Health. She is board certified in pediatrics, sports medicine,

and brain injury medicine, and is an elected fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine and American Medical Society for Sports Medicine. She treats over 800 children, youth, and young adults with concussion annually in her clinical sports medicine 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 and served for 14 years as the associate and vice program director for the pediatric residency program. She subsequently completed a sabbatical year sports medicine fellowship at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and has since been caring for patients with concussion in her sports medicine practice and conducting clinical translational research in concussion.

Khalilah Mays, B.S., is a Revenue Cycle Solutions Strategic Advisor with Experian and a parent of a youth athlete. She received her BS in health information management from Temple University and MSIS in information systems/information architecture from Drexel University.

Michael McCrea, Ph.D., ABPP, is a board-certified clinical neuropsychologist. He is currently The Shekar N. Kurpad, M.D., Ph.D., Chair in Neurosurgery; professor of Neurosurgery and Neurology; vice chair of research; codirector of the Center for Neurotrauma Research; and director of brain injury research at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) in Milwaukee. He is a past president of the American Academy of Clinical Neuropsychology. Dr. McCrea has been an active researcher in the neurosciences, with numerous scientific publications, book chapters, and national and international lectures on the topic of traumatic brain injury; his research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Department of War, Department of Veterans Affairs, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Collegiate Athletic Association, National Football League, Abbott Laboratories, MCW Clinical Translational Science Institute, and philanthropic foundations. He authored the text Mild Traumatic Brain Injury and Postconcussion Syndrome: The New Evidence Base for Diagnosis and Treatment published by Oxford University Press. He is a member of the Defense Health Board External Advisory Committee on Traumatic Brain Injury advising the Office of the Secretary of Defense on the management and research of military-related traumatic brain injury and is consultant to the Green Bay Packers. Dr. McCrea earned his doctoral degree from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, then completed his internship training in neuropsychology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Northwestern University Medical School.

William P. Meehan, III, M.D., is director of the Micheli Center for Sports Injury Prevention, director of research for the Brain Injury Center at Boston Children’s Hospital, and principal investigator of the Neurological Function across the Lifespan: A LONGitudinal, prospective and translational study for former NFL players (NFL-LONG). Dr. Meehan is also a professor of pediatrics and orthopaedics at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Meehan conducts both clinical and scientific research in the areas of sports injuries, spine injuries, and concussive brain injury. His research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Center for the Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology, the National Football League Players Association, the National Football League, and the National Hockey League Alumni Association. He is the 2012 winner of the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine’s award for Best Overall Research. He has multiple medical and scientific publications and is author of the book Kids, Sports, and Concussion: A Guide for Coaches and Parents. He is coeditor of the book Head and Neck Injuries in Young Athletes, and he is an associate editor of the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. Dr. Meehan earned his medical degree at Harvard Medical School.

Jesse Mez, M.D., M.S., is an associate professor of neurology at Boston University (BU) Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine. A neurologist with clinical training in aging and dementia and research training in biostatistics/statistical genetics and epidemiology, he is the associate director of the BU Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC), codirector of clinical research of the BU Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) Center, and coleads the Framingham Heart Study Brain Aging Program Clinical Core. He is also an Alzheimer Disease (AD) Genetic Consortium and AD Sequencing Project investigator. His research seeks to understand the genetic, neuropathological, epidemiological, and clinical aspects of AD, CTE, and related dementias, and has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of War, Alzheimer’s Association, and Concussion Legacy Foundation. He is an internationally recognized expert on CTE, having been a lead or coauthor on several of the most highly cited manuscripts and an invited lecturer in national and international venues on the topic. Ongoing research themes include (1) the relationship between traumatic brain injury, exposure to repetitive head impacts from contact sports and military service, and dementia-related outcomes and their interaction with genetic factors; (2) clinicopathologic correlation in CTE with the goal to accurately diagnose CTE in life; (3) genetic architecture, neuropathology, and clinical course of AD subtypes, as defined by variation in neuropsychological presentation; and (4) interaction between genetic and environmental factors and risk for and resilience from AD. He also cares for patients with AD and related dementias, including

those at risk for CTE in the BU/Boston Medical Center Memory and Aging Clinic. He received his A.B. from Cornell University in mathematics, his M.D. from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and his M.S. in biostatistics with an emphasis on statistical genetics from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. He completed his neurology residency at the Harvard Mass General Brigham Program in Boston. This was followed by a Clinical Fellowship in Aging and Dementia and a Research Fellowship in Neuroepidemiology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Amy Jo Riggs, Ph.D., is a professor of nutrition and food sciences in the Department of Health Sciences and Kinesiology at Georgia Southern University, where her research interests focus on childhood and sports nutrition, weight management, eating disorders, diabetes, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. She is also the parent to two multisport youth athletes who shared their experiences with the workshop—Xavier Deckard and Olyana Deckard. Riggs received her Ph.D. in nutrition and food science from Auburn University.

Johna Register-Mihalik, Ph.D., LAT, ATC, FACSM, FNATA, is a professor in the Department of Exercise and Sport Science at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. She is the codirector, alongside Dr. Adam Kiefer, of the STAR Heel Performance Laboratory and is founding and core faculty in the Matthew Gfeller Center. She also serves as core faculty with the Injury Prevention Research Center and as the Traumatic Division Director for the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research and is a consultant for Allied Health Education. Dr. Register-Mihalik’s research interests include the negative consequences, prevention, education, and clinical management of sport and recreational TBI, and recent work has been funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of War, National Athletic Trainers’ Association Foundation, and National Football League. Her work centers on novel behavioral and clinical interventions to improve prevention and care for concussion across the lifespan. Her work has been published in a variety of journals across the sports medicine and brain injury literature, and she has received several federal grants to support this work. Dr. Register-Mihalik is also an active member of many professional organizations including the National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA), and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). In addition, she currently serves on the NATA Research and Education Foundation’s Research Committee. and has previously served on USA Football’s Football Development Council and Girls Football Council. Dr. Register-Mihalik was the 2018 recipient of the NATA Research and

Education Foundation’s New Investigator award and is a fellow of the ACSM and the National Athletic Trainers’ Association. She completed her undergraduate work at the University of Alabama in athletic training and her master’s, athletic training, doctoral, human movement science, and postdoctoral, neuroscience training at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Sean Rose, M.D., is a pediatric neurologist with additional training in the diagnosis and management of concussion. He is codirector of the Complex Concussion Clinic at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, and associate professor of pediatrics at The Ohio State University. His clinical practice focuses on concussion and other neurological conditions in athletes. His research interests include the neurocognitive effects of sub-concussive impacts and physiological mechanisms of concussion and post-concussion syndrome; his research is supported by the National Institutes of Health. Dale Jr. Foundation, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, and Ohio State University. He completed a fellowship in Sports Neurology, and he has provided sideline coverage for several sports at multiple levels of play and has served as a consultant for the NBA’s concussion program. He is board certified in neurology with special qualifications in child neurology. Dr. Rose earned his medical degree at the University of Virginia.

Erik E. Swartz, Ph.D., ATC, FNATA, serves as the Gary O. Galiher Endowed Professor and director of the Hawai’i Concussion Awareness Management Program at the University of Hawaii. Dr. Swartz’s research focuses on the prevention and acute care of head and neck injuries in football. He has received grants from GOG Foundation, the National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA) Research & Education Foundation, National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE), NFL Charities, and was a winner of the NineSigma Head Health Challenge supported by GE, NFL and UnderArmour. He has published in journals such as the Journal of Athletic Training, American Journal of Emergency Medicine, New England Journal of Medicine, Spine, and the American Journal of Sports Medicine. He served on the NFL Head Neck and Spine Committee’s Subcommittee on Safety Equipment and Rules and as writing chair of two NATA Position Statements on the prevention and acute management of head and spine injuries in athletes. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Athletic Training and the Athletic Training and Sports Health Care Journal. In 2011 he was honored with a fellows designation in the National Athletic Trainers’ Association, and in 2015 he received the Most Distinguished Athletic Trainer Award, also from NATA. He received his Ph.D. in applied biomechanics at the University of Toledo.

Jillian Urban, Ph.D., M.P.H., is an associate professor in the Center for Injury Biomechanics in the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Her primary research interests are focused on combining engineering and public health to inform, develop, and test evidence-based strategies to prevent and manage concussion and repetitive head impact exposure in sports, using a community-engaged approach. She is the principal investigator of multiple NIH-funded studies supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and has served as a collaborator and coinvestigator of additional research studies supported by NIH, Childress Institute for Pediatric Trauma, NASCAR, and Toyota Racing Development. She has specialized training in injury biomechanics and public health and over 10 years of experience collecting head acceleration data and clinical outcome measures from concussed and nonconcussed athletes on multidisciplinary studies across helmeted and nonhelmeted sports. She has additional experience conducting qualitative interviews surrounding sports safety with stakeholders in the youth sports and motorsports communities. Dr. Urban is passionate about engaging the sports community in research for the development and implementation of practical solutions to improve safety for athletes.

Karlita L. Warren, Ph.D., LAT, ATC, FNAP, received her Doctor of Philosophy degree in athletic training from Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions and has been a Board of Certification certified athletic trainer for over 20 years. She is the founder of the Kizo Effect, LLC, an organization dedicated to enhancing individuals’ quality of life through health-conscious lifestyle choices, injury prevention, recovery, and empowerment in health care decision making. Additionally, her organization provides consulting services on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) in health care and health professions education. In addition, Dr. Warren is an adjunct professor at George Mason University. Dr. Warren previously served as assistant program director and professor of practice in the master of science in community medicine program at Keck Graduate Institute. She serves on several local, regional, and national professional committees. Dr. Warren’s research interests include traumatic brain injuries, racial and ethnic health disparities and health care disparities, microaggressions in health care, and underrepresented minority enrollment and retention in athletic training education and the athletic training profession. In 2021, she was selected to be a distinguished CHER institute faculty fellow with the Center for Health Equity Research at California State University Long Beach and in 2023, she was inducted as a distinguished practitioner fellow of the National Academies of Practice in Athletic Training.

Jingzhen (Ginger) Yang, Ph.D., M.P.H., is a principal investigator at the Center for Injury Research and Policy of the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and a professor of pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine, with a courtesy appointment in the College of Public Health’s Department of Epidemiology. Dr. Yang is an internationally recognized leader in injury prevention research, with a focus on reducing injuries among children and adolescents—the leading cause of death and disability in this population. Her work centers on sports-related mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), including recovery trajectories, the effects of state TBI laws, patterns of concussion care utilization, postconcussion driving safety, mental health outcomes, and innovative approaches such as educating youth athletes about concussion through a virtual reality app. She also studies parental engagement in promoting safe teen driving. Her research, supported by the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and National Science Foundation has advanced scientific knowledge while directly improving the lives of children and families through evidence-based prevention, policy, and clinical care. She has served as principal investigator or coinvestigator on more than 60 funded grants and contracts, authored over 220 peer-reviewed publications and 7 book chapters, and contributed broadly to injury prevention, intervention, and evaluation research. Dr. Yang’s leadership has been recognized through prestigious appointments and awards, including service on the Major League Baseball Injury Research Committee (2010–2015) and receipt of the American Public Health Association’s Excellence in Science Award (2013).

Keith Yeates, Ph.D., is professor of psychology, adjunct professor of pediatrics and clinical neurosciences, and former Ronald and Irene Ward Chair in Pediatric Brain Injury at the University of Calgary, in Alberta, Canada. He also serves as the inaugural chair of the Canadian Concussion Network and the editor-in-chief of Neuropsychology. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, and the Royal Society of Canada. He has a 30-year track record of research funded by the National Institutes of Health, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Canada Foundation for Innovation, Brain Canada Foundation, Ontario Brain Institute, National Football League Scientific Advisory Board, and others focusing on the outcomes of childhood brain disorders, especially traumatic brain injury. He also has research consulting agreements with Pennsylvania State University, University of California at San Francisco, and Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Dr. Yeates was colead author of the report of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Expert Panel on Acute Diagnosis and Management of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury among Children and Adolescents, an invited expert panel member at the 6th International Consensus Conference on Concussion in Sport in Amsterdam, and an invited member of the expert consensus group for the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine Diagnostic Criteria for Mild Traumatic Brain Injury. He is chair of the Data Safety and Monitoring Board for the Concussion Health Improvement Program (CHIP) Trial at the University of Washington. He earned his doctorate in clinical psychology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.