Dr. Leslie Morse, DO, is Chair of PM&R and Professor with Tenure (pending review) at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Her research, as well as her clinical focus, is the care of individuals with SCI, with a long-term goal of developing mechanism-based therapies to prevent and treat secondary health complications after injury. To that end, she is conducting a randomized, placebo-controlled drug trial to test a novel treatment for SCI-related neuropathic pain (Morse Co-PD, NIDILRR). She recently completed a clinical trial testing the impact of exoskeleton-assisted ambulation on bone health, neuropathic pain, and quality of life after SCI that was selected by the Spinal Cord Injury Research Program (SCIRP) at the Department of Defense’s Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMPR) for inclusion in year’s annual report on program activities to Congress as an example of research findings with high impact on people with spinal cord injuries. Dr. Morse completed her medical training at the University of New England and her residency in PM&R at Boston Medical Center. Author of more than 100 publications, she has received several national awards and presented her work nationally and internationally.

Thomas Bryce has been Medical Director of the SCI Program at Mount Sinai since 2001. He has directed the Mount Sinai SCI research program since 2014. He has been PI on multiple federal, university, foundation, and industry funded grants including collaborative multi-center projects funded by the US Department of Defense, Craig H. Neilsen Foundation, and Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation.

Dr Claire Boswell-Ruys (BSc, BAppSci (Physio) Hons I, PhD) has worked in the area of spinal cord injuries for over 20 years. She is a Senior Research Fellow at Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) and a Senior Spinal Injury Physiotherapist at Prince of Wales Hospital (POWH), Randwick. Claire completed her PhD in 2010 at the University of New South Wales which focused on developing tools to assess sitting ability and concern about falling in people with a spinal cord injury (SCI); this Falls Concern Scale (FCS) has been translated into 9 different languages (SCI-FCS). Claire continues to investigate the effect of specific rehabilitation assessments and techniques on sitting ability for people with a SCI. Claire’s research within the SCI field includes various clinical trials to improve health outcomes. She investigates the effectiveness of inspiratory muscle training (IMT) for respiratory function, breathlessness and quality of life; functional electrical stimulation for cough and respiratory and bowel function; and neurostimualtion techniques to enhance muscle strength, mobility, breathing and function. Claire’s current research projects at the Spinal Cord Injury Research Centre (SCIRC) at NeuRA investigate the effect of transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation on walking ability, breathing and upper limb function; acute intermittent hypoxia on muscle strength and function; and IMT on respiratory function in people with SCI.

Elizabeth R. Felix, PhD is a Research Professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine where she serves as the Project Director of the South Florida Spinal Cord Injury Model System Center, funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR). She also has an appointment as a Research Health Scientist at the Miami Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Her primary research interests include the measurement and characterization of the development and maintenance of chronic neuropathic pain, and her work is aimed at understanding the contributions of both somatosensory dysfunction and psychosocial risk-factors associated with this type of pain.

Postdoctoral fellow, Autonomic Research Lab, University of British Columbia

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