Biosketches of the Workshop Speakers and Moderators
Marcel Dijkers, Ph.D., studied sociology at the Catholic University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and at Wayne State University (WSU) in Detroit, obtaining a Ph.D. in 1978, and he has held a number of research and teaching positions in the Netherlands and the United States. He joined the faculty of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine Department of Rehabilitation Medicine in 1999, and now has the rank of Research Professor. Dr. Dijkers’ rehabilitation research interests have been very broad, as evidenced by his more than 100 published papers and chapters, and more than 200 conference presentations. Two areas of focus in terms of diagnosis have been traumatic brain injury (TBI) and spinal cord injury (SCI). He has researched the social and functional consequences of TBI and SCI, the delivery of health services for individuals with these conditions, as well as the determinants of community integration, quality of life, and other outcomes. Research methodology interests have been the measurement of functioning and quality of life, treatment integrity in rehabilitation research, the classification and quantification of treatment, and systematic review/meta-analysis for evidence-based practice. Dr. Dijkers’ research has been supported by grants from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among others. He is a past president of the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine, the leading U.S. rehabilitation research organization. He sits on the editorial board of the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation and is a regular peer reviewer for a number of other journals. He also serves as grant proposal reviewer for grant-making public and private organizations in the United States and overseas.
Mary R. T. Kennedy, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Speech-Language-Hearing Science Department at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She has more than 30 years of clinical and research experience working with individuals with cognitive and communication disorders as a result of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Dr. Kennedy has published and presented widely on these topics in both peer-reviewed scientific journals and publications aimed at translating evidence into practice. Her research has been funded by grants on the executive functions, language, and metacognition of survivors of TBI and the academic impact of these impairments. Current projects involve translating research evidence into practical assessment and instruction techniques that support individuals with TBI as they transition back to college. Dr. Kennedy chairs the Academy of Neurological Communication Disorders &Sciences (ANCDS) committee that systematically reviews research evidence and develops practice guidelines on managing cognitive and communication disorders after TBI.
Warren Lockette, M.D., is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Clinical and Program Policy and the Chief Medical Officer of the TRICARE Management Activity. He is responsible for Department of Defense programs in clinical informatics, military public health, women’s health issues, quality management, health promotion and disease prevention, biomedical ethics, mental health policy, patient advocacy, graduate medical education, and patient safety. Dr. Lockette and all of his Military Health System colleagues are dedicated to ensuring that each beneficiary in the Military Health System receives the best health care possible. Dr. Lockette received both his undergraduate and doctor of medicine degrees from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Following postgraduate training at the University of California, he was recruited to the faculty of the Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, and he was a tenured professor of endocrinology and medicine. Dr. Lockette was also appointed Adjunct Associate Professor of Physiology at the University of Michigan and Professor of Medicine and Faculty Fellow of the International House at the University of California, San Diego. In addition to his clinical service, he studies the molecular genetics of complex quantitative traits and human performance in extreme environments. Dr. Lockette has broad experience in operational medicine; he served as a senior advisor to the Commander of the Naval Special Warfare Command and the U.S. Special Operations Command. At Naval Medical Center, San Diego, Dr. Lockette helped guide the growth of the largest military clinical research program in graduate medical education. Most recently, he served as Special Assistant to the Commander, U.S. Navy Fourth Fleet, where he forged partnerships between military and civilian organizations of health care and public health practitioners to
provide collaborative humanitarian assistance and disaster relief training in Latin America.
Hilaire Thompson, Ph.D., R.N., FAAN, is an Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Washington and a core faculty of the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center. Dr. Thompson’s research has focused on improving outcomes from traumatic brain injury (TBI). In particular, her efforts have focused on understanding and improving the delivery of health care services to persons with TBI and the use of translational approaches to manage and reduce symptoms following injury. She currently serves as the Clinical Practice Guideline Series editor for the American Association of Neuroscience Nurses. Dr. Thompson earned her Ph.D. in Nursing from the University of Pennsylvania in 2003, after completing her M.S. and Post-M.S. Certificate in Adult Medical-Surgical Nursing and as an Adult Acute Care Nurse Practitioner, respectively from Virginia Commonwealth University. She also received her B.S.N. from Catholic University of America in 1992 and an M.S. in Clinical Epidemiology from the University of Washington in 2008.
Barbara G. Vickrey, M.D., M.P.H., is Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Neurology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she directs the Health Services Research Program in Neurology. She is also associate director for research at the Greater Los Angeles VA Parkinson Disease Center and an affiliated investigator at the RAND Corporation. Dr. Vickrey’s research focuses on translating evidence from clinical trials into routine medical practice and improved patient health outcomes. She led a multisite randomized trial that demonstrated substantially improved quality and better patient and caregiver outcomes from a coordinated care approach to dementia care delivery. Her research has led to enhanced clinical trials for epilepsy and multiple sclerosis by developing widely used instruments to quantify how these patients view their health-related quality of life. Currently, Dr. Vickrey leads an American Heart Association Outcomes Research Center investigating methods to address racial and ethnic disparities in stroke and training postdoctoral fellows in this field of investigation. She received her M.D. from Duke University School of Medicine, and her M.P.H. from UCLA School of Public Health. In 1998, she received the Alice S. Hersh Young Investigator Award from AcademyHealth.
John Whyte, M.D., Ph.D., is a physiatrist and experimental psychologist specializing in traumatic brain injury rehabilitation. He was the founding director of the Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute, begun in 1992, and continues in this position. His research focuses on cognitive impairment and
cognitive rehabilitation after brain injury as well as the special methodo-logic challenges posed by rehabilitation research. Dr. Whyte has received research funding from the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, the Department of the Army, and a number of private foundations. He is the past president of the Association of Academic Physiatrists, former chair of the National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research’s Advisory Board, and past Principal Investigator and Program Director (now Associate Program Director) of the Rehabilitation Medicine Scientist Training Program, a National Institutes of Health–funded program to train psychiatric researchers.
