Adam R. Ferguson, MS, PhD
Past-President NNS (in office 2023-2024)
Symposium Planning Committee Chair (NNS 2025)
Co-Director, Brain and Spinal Injury Center (BASIC)
Director of Biostatistics, Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program
Professor, Department of Neurological Surgery
Weill Institute for Neurosciences
University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)
Principal Investigator, San Francisco VA Health Care System

Adam R. Ferguson, MS, PhD is Co-Director Brain and Spinal Injury at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, Professor of Neurological Surgery in the Weill Institute for Neurosciences at UCSF, and Principal Investigator in the San Francisco VA Healthcare System. His neurotrauma research interests span from mechanistic neuroscience in model organisms to large-scale clinical data science and precision medicine research for TBI and SCI. He directs a diverse team of researchers performing a hybrid of bench neuroscience in the laboratory and translational data science, supported by grants from the NIH, VA, DoD, DARPA and non-profits. He has a history of active participation in the National Neurotrauma Society. As a postdoc he won the Michael Goldberger research prize and later transitioned into faculty. He has served the National Neurotrauma Society as n elected councilor, Secretary/Treasurer, Vice President, and President, and current serves as Past-President and Symposium Planning Committee Chair. His other community and public service roles include serving as founding co-director of international data sharing efforts in neurotrauma through the Open Data Commons for SCI (odc-sci.org) and TBI (odc-tbi.org); representing the field at National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine workshops on the data lifecycle in biomedicine; serving on NIH/NINDS TBI common data elements workgroups; and federal study sections. He also has a strong dedication to teaching and mentorship of next-generation researchers. He serves as curriculum director for data science and biostatistics for the UCSF Biomedical Sciences graduate program and has served as sponsor/mentor on 20 successful fellowships including 6 NRSAs, a NIH K99R00, K22R00, K08, K23, an NIH diversity supplement, NIH BD2K RoadTrip fellowship, VA Career Development awards, among others. He has authored 230+ peer-reviewed scientific papers with trainees from diverse and multidisciplinary backgrounds across bench science, data science, and clinical neurotrauma research.

Amanda C. Glueck, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at the University of Kentucky, in the College of Medicine. She received a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Centre College (Danville, KY) and a Master of Science and a Doctor of Philosophy in Experimental Psychology from Texas Christian University (Fort Worth, TX). Upon completing her doctoral training, she went on to complete a post-doctoral fellowship with the Henry M. Jackson Foundation at the Naval Medical Research Center in Silver Spring, MD, where she investigated the neurocognitive deficits and behavioral consequences of combat-related mild traumatic brain injuries. Since joining the University of Kentucky, her research has focused on identifying and evaluating novel neurorehabilitation aids for individuals with mild cognitive impairment; with a main focus on using commercially available virtual and mixed reality technologies to improve cognition, balance, and motor function. She is also an outcomes assessor for a number of clinical trials for traumatic brain injury and aging. Dr. Glueck has been a member of NNS since 2015 and a part of NNS’ TEAM committee since 2020.

Dr. Audrey Lafrenaye is an Assistant Professor in the department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her lab focuses on investigating the diffuse glial and neuronal pathologies associated with traumatic brain injury in both rodent and translational pig models. Dr. Lafrenaye has been a member of the National Neurotrauma Society since 2011 and she was elected as the Diversity Director for the Training Education And Mentoring (TEAM) NNS committee.

Daryl Pinion Fields II, MD, PhD, joined the University of Pittsburgh Department of Neurological Surgery in July of 2018. He completed his undergraduate degree at Saint John’s University (Collegeville, Minn.), and his medical degree as well as research doctorate at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. 

Prior to medical school Dr. Fields held several leadership positions as a firefighter captain and medic. In addition, he spent several years as a neural rehab personal trainer managing clients with debilitating neuromuscular disorders; including stroke, brain trauma, multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injuries. These experiences have inspired both his research and clinical interest in spinal neurorestorative therapies. 

Dr. Fields has been recognized with several nationally competitive awards and fellowships from the National Institute of Health and National Science Foundation in addition to funding from private organizations such as the National Football League, Pittsburgh Steelers, Merck Pharmaceuticals and Live Like Lou Foundation. 

Dr. Eve Tsai is a Neurosurgeon who practices at The Ottawa Hospital, her main surgical interests focus on all types of spine and spinal cord diseases such as spinal cord injury, spinal cord and spine tumors, syringomyelia, and myelopathy. Her research will focus on spinal cord strategies, axonal regeneration, MRI imaging of spinal cord tracts in humans and animals, and clinical outcomes after spine surgery. 

Dr. Gurkoff first began attending NNS in 2001 as a graduate student in the Hovda/Giza labs at UCLA. After receiving his PhD in Neuroscience in 2006, Dr. Gurkoff did a postdoctoral fellowship in the Lyeth lab at UC Davis and was later promoted into a faculty position in 2012.  Currently Dr. Gurkoff is an Associate Professor, the Associate Vice Chair of Research and the Bronte Endowed Scholar in the Department of Neurological Surgery at UC Davis. His research at UC Davis is focused on how brain injury results in changes in neural connectivity and whether neuromodulation can be used to improve both electrophysiological and behavioral outcomes. Dr. Gurkoff is also a Health Science Research Specialist at the VA of Northern California as a part of his role in the PRECISE-TBI program.  Dr. Gurkoff continues to be very involved in the National Neurotrauma Society. After several smaller service roles, in 2016 he first joined the Symposium Program Committee and has served 4 of the last 6 years – including being co-chair for NNS 2024 meeting in San Francisco, CA. In 2018 he was elected chair of TEAM, and as part of his two-year term he worked to transition TEAM from an independent organization into a robust NNS committee and, along with Drs. LaPlaca and White, launched the Local Scholars program. In 2019 he was elected to Council and was able to participate in the implementation of our current strategic plan. In 2023 he served as Treasurer and as part of the Executive Council. He currently serves as President of the National Neurotrauma Society. Ultimately, Dr. Gurkoff has two primary goals in his academic career. The first is to work with his colleagues to develop innovative solutions to improve the quality of life for patients with a history of neurotrauma. In addition, he is committed to training and mentoring the next generation of neuroscientists, in general, and neurotraumatologists more specifically. 

Katherine Giordano earned her BS in Biology and Neuroscience from DePaul University in 2016. She completed her PhD in Clinical Translational Science at the University of Arizona in 2023. Her dissertation investigated neuroinflammatory mechanisms after diffuse TBI and she was supported by a predoctoral NRSA F31 award from the NINDS. Currently, Katherine is a postdoctoral researcher at the Phoenix VA Health Care System, where she investigates the intersection of intimate partner violence and TBI using clinical data, as well as TBI during pregnancy through both clinical and pre-clinical studies.

Dr. Anderson-Erisman is a Professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the MetroHealth Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) School of Medicine.  Her research has focused on translational investigations and bridging the gap between basic science, clinical science, and the public community living with spinal cord injury (SCI).  Her training spans the spectrum of SCI research, from cellular and molecular studies, to whole animal and behavioral studies, to human clinical research.  A large area of her research has focused on obtaining the perspective of people living with SCI on various aspects of research, including functional priorities, acceptable benefits and risks, preferences for neuroprosthetics, and exercise participation to make research more relevant.  For this work she was awarded the Craig H. Neilsen Visionary Prize in 2021 and elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2023.  She has expertise in SCI outcome measures, multi-center clinical studies, and FDA-regulated Schwann cell transplantation clinical trials.  At MetroHealth-CWRU she is continuing her leadership in clinical trials for SCI and further developing her independent research efforts addressing issues important to people living with SCI with an emphasis on translational research to deploy treatments to the clinic.  She is currently the Director of the Northeast Ohio Regional Spinal Cord Injury Model System of Care.  She was also a co-founder and the inaugural President of the North American Spinal Cord Injury Consortium. 

Kristen Dams-O’Connor, Ph.D. is the Director of the Brain Injury Research Center (BIRC) of Mount Sinai, an internationally recognized program for traumatic brain injury (TBI) research and care. She is the Jack Nash Professor and Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Rehabilitation and Human Performance, and Professor of Neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS). She completed a BA in Neuroscience at Colgate University, a PhD at the University at Albany, and predoctoral training at the Rusk Institute at NYU. She completed postdoctoral fellowship in clinical neuropsychology and brain injury research and joined the faculty at ISMMS as an Assistant Professor in 2011.  

 Dr. Dams-O’Connor’s multidisciplinary program of research aims to improve long-term outcomes in individuals with TBI and repetitive head impacts sustained through sports, military service, and intimate partner violence (IPV). The Late Effects of TBI (LETBI) project is a longitudinal prospective TBI brain donor program that aims to characterize the clinical phenotype and postmortem pathological signatures of post-traumatic neurodegeneration to facilitate in-vivo diagnostics. The ‘Leveraging Existing Aging Research Networks to understand associations of TBI and AD (LEARN TBI-AD)’ project aims to harmonize data across 5 of the largest longitudinal studies of cognitive aging in the United States. The ENRICH Brain Health Focused Program Award spans 5 research projects investigating clinical and pathological signatures of post-traumatic neurodegeneration, psychological health decline, and suicide risk in civilians and Veterans with TBI. The New York Traumatic Brain Injury Model System of care is one of 16 centers of excellence for TBI research and clinical care in the United States. Her research has been supported by federal grants from the DoD, NIH, NIDILRR, CDC, and PCORI. She has authored over 200 scientific publications and is the recipient of awards for her research, mentorship, and brain injury advocacy. 

Megan Huibregtse, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow at the Grady Trauma Project in the Emory University School of Medicine. She studies neuroimaging and blood biomarkers of brain injury in trauma survivors, with an emphasis on sex differences and sex-specific associations with functional outcomes. Dr. Huibregtse is interested in how traumatic brain injuries and psychological stress interact to affect women’s brain health across the lifespan.

Mia Pacheco is a fifth-year PhD candidate in the McCreedy Lab at Texas A&M University. Her research focuses on characterizing sex-dependent differences in the immune response to spinal cord injury. When not in the lab, she enjoys playing co-ed softball, training jiu jitsu, and playing with her three pets. 

Michael Grovola, Ph.D., is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and the Center for Neurotrauma, Neurodegeneration, and Restoration at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center. His research focuses on neuropathological and transcriptomic changes after traumatic brain injury (TBI), aiming to characterize mild TBI out to chronic timepoints and identify potential therapeutic targets. His research utilizes a rotational-acceleration induced TBI model in swine, which replicates the injury biomechanics of human TBI. His academic interests include the neuroinflammatory response and the role of microglia, the innate immune cells of the central nervous system, after TBI. 

Michael began research in spinal cord injury during his undergraduate research at the University of Tasmania. After graduating, Michael then completed his PhD with Norman Saunders at the University of Melbourne. In 2005, he began postdoctoral training at the Universities of Melbourne and then Florida, before being promoted to faculty in 2009. Michael accepted a position with the Spinal Cord Research Center at Drexel University in 2013, to continue his research into spinal cord injury, neuroplasticity and strategies to optimize repair and lasting functional recovery. Now a tenured Associate Professor, funded by the NIH and research foundations, Michael is actively pursuing cell therapies and rehabilitative strategies to promote recovery after cervical spinal cord injury. 

http://www.spinalrepair.org/cover-page/

Theresa Currier Thomas, PhD is the Director of the Translational Neurotrauma and Neurochemistry Laboratory at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. She was born in Kentucky and received her BS in Agricultural Biotechnology in 1999 from the University of Kentucky. She earned her PhD in Anatomy and Neurobiology in 2008 and continued as a postdoctoral fellow at the Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center at the University of Kentucky. 

Dr. Currier Thomas’s primary research focuses on traumatic brain injury (TBI). She studies structural, functional, and molecular processes, with synaptogenesis as a keystone, which guides circuit reorganization over time and contributes to chronic deficits/symptoms after TBI. She tests pharmacological and rehabilitative strategies to mitigate these chronic deficits. She is also actively investigating the contribution of endocrine (hormone) dysregulation after TBI to understand causes and propose treatments for post-traumatic neurological deficits. Dr. Currier Thomas has demonstrated an early commitment to including females in TBI research publishing on sex differences in neurotransmission and the sequelae of TBI pathophysiology. These studies collaborate with researchers from the University of Arizona College of Medicine–Phoenix, Phoenix, VA Healthcare System, Arizona State University, and Midwestern University. She also has a remarkable history of creating a community of diversity and inclusion through mentorship, networking, professional development, and education in her lab, department, university, Phoenix Valley, and National Neurotrauma Society engagement.