Three professional experiences that I had during my student years, as a licensed occupational therapist, and then as a research scientist trainee motivated me to get involved in the field of research and teaching. My first professional experience occurred when I was an undergraduate student and volunteering at a domestic violence center.

During my work at the center, I was stunned by the lack of awareness about as well as limited resources in the community to provide evidence-based care to survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV). I was moved by the severity of psychosocial and somatic symptoms that many of these survivors were experiencing, and I knew that I need to understand these symptoms to fully assist the survivors with their recovery.

Second, working as an occupational therapist with pediatric and adult patients with neurological disorders (e.g., stroke and traumatic brain injury), I realized that there is a scarcity of culturally sensitive and evidence-based treatment modalities in my profession. This absence of evidence is largely due to the limited number of occupational therapists who are trained as research scientists with expertise in clinical and translational research. I knew that by obtaining such training, I could positively impact my patients and help to advance the clinical rigor within my profession.

My third experience occurred during my postdoctoral years, I worked with special populations (medically/socially vulnerable populations) of acquired brain injury, leading me to realize that evidence-based rehabilitative therapies are particularly scarce for such underserved populations. 

My research is focused on generating evidence to guide differential diagnosis, treatment, and recovery in special populations with injury to the central nervous system. By doing this research, I hope to improve health outcomes by identifying and refining detection methods and treatment. I want to eventually implement culturally sensitive therapies in naturalistic settings so that these therapies are accessible to even those groups who have limited resources. 

I am really proud of my students and my research team. My students are actively involved in all phases of research with me including data collection and data analysis. They have also co-authored several publications. I am fortunate to have an interdisciplinary research team involving students from all academic backgrounds. I am also excited about the amazing resources at my lab that UB has provided me to conduct my research successfully. 

With my physical therapy educational background, I have been always intrigued by human movement, specifically how our brain controls movement. We move constantly during the day without even thinking about it most of the time. However, very simple movement such as moving a finger is achieved from such a complex process that involves brain, spinal cord, nerves, muscles and their neurophysiological interactions. I think understanding this process is fascinating, and it is a key to improve motor function in various neurological conditions.

My current research approaches in spinal cord injury could have a direct impact on many people’s lives. Currently, there is no cure for spinal cord injury, and any research approaches and efforts have potential to lead to better treatment outcomes in spinal cord injury. I believe that I am contributing to this process by working in this field with the people with spinal cord injury and have impact on people that our lab works with.

My research goal is to find or develop novel approaches to improve motor function in people with motor deficits. Our laboratory’s expertise is in using neurostimulation to achieve this goal.

Once scientific challenges to the process determine an approach that could be more effective than current approaches, we face the next challenge of translating our findings to clinical settings, so that they can potentially be applied to a larger population, beyond our study participants.

We just started a clinical trial in spinal cord injury at our laboratory. The trial uses a stimulation device applied to the spinal cord to increase motor output and aims to improve arm and hand movement in people after spinal cord injury.

We are excited about the potential positive effect of this trial and are looking forward to working with more participants.