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Faculty Update – January 2025

Max Hurwitz

  • 2024 PhyzTalks winner for presentation: "Disability and Homelessness: How Street Medicine Tackles Health Injustice"
  • Selected for one of the 2024 Provost’s Awards for Diversity in the Curriculum
  • Received the Beckwith Foundation Grant for Street Medicine Consult Service
  • Authored 3 new publications regarding disability and homelessness:
    • “Unmet needs: Bringing Physical Rehabilitation to People Experiencing Homelessness”
    • “Interdisciplinary Rehabilitation for the Transition out of Homelessness with a Traumatic Brain Injury”
    • “A Case of Delusional Parasitosis Associated with Xylazine Use”

Lee Fisher

  • Awarded tenure in the Dept. of PM&R at UPSOM

Jen Collinger

  • Promoted to rank of Professor in the Dept. of PM&R at UPSOM

Loren Pease

  • Recently named the Associate Program Director of the Cardiac Neurodevelopmental Program at CHP

Chris Standaert

  • Interviewed on UPMC HP podcast with Tony Dejoya and Ellen Beckjord on Aging and bone/ joint health
  • Appointed to a committee for the National Academies of Science and Medicine studying the relationship between pain and disability

Brendan McNeish

  • Recieved a Richard Materson ERF New Investigator Grant from the Foundation for PM&R for a proposal titled “Executive function’s association with mobile measures of community walking in older breast cancer survivors: a pilot study”

Suehen Ho

  • Appointed to the Part I Associate Committee with the ABPMR

Karen Barr

  • Passed the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine Board Exam
  • Completed the Physician Leadership Essentials Program

Kerry DeLuca

  • Elected Secretary/Treasurer of UPMC Presbyterian Campus Medical Staff Officers and a member of the Medical Executive Committee

Megan Cortazzo

  • Elected At-Large Representative UPMC Presbyterian Campus Medical Staff Officers and a member of the Medical Executive Committee

Christy Zigler

  • Elected as Chair-Elect for the 'Child Health SIG (Special Interest Group)' — part of ISOQOL (International Society for Quality of Life Research)
  • First author on publication: "Evaluating anchor variables and variation in meaningful score differences for PROMIS® Pediatric measures in children and adolescents living with a rheumatic disease"

Jessica Jarvis

  • Published article highlighting FISA project 

Amy Houtrow

  • Testified on December 12, 2024 for Senator Casey’s last committee meeting as Chair of the Senate Committee on Aging

Gina McKernan, Matt Mesoros and Brad Dicianno

  • Published a paper: "Machine Learning Algorithms for Prediction of Ambulation and Wheelchair Transfer Ability in Spina Bifida"

Ryan Nussbaum

  • Served as Session Director for an Overhead Athlete Ultrasound workshop at AAPMR Annual Assembly
  • Revived a fan at a Duquesne Women’s Basketball Game on January 5, 2025

Mercy Hospitals Inpatient Rehab earned their Three-Year accreditation from CARF International