Jim Lampley keynotes symposium
The Matthew Gfeller Center is pleased to announce this year’s NeuroHealth Symposium will be keynoted by Jim Lampley. Jim, a 1971 graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, is one of the most recognizable and versatile television sports and news commentators of his generation. In 1974, Jim Lampley was completing coursework in the Master’s Degree program in UNC’s Department of Radio, Television and Motion Pictures when ABC Sports unveiled a plan to (for the first time ever) place a reporter on the sidelines of its weekly national college football telecasts. From a national talent hunt, the network interviewed 432 candidates for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and with UNC’s ardent support Lampley got the job. That launched a unique 46-year odyssey in the worlds of television network and radio sports, news and entertainment during which Lampley fulfilled contracts with ABC Sports, ABC News, CBS Sports, CBS News, NBC Sports, Turner Network Sports, and a variety of radio stations and networks, TV syndicators and motion picture studios. Among an interminable laundry list of identities and accomplishments in commercial media, Lampley’s fourteen Olympics television assignments, most of them as a studio host, are the largest number for any American broadcaster. In his last and most beloved television arc, he spent 31 years as host of boxing and Wimbledon tennis for the incomparable content curator, HBO, and as senior reporter for that network’s Realsports won the last two of his five Emmys.
Symposium Speakers
Jason Mihalik is a Professor in the Department of Exercise and Sport Science. He is the Director of the Matthew Gfeller Center and the Chief Executive Officer for the center’s THRIVE Program. He holds adjunct appointments in the Department of Neurosurgery and Department of Allied Health Sciences. He also serves as Affiliate Faculty at the UNC Injury Prevention Research Center in the TBI focus area. Jason completed his undergraduate degree in Exercise Science with a specialization in Athletic Therapy at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 2001. He completed his graduate work in Sports Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, earning his Master’s Degree in December 2004.
Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz is a Kenan Distinguished Professor, Athletic Trainer, and the founding director of the Matthew Gfeller Center at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he has served on faculty since 1995. Over the past 26 years, his clinical research program has focused on sport-related concussion and their effect on balance and neuropsychological function in high school and collegiate athletes, the biomechanics of sport concussion, and the long-term neurological effects of concussion in retired professional football players. Kevin has published over 150 journal articles and textbook chapters on sport concussion and has helped sports medicine clinicians to improve diagnosis and management of this complex injury. More recently, his work is aimed at identifying biomarkers for determining the potential risk factors that predict symptom onset and progression of neurodegenerative disease in athletes who have played contact sports. Kevin earned his Doctor of Philosophy in Sports Medicine from the University of Virginia in 1995, after receiving a Master of Science in Exercise Physiology from The University of Pittsburgh in 1992 and a Bachelor of Science in Athletic Training from West Chester University in 1989.
Steven Broglio is a Professor of Kinesiology, Neurology, and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Dr Broglio completed his training at the University of Georgia, followed by his first faculty position at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has been at the University of Michigan since 2011. Dr. Broglio is currently the Associate Dean of Graduate Affairs for the School of Kinesiology and serves as the Director of the Michigan Concussion Center and the NeuroTrauma Research Laboratory. In those roles he oversees clinical care, educational outreach, and multi-disciplinary research aimed at fundamental questions on concussion prevention, identification, diagnosis, management, and outcomes. His research has been supported by numerous foundations and federal funding agencies, generating nearly 225 peer reviewed works. Dr Broglio is a co-PI on the CARE Consortium, the largest prospective investigation of concussion ever conducted. He has been awarded the Early Career Investigator Award by the International Brain Injury Association, the Early Career and Distinguished Researcher awards by the National Athletic Trainers’ Association, and Fellowship in the American College of Sports Medicine, the National Athletic Trainers’ Association, and the National Academy of Kinesiology.
Brett Miller is an optometrist who specializes in vision development and rehabilitation and the Director of Vision Therapy Services at Triangle Visions Optometry. Her clinics are located in Cary, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She received her Fellowship from the College of Optometrists in Vision Development in 2017 and is currently working towards her Fellowship with the Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation Association. Over a thousand patients have graduated vision therapy with her program and now experience the benefit of a more effective visual system. She enjoys speaking on how addressing the visual system is crucial to concussion management.
J.D. DeFreese is a Teaching Associate Professor in the Department of Exercise and Sport Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. J.D. is a native of Indiana and completed his undergraduate degree at Indiana University and doctorate in kinesiology, with a specialization in sport & exercise psychology, at Purdue University. He also completed a postdoctoral research experience at UNC-Chapel Hill before joining the faculty in 2016. He serves in research, teaching, and service roles at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Kristen Kucera is an Associate Professor in the Department of Exercise and Sport Science at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Core Faculty with the Injury Prevention Research Center, and the Director of the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research at UNC-CH. She joined the faculty in 2013 after serving as an assistant professor in the Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Duke University Medical Center. Kristen received her undergraduate degree, BS, 1994, in Athletic Training at Linfield College, McMinnville, OR. She completed her master’s, MSPH, 2002, and doctoral, Ph.D., 2006, degrees in the Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Michale McCrea is the Shekar N. Kurpad, MD, PhD Professor and Chair in the Department of Neurosurgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW), where he also serves as Vice Chair of Research and Co-Director for the MCW Center for Neurotrauma Research (CNTR). He has an appointment as a research neuropsychologist at the Clement Zablocki VA Medical Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 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 in clinical neuropsychology at Northwestern University Medical School. Dr. McCrea is ABCN board-certified in clinical neuropsychology. He is past President of the American Academy of Clinical Neuropsychology (AACN) and past President of the American Psychological Association’s Society for Clinical Neuropsychology (SCN). Dr. McCrea has been an active researcher in the neurosciences, with hundreds of scientific publications, book chapters, and national and international lectures on the topic of traumatic brain injury. He was selected by the U.S. Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC) as the recipient of the 2018 Dr. Deborah L. Warden Lectureship award. He authored the text Mild Traumatic Brain Injury and Postconcussion Syndrome: The New Evidence Base for Diagnosis and Treatment published by Oxford University Press. Dr. McCrea has led several large, multi-center studies on the effects of traumatic brain injury and concussion. He currently is co-PI on the NCAA-DoD CARE Consortium and several other large-scale studies investigating the acute and chronic effects of TBI in various populations at risk. Dr. McCrea is also a key investigator on the TRACK-TBI and TBI Endpoint Development (TED) studies of civilian brain injury. He has served on several national and international expert panels related to research and clinical care for TBI over the past two decades. He currently serves on the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) Committee on Accelerating Progress in TBI Care and Research. Dr. McCrea is also a neuropsychology consultant for the Green Bay Packers.
Jake Powell is a fourth-year doctoral student in the Interdisciplinary Program in Human Movement Science. He graduated from Ithaca College in 2017 with a Bachelor of Science in Athletic Training where he also competed for the varsity wrestling team. He completed his Master of Science in Kinesiology with concentration in Athletic Training at Temple University in 2019. Jake is interested in researching the relationship between the clinical presentation of brain injury and physiological recovery using neuroimaging and fluid biomarkers.
Lindsey Byom is an assistant professor in the Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences at the UNC School of Medicine. A trained speech-language pathologist, her research focuses on the interactions between cognitive function and communication participation for adults with head injuries. Her current NIH-funded research uses mixed methodologies to develop clinically feasible communication assessment tools to improve identification of post-TBI communication problems and measurement of treatment progress.
Adam Kiefer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Exercise and Sport Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where co-directs the Simulation, Training, Analytics and Rehabilitation, STAR, Heel Performance Laboratory. He also holds a volunteer faculty position in the Division of Sports Medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. Adam earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, 2003, his master’s degree at Barry University, 2005, his Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology at the University of Cincinnati, 2009, and trained as a post-doctoral research associate at Brown University, 2013. Prior to his arrival at UNC, Adam served as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and as the Director of Research Education in the Division of Sports Medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.
Madison Chandler is a postdoctoral research associate in the Matthew Gfeller Center and the STAR Heel Performance Lab. Madison graduated with a degree in Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2017 and earned her PhD in Kinesiology from Michigan State University in 2021. Her research uses psychological, physiological, and neuroelectric measures to understand how health behaviors (e.g., physical activity, sleep) and health-related attributes (e.g., aerobic fitness) can be leveraged to optimize concussion recovery and cognitive functioning across the lifespan.
Aaron Sinnott is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Matthew Gfeller Center at UNC-Chapel Hill. He completed his BS (Athletic Training) from Sacramento State University, 2013, an MS (Exercise Science) from Humboldt State University, 2015, and a PhD (Rehabilitation Science) from the University of Pittsburgh, 2021. He was a site coordinator for the NCAA-DoD CARE Consortium Project and a lecturer at Humboldt State University (2015-2017). His research interests include the effects of aerobic exercise on neurocognitive, vestibular, ocular, and somatosensory function across post-concussion recovery milestones.
Gianmarco Pinton is an Associate Professor in the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill & North Carolina State University. He was a faculty at the Institut Jean le Rond d’Alembert at the Sorbonne Universite, Paris and a post-doctoral associate at the Institut Langevin, at the Ecole Superieure de Physique et Chimie Industrielles. He has undergraduate degrees in Biomedical Engineering, Physics, a masters Mathematics, and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering all from Duke University. His lab’s research focuses on on improving and developing new ultrasound imaging techniques, including super-resolution vascular imaging, functional, and shock wave imaging techniques in the brain and abdomen and methods to model nonlinear wave propagation transcranially and in the human body, including acoustical and shear shocks.
Heidi Greata serves as the vestibular physical therapist for the THRIVE Program. A native of Saratoga Springs, New York, she graduated from Nazareth College of Rochester in 2010 with a doctorate in physical therapy. She has served in a variety of clinical settings in Colorado, North Carolina, and Florida focusing on acute and subacute neurological impairments, and is primarily passionate about rehabilitation for vestibular impairments, mild TBI and craniofacial pain. She currently serves in Chapel Hill at UNC’s adult neurological clinic and THRIVE program for veterans and first responders.
Julianne Schmidt completed her bachelor’s in Athletic Training at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, CA. She then completed her master’s and PhD at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She began her current position at the University of Georgia in 2013 where she serves in the areas of athletic training and biomechanics. Dr. Schmidt co-directs the UGA Concussion Research Laboratory and the Biomechanics Laboratory. Dr. Julianne Schmidt’s primary research interest is the clinical continuum of concussion. More specifically, her research focuses on biomechanics of sport-related concussion, concussion care seeking, and post-concussion evaluation and management techniques.
Johna Register-Mihalik, PhD, LAT, ATC, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Exercise and Sport Science. In addition to her role in the Gfeller Center, she serves as Core Faculty with the Injury Prevention Research Center here at UNC-CH and as the Traumatic Division Director for the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research. 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. Prior to joining the faculty in Exercise and Sport Science, she served as the Senior Research Associate in the Emergency Services Institute at WakeMed Health & Hospitals in Raleigh, NC. Dr. Register-Mihalik’s research interests include the negative consequences, prevention, education and clinical management of sport and recreational TBI. Her primary work centers on novel behavioral and clinical interventions to improve the prevention and care for concussion across the lifespan. She has been the recipient of several research grants to pursue this line of work. Her work has been published in a variety of journals across the sports medicine and brain injury literature. 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’s Convention Program Committee and the NATA Research and Education Foundation’s Pronouncements and Research Committees. Dr. Register-Mihalik was the 2018 recipient of the NATA Research and Education Foundation’s New Investigator award and is a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine and the National Athletic Trainers’ Association.
Christine Callahan is a fourth-year doctoral candidate in Human Movement Science. Her research interests include the psychotherapeutic components (specifically yoga, mindfulness, and exercise) of concussion rehabilitation and prevention. She is currently working on a dissertation project investigating the connection between concussion, stress, and mindfulness as well as projects related to active rehabilitation post-concussion and stigma surrounding concussion prevention and rehabilitation. Christine received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Northwestern University (2016) and her Master of Science degree in Kinesiology from the University of Michigan (2019).
Brittany M. Ingram (she/her/hers) is a certified athletic trainer and third-year doctoral student with expertise in the psychosocial components of sport-related concussion. Her research examines the impact of social determinants of health on sport-related concussion disclosure and care-seeking. She completed her undergraduate work at the University of Alabama in 2018 in Athletic training and her graduate training (MA-2020; Ph.D.-[expected] 2024) at UNC-Chapel Hill. Her research agenda has two main areas of focus. The first area of focus is identifying the effect of social determinants of health on sport-related concussion. She uses qualitative methods and survey research to investigate these effects. The second area of focus is examining the efficacy of current concussion education techniques and develop new education modalities considerate of the intersection of sport-related concussion and social determinants of health. Overall, her research aims to improve concussion disclosure and care-seeking for historically disadvantaged populations.
Kevin Carneiro is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at UNC-Chapel Hill, and the Medical Director of UNC Spine Center as well as the Brain and Body Health Program through the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes. He is the physician for all patients in the Matthew Gfeller Concussion Clinic. Kevin is a native of Canada, and received an honors undergraduate degree in Human Biology from the University of Toronto. He received his medical degree from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. He then completed residency training in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, PM&R, and a fellowship in Sports and Spine Rehabilitation at Northwestern University Medical School / Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, RIC. He is board certified in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation as well as Sports Medicine.
Dawn Kernagis is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery studying neuroprotective strategies for individuals who will be exposed to high physiological stress, including high concussive risk environments. Her research is funded by several Department of Defense agencies, NASA, and the NASA Translational Institute for Space Health. Dawn was selected as a crew member of the NASA NEEMO XXI undersea mission in 2016, and she has been inducted as a member of the Women Divers Hall of Fame and as a Fellow of the Explorers Club.
LTC (Ret) Steve DeLellis served more than 36 years on Active Duty, with more than 31 years in Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF). Having served at every enlisted rank from Private through Sergeant Major and every commissioned rank from Second Lieutenant through Colonel, through 16 combat rotations in 6 conflicts. Steve has had a keen interest in research throughout his career, and has previously managed the longest, continuously funded Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) surveillance project in ARSOF history. He has Co-authored more than 30 publications on TBI in Army Special Operations Forces. Steve is an Army Medical Department Iron Major, a member of the Order of Military Medical Merit and the 2019 United States Army recipient of the Henry M. Jackson Foundation Hero of Military Medicine award. Steve currently serves as the Senior Technical Advisor and Executive Director of the Geneva Foundation’s Fort Bragg Research Institute.
Wesley “Wes” Cole is a Research Associate Professor with the Matthew Gfeller Center in the Department of Exercise and Sport Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also serves as a neuropsychologist for the Transforming Health and Resilience In Veterans (THRIVE) Program. Wes completed his undergraduate degree in Psychology from James Madison University in 2000. He obtained his masters (2003) and doctoral (2006) degrees in Clinical Psychology from the University of South Carolina. As part of his graduate training, he completed a pre- and postdoctoral training at the Kennedy Krieger Institute, an affiliate of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. In 2009, Wes joined the traumatic brain injury services at Womack Army Medical Center on Fort Bragg. In this role he was a neuropsychologist, research lead, and chief of behavioral health services for the Intrepid Spirit Center, a multidisciplinary TBI treatment facility for military Service members. Wes joined UNC and the THRIVE Program in 2022. He has been the Principal Investigator for multiple TBI-related studies and has authored or co-authored numerous peer reviewed publications. He frequently presents at conferences and professional meetings on various topics related to brain injury. His primary research interests are with cognitive assessment and outcomes following concussion, return to duty assessment for military warfighters, and innovative treatments for postconcussive symptoms.
Shawn Kane is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the UNC-Chapel Hill. A native of New York, he attended Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, PA where he played varsity football and was in ROTC. Upon graduation he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the US Army Medical Service Corps and attended the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences for medical school. Upon medical school graduation, he was promoted to Captain and completed his Family Medicine Training at Womack Army Medical Center at FT Bragg, NC and then completed his Sports Medicine Fellowship at the National Capital Consortium at Ft Belvoir, VA/Bethesda, MD. He went on to serve a total of 27 years in the US Army, most of them as a physician in the US Army Special Operations Command. In 2018, he retired from the Army and started his second career here at UNC. He is board certified in Family Medicine and has a certificate of added qualification in Primary Care Sports Medicine.
Karen McCulloch, PhD, PT, MS, FAPTA, FACRM is a Professor in Physical Therapy, Division of PT, Department of Health Sciences, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. Karen has cared about individuals with traumatic brain injury since beginning as a PT in clinical practice, extending from moderate to severe brain injury to recent focus on concussion. She has served as a ORISE Fellow for the Army Office of the Surgeon General and is a subject matter expert for the TBI Center of Excellence in the Defense Health Agency. She is an author on the APTA Clinical Practice Guideline for Physical Therapy Management of Concussion. Her concussion research has focused on return to duty assessment and progressive return to activity in collaboration with military and interdisciplinary colleagues. Grant support has come from the Foundation for Physical Therapy, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Football League, National Institutes of Health, and Department of Defense.