Congratulations to the recipients of the 2024 Rehabilitation Institute Pilot Award Program and the 20th Annual Rehabilitation Institute Research Day best research and poster session winners!
2024-2025 RI Pilot Awardees:
Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Recipient: Dr. Bailey Petersen, "Physical activity and BDNF in neurobehavioral recovery from pediatric TBI"
School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences Recipient: Dr. Samannaaz S. Khoja, "Improving primary care for LBP patients: Task-shifting management to specialty trained advanced practice providers"
The RI Day best research awardees were:
Non-Trainee/Staff: Randy Huzinec graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a BS in physical therapy. He served as a physical therapist at the Rehabilitation Institute of Pittsburgh and UPMC from 1988 until 2024. Randy currently serves as the associate director of clinical services for the Smart Tech for Paralysis program at the University of Pittsburgh's Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.
Resident: Christopher Como is an Orthopaedic Surgery Resident who hopes to match into a competitive sports medicine fellowship program and pursue an academic career. His research positions include work with the Pitt Biodynamics Lab, Ferguson Lab, and Orland Bethel Family Musculoskeletal Research Center.
Post-doctoral Fellow: I Made Agus Setiawan recently completed a doctorate in Rehabilitation Science, with a concentration in Health Informatics. Agus has joined the Department of Health Informatics as a Research Scientist, where he continues to utilize his expertise in utilizing technology to improve healthcare outcomes. Committed to bridging the gap between research and practical applications, Agus's career goal is to advance rehabilitation science through innovative informatics solutions.
Pre-doctoral/Master’s Student: Valerio Tonelli Enrico, PT, MSCE, is a Rehabilitation Scientist and Physical Therapist clinician specializing in systemic contributors to complex pain. Currently a PhD candidate, Valerio is involved in cutting-edge research that explores multi-omics contributions to chronic low back pain.
Medical Student: Mihaela Toader is pursuing a degree for Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) at LECOM Medical School and hopes to practice medicine as a PM&R and Sports physician.
Undergraduate: Vritika Patel is a recent spring graduate from Pitt with a BS in Psychology and Anthropology. She is an incoming research tech for Dr. Wagner's lab and a milieu therapist at WPIC, planning on pursuing a career in clinical psychology.
The RI Day poster session awardees were:
Non-Trainee/Staff: Brian Dekleva, "Using transient, modality-specific neural responses to enhance decoding for brain-machine interfaces"
Resident: Katy Stauffer, "3D Printing and Prosthetics: The Current State-of-the-Art and Future Directions"
Post-Doctoral Fellow: Mariana Pacheco Busquets, "Implementation of the Functional Mobility Assessment (FMA) outcomes registry within the Center for Assistive Technology (CAT)"
Pre-doctoral/Master’s Student: Evan Feigel, "Continuous Monitorization of Physiologic Mediators of Allostasis Indicate Overuse Injury Risk in Marine Officer Candidates
Medical Student: Lily Tang, "Motor Thalamus DBS for Immediate and Long-term Motor Function Improvement Post-TBI"
Undergraduate: Nicholas Genkinger, "Pharmacological and neurorehabilitation effects on cholinergic transmission and complex attention after controlled cortical impact injury in male and female rates"
Thank you to all who submitted proposals and abstracts, as well as to those who reviewed submissions!
A special thanks to our planning committee members: faculty – Drs. Brad Dicianno, Beth Skidmore, Corina Bondi, and Rachel Hibbs; and staff – Jessa Darwin, Selena Crawford, and Kelsey Shrader.