RMSTP Graduates

James J. Hill III, MD

Dr. Hill is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine where he also serves as the Medical Director of the University’s Employee Health Clinic. He completed a residency in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a fellowship in Occupational & Environmental Medicine at Yale University. He is Board Certified in both Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation and Preventive Medicine/Occupational & Environmental Medicine and has a Masters in Public Health in Chronic Disease Epidemiology from Yale University. He is currently in Phase II of the Rehabilitation Medicine Scientist Training Program (RMSTP) through the National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research (NCMRR). His research interests include absenteeism, lost work time and productivity, organizational and economic incentives and their impact on return to work outcomes, epidemiologic methods related to classification of socioeconomic status, and long term outcomes in returning Afghanistan/Iraq combat veterans.

Richard Wilson, MD

Dr. Wilson obtained his MD degree from the Medical College of Ohio. He completed his residency in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at MetroHealth Medical Center/Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Wilson is pursuing his research fellowship in health services research under the mentorship of Dr. Neal V. Dawson at MetroHealth Medical Center. His focus is to determine whether there is an association between healthcare resource utilization and psychological traits in those with spinal cord injury. He has a faculty appointment as a general physiatrist at the MetroHealth Rehabilitation Institute of Ohio in Cleveland, Ohio.

Vincent Gabriel, MD

Dr. Vincent Gabriel graduated from the University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine in Canada with both MD and Bachelor's of Science in Medicine degrees in 2000.  He then completed residency training at the University of Alberta in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in 2005.  Dr. Gabriel also holds a fellowship in the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.  Following residency, Dr. Gabriel worked at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and Parkland Memorial Hospital as a consultant physiatrist and clinical services director for the National Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation Research funded North Texas Burn Rehabilitation Model Systems Project.  Dr. Gabriel also graduated with a Master's degree from the UTSouthwestern Clinical Scholar's program.  As a participant in the RMSTP, Dr. Gabriel carried out research projects relating to the viscoelastic properties of human skin and scar as well as the genetic response of human skin to burn injury in the development of burn scar.

Currently, Dr. Gabriel is a clinical assistant professor in the Division of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Calgary.  He works as the Director of Burn Rehabilitation and Scar Research at the Calgary Firefighter's Burn Treatment Center at the Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.  His clinical program is developing a continuum of rehabilitation care for burn and trauma patients from acute presentation through to community re-integration.  At the same time, Dr. Gabriel is continuing his research endeavours in the viscoelastic properties of human scarring and the pathways leading to human hypertrophic scarring.

Leslie Morse, DO

Dr. Morse completed her medical training at the University of New England and her residency in PMR at Boston Medical Center. She is currently a staff physiatrist at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Clinical Associate at Massachusetts General Hospital, and is an Assistant Professor in the department of PMR at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Morse's research is focused on neuromodulation of bone metabolism.  She is the PI of an active R01 grant awarded by the NIH and the PI of an active grant awarded by the Department of Defense.  Both studies address SCI-induced osteoporosis. 

Brad Dicianno, MD

Dr. Dicianno is the Associate Medical Director of the Human Engineering Research Laboratories and Assistant Professor at the Univ. of Pittsburgh Medical Center in the Dept. of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. He is the Director of the UPMC Adult Spina Bifida Clinic and the Medical Director of the Center for Assistive Technology and Director of the RREMS (Rehabilitation Research Experience for Medical Students) for the AAP. His research focus is understanding motor control and movement disorders by studying the interfaces between the upper limb and engineering devices such as power wheelchair joysticks and interfaces for computer access. He completed an RMSTP fellowship at the Human Engineering Research Laboratories in Pittsburgh under the mentorship of Rory Cooper, PhD. Brad graduated from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine after obtaining a BS in Evolutionary Biology and a BA in the History and Philosophy of Science as an undergraduate there. He completed residency in the Dept. of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Univ. of Pittsburgh Medical Center, where he served as chief resident.  During his fellowship he also received a Master's Degree in Bioengineering from the University of Pittsburgh.

Janna L. Friedly, MD

Dr. Janna Friedly grew up in upstate New York, but took the first opportunity she could to move west, attending college at Stanford University. After college, she moved to Eugene, Oregon, where she cultivated her interest in health services research and health care policy working for the medical director of a not-for-profit health plan analyzing physician performance and quality reporting. She then obtained her medical degree from Oregon Health Sciences University and spent a year working with mentor Laurence Huang at UCSF developing her basic research skills through the Training in Clinical Research program and conducting research on the genetic epidemiology of PCP pneumonia. After completing residency training in PM&R at the University of Washington, she returned to her interests in health services research through the RMSTP K12 program. She has been working at the University of Washington under the mentorship of Drs. Rick Deyo and Leighton Chan conducting health services research relating to epidural steroid injections for the treatment of low back pain in the Medicare population. She is currently an Acting Assistant Professor at the University of Washington in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine and with the Center for Clinical Effectiveness, Cost and Outcomes Research. Her primary research interests are in the provision of health services relating to low back pain. She is also extending her research focus to study the delivery of health care services to amputees. Clinically, she works at Harborview Medical Center in the amputee clinic and as an attending on the inpatient acute rehabilitation service. Her other academic interests are in quality improvement, medical ethics, and teaching evidence based medicine to medical students and residents.

Gwen Sowa, MD, PhD

Dr. Gwendolyn Sowa, MD, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Co-Director of the Ferguson Laboratory for Orthopaedic and Spine Research at the University of Pittsburgh, where she also holds joint appointments in the Departments of Orthopaedic Surgery and Bioengineering. She completed her PhD in Biochemistry and Medical Degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation residency at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, where she was named the 2004 William Randolph Hearst Resident, identified as the resident most likely to make a national impact in the field of PM&R. Using her background in biochemistry, Dr. Sowa currently performs molecular laboratory based, translational, and clinical research, investigating the effect of motion on inflammatory pathways and the beneficial effects of exercise. She is Co-Director of the Ferguson Laboratory for Orthopaedic and Spine Research, a 3000 square foot laboratory fully equipped to perform molecular assays including gene expression analysis, protein analysis, cell and organ culture, histology, and cellular and spinal biomechanical testing. In addition, she is the clinical core leader for the multi-disciplinary Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Spinal Cord Injury at the University of Pittsburgh, where she coordinates recruitment of subjects with acute traumatic spinal cord injury, collection of clinical data as well as serum and urine samples for inflammatory modeling to examine the potential for inflammatory signatures for predicting prognosis and the risk for secondary complications. She also investigates the role of serum biomarkers in intervertebral disc degeneration, and has recently published the results from an animal model which has now been extended into a funded clinical study to validate these markers. She has received national recognition for her research, including the 2003 Sarah Baskin Award for Excellence in Research from the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, the 2005 Electrode Store Best Paper Award, the 2008 Excellence in Research Writing Award from the Association of Academic Physiatrists, and Young Investigator Award Winner at the OABiomarker Global Initiative in 2009. She has presented her award winning work at national and international meetings with over 80 published abstracts. She has authored and co-authored 33 original papers. She has received funding to support her research program from the NIH/NIAMS, NIDRR, North American Spine Society, Physiatric Association of Spine, Sports and Occupational Rehabilitation, The Pittsburgh Foundation, and the American Geriatrics Society. In addition, she is active in teaching medical students, medical residents, post-doctoral fellows, having trained over 35 trainees on research projects, 11 of whom have won awards for their work, including the prestigious Outstanding Paper Award at the International Society for the Study of the Lumbar Spine Annual Meeting in 2008.  She was named the University of Pittsburgh Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Teacher of the Year Award in 2007 and was recently named the Young Academician of the Year by the Association of Academic Physiatrists in 2009. She is a peer reviewer for four journals, and is an associate editor for PM&R. In addition, she is a board certified physiatrist, and active member of the Association of Academic Physiatrists, the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and the North American Spine Society. In addition to her research activities, she currently spends approximately 25% of her time treating outpatients with musculoskeletal and spinal disorders in the University of Pittsburgh Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.

Anthony S. Burns, MD

Anthony S. Burns graduated from the Yale University School of Medicine in 1994. Afterwards, he completed a combined Internal Medicine/PM&R residency training in the Johns Hopkins/Sinai Hospital of Baltimore residency program in Baltimore, Maryland. During his residency training, he received the Arthur A. Siebens Memorial Award presented annually to a senior resident in the Johns Hopkins/Sinai PM&R residency for excellence in academic pursuits and devotion to patient care. He is board certified in two medical specialties: Internal Medicine and PM&R. In addition, he completed a spinal cord injury (SCI) fellowship at the University of Alabama at Birmingham medical center and has additional certification in the subspecialty of Spinal Cord Medicine. He is also a past participant in the Rehabilitation Medicine Scientist Training Program (RMSTP), an initiative funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). From August 2000 through October 2007, he held an appointment as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia PA, and was the Assistant Director of the Regional SCI Center of the Delaware Valley. During this time, he was also appointed an adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia PA. In November 2007, Dr. Burns joined the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute as the Medical Director of the Spinal Cord Rehabilitation Program, the largest program of its kind in Canada. He also holds a faculty appointment as an Associate Professor in the Division of Physiatry, Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on prognosis following traumatic SCI, neurorecovery and plasticity following SCI, and peripheral nervous system function following SCI.

Pablo Celnik, MD

Dr. Celnik is a board certified Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R) physician and Associate Professor in Johns Hopkins University. Originally, he completed residency training in neurology in Argentina, followed by a fellowship in Neurological Rehabilitation at the University of Maryland and later a research fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Mark Hallett at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NIH). This work culminated in a seminal paper in Nature (Cohen, L. G., P. Celnik, et al. 1997]. "Functional relevance of cross-modal plasticity in blind humans." Nature 389: 180-3). After this work, he entered the PM&R residency program in Johns Hopkins University where he was ultimately  appointed chief resident. After this training, he was awarded a K12 Career Development Award, the “Rehabilitation Medicine Scientific Training Program” (RMSTP), sponsored by the Association of Academic Physiatrists (AAP) and NIH, under the mentorship of Dr. Leonardo Cohen in the Human Cortical Physiology Section of the NIH. At the same time, he joined as an assistant professor the PM&R and Neurology Departments at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. At the completion of his training in the RMSTP he was awarded the “Clinician Scientist Award” from Johns Hopkins University, the “2006 Dennis W. Jahnigen Career Development Scholars Award” from the American Geriatric Society, and
obtained a Beginning Grant in Aid from the American Heart Association.

More recently, he was awarded an R01 from the NIH to continue his investigations and to start the Human Brain Physiology Laboratory in the PM&R dept. at Johns Hopkins University. Dr Celnik’s research has focused on understanding the mechanisms underlying motor learning and motor recovery after brain lesions, and on developing and testing new strategies to enhance motor recovery after stroke. In this area, he has published several manuscripts in highly regarded peer reviewed journals, as well as chapters in prominent books.

In 2009, Dr Celnik received the“Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE)”, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers. In 2007, he was recipient of the “Young Academician Award” for outstanding academic performance, and was selected to participate in the Program for Academic Leadership both sponsored by the AAP. He also was recipient of other prestigious scientific awards like the “1997
Fellows Award for Research Excellence” by the National Institute of Health, the “2003 ERF New Investigator Award” by the Foundation for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, the “2005 Best Paper
Presentation Award” by the Association of Academic Physiatrists, and the “2006 Best Paper Presentation Award” by the American Society of Neurorehabilitation and American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. 

Jay J. Han, MD

Dr. Han is an Associate Professor at the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of California Davis.  He is also the Director of the Neuromuscular Medicine Fellowship and Co-Director of the MDA Neuromuscular Diseases Clinic at UC Davis.  He completed his undergraduate studies from the Stanford University with honors, and attended UCSF School of Medicine.  He completed his internship and PM&R residency at the University of Washington, and subsequently completed a
focused clinical and research fellowship (K12) in neuromuscular disorders. He worked under the guidance of Dr. Jeffrey S. Chamberlain.  Dr. Han has clinical focus in neuromuscular diseases affecting both adult and pediatric populations, specifically the various muscular dystrophies, as well as electrodiagnosis. His research interests focus on the development of functional outcome measures in patients with neuromuscular disorders and research using electrodiagnosis/electromyography (EMGs) in the animal models of various neuromuscular diseases.

Preeti Raghavan, MD

Dr. Preeti Raghavan obtained her MD degree from Rajah Muthiah Medical College, India. She completed her residency in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Albert Einstein School of Medicine, New York. Dr. Raghavan is pursuing her research fellowship in motor control under the mentorship of Dr. Andrew Gordon at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is studying the kinematic and kinetic features of prehension during functional tasks in normal individuals and patients after stroke. Her research goal is to understand the neural mechanisms underlying the recovery of voluntary motor functions in brain-injured patients. In addition she is an attending physician on the brain injury rehabilitation unit of Mount Sinai Medical Center.

Yonghua Tai, MD, PhD

Dr. Tai is a staff physician of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and research scientist of Kaiser Foundation Rehabilitation Center. Dr. Tai completed his medical education at The Second Military Medical University, Shanghai and holds a PhD in Neuroanatomy from The University of Iowa. His major areas of research are in visual rehabilitation and training programs to treat deficits of visual field and visual spatial processing. Dr. Tai is currently developing visual rehabilitation programs to train patients with homonymous hemianopia to develop conscious vision in the blind field.

Yejia Zhang, MD, PhD

Dr. Zhang earned her PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology at the University of Pennsylvania after completing medical school in China. She started her Phase I training in the RMSTP program during her residency at the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY. In 2002, Dr. Zhang began Phase II training in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Rush Medical College, Chicago, IL. After completing the three-year training period, she joined the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University as an assistant professor. She is currently funded by the National Institutes of Health (K-08) to continue her studies on the effects of growth factors on intervertebral discs regeneration and the mechanism of disc degeneration under the mentorship of Dr. Maurizio Pacifici, PhD, and Dr. Irving Shapiro, DDS, PhD Since the initiation of her training with the RMSTP, Dr. Zhang has received numerous awards, including the PM&R Foundation New Investigator Research Grant, the Scott F. Nadler, DO, Research Grant from PASSOR, a Stryker Research Grant from the Cervical Spine Research Society (CSRS), a 21st Century Research Grant from the CSRS, and a Research Grant from the North American Spine Society. Her research will provide guidance on the development of treatment strategies for degenerative disc disease, which is associated with low back pain.