K12 Scholars

https://medicine.duke.edu/profile/jessica-ma

Jessica Ma, MD is a palliative medicine and internal medicine physician and health services researcher. She is a Medical Instructor in the Division of General Internal Medicine at Duke University School of Medicine. She is also a staff physician in the Durham VA Health System, where she sees patients on the inpatient palliative care consult service, inpatient hospice unit, and outpatient palliative care clinic. She completed her internal medicine residency at Washington University in St Louis in 2017. After her internal medicine residency, she was a VA Chief Resident in Quality and Safety at the St Louis John Cochran VA. She then completed her fellowship in hospice and palliative care at Duke University in 2019 and health services research and development at the Durham VA in 2021. She is also the Past Chair of the Early Investigators Forum in the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Her research focuses on improving symptom management for patients with serious illnesses through clinician behavior change, specifically focusing on clinician and patient pain management decision making in advanced chronic kidney disease.

https://www.gim-crhc.pitt.edu/people/lakeya-s-mcgill-phd

Dr. Lakeya McGill is an assistant professor of medicine and a licensed clinical psychologist in the Division of General Internal Medicine. Her current research focuses on discovering knowledge that promotes pain care, including in adults with sickle cell disease (SCD). Her long-term goal is to become a leader in clinical pain research and advance a research program that identifies protective and risk factors for chronic pain-related outcomes and develops and implements personalized and multi-level chronic pain interventions. Dr. McGill is an awardee of the NIH/HEAL National K12 Clinical Pain Career Development Program through the University of Michigan. Her K12 project aims to elucidate experiences of patients on pain and treatment outcomes in adults with SCD. Her research will advance the field by identifying multi-level risk factors and treatment targets.

https://profiles.mountsinai.org/bridget-r-mueller

Bridget Mueller, MD, PhD, is the Research Director of the David S. and Ruth L. Gottesman Center for Headache Treatment and Translational Research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS). Dr. Mueller has clinical practices at ISMMS’s David S. and Ruth L. Gottesman Center for Headache Treatment and Translational Research, and the ISMMS Autonomic Function Laboratory. Her clinical expertise includes migraine and secondary headache disorders, with a specific focus on pain that results from autonomic nervous system dysfunction and vascular disorders. Dr. Mueller is fellowship trained in headache and pain medicine and is proficient in administering botulinum toxin injections for migraine, nerve blocks, sphenopalatine ganglion blocks, and trigger point injections.

https://profiles.umassmed.edu/display/37898444

Dr. Abigail Helm (PhD) is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Health Systems Science and Department of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. Dr. Helm’s background is in neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and developmental psychology, with over 10 years of research experience across a variety of small-scale experimental studies and large randomized controlled trials. Dr. Helm’s current work on multiple federally funded (NIMH, CDC, VA) randomized controlled trials examines evidence-based interventions to treat co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders. Dr. Helm’s specific areas of interest are: (1) assessing impacts of chronic pain and co-occurring addiction and mental health disorders on cognition and (2) adapting multimodal interventions to treat chronic pain and co-occurring disorders.

https://www.utmb.edu/shp/phyt/pontiff

Ryan Pontiff, PT, DPT, PhD, OCS, FAAOMPT is an Assistant Professor of Instruction and the Director of Clinical Education for the Hybrid DPT Program in the Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences in the School of Health Professions at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. He earned a Doctor of Physical Therapy and a Doctor of Philosophy from Texas Woman's University (TWU). He is a former Center Therapy Director and Site Coordinator of Clinical Education for Concentra in Houston. He earned a Bachelor of Science from Louisiana State University (LSU) in Kinesiology, with minors in chemistry, biology, and psychology. In addition, he became a Fellow of the American Academy of Orthopedic Manual Physical Therapists after training with The Manual Therapy Institute and became board-certified in orthopedic physical therapy. function through precise interventions.

https://shp.rutgers.edu/mbv42/

Dr. Vorensky is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation and Movement Sciences at Rutgers University. Dr. Vorensky completed his Doctor of Physical Therapy from Ithaca College in 2015 and his PhD in Rehabilitation Sciences from New York University in 2023. His dissertation research investigated the effects of patient-clinician relationships on pain and function among individuals with chronic low back pain. Dr. Vorensky's current research aims to examine how contextual factors, such as a clinicians' workload and autonomy, predict patient-clinician interactions and plan of care decision-making.

https://nunm.edu/faculty/ryan-wexler/

Ryan Wexler, ND, MSCR is a research investigator at the National University of Natural Medicine (NUNM) focused on the evaluation of complementary and integrative health interventions, mindfulness, and multicomponent programs for patients with chronic low back pain, lumbosacral radiculopathy, and nociplastic pain. Dr. Wexler completed his undergraduate training at Illinois State University in Kinesiology and Dietetics and his naturopathic medical education at NUNM. While concurrently enrolled in a Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine and Master of Science in Clinical Research program, Dr. Wexler completed a clinical trial evaluating the efficacy of Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement for patients with lumbosacral radiculopathy. Following graduation, Dr. Wexler completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Wellness and Preventive Medicine at Cleveland Clinic before transitioning back to NUNM under the HEAL National K12 award.