Mike Jones, Ph.D. - Co-pi

Serves as Co-PI for the RERC. Mike is Vice President for Research and Technology and founding Director of the Virginia C. Crawford Research Institute at Shepherd Center. Mike is also an adjunct professor in the School of Architecture at Georgia Tech and Co-PI of the LiveWell RERC. Prior to coming to Shepherd Center in 1996, Mike was executive director of the Center for Universal Design at NC State University, a NIDRR-funded RERC. Mike served as associate director of the Research and Training Center on Independent Living at University of Kansas from 1982-1988. As Co-PI, Mike will provide strategic leadership for the RERC, direct Shepherd Center’s overall participation, and assist on several R&D projects as needed.

Frank deruyter, Ph.D. - Co-PI

Serves as Co-PI for the RERC. Frank is Professor (tenured) Department of Surgery/Chief, Division of Speech Pathology & Audiology at Duke University Medical Center. Prior to coming to Duke in 1995, he was at Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center for 15 years in various leadership capacities. As Co-PI, Frank will provide overall direction & administrative RERC oversight, direct Duke’s overall participation, and serve as co-investigator on several projects.

John morris, Ph.D. - Program Director & Project director

Is senior clinical research scientist at the Shepherd Center. John serves as operations manager for the mRehab RERC. Additionally, John is project director for Project R1-Assessment of User Needs in mRehab and Project T1-Outreach/Training for Individuals with Disabilities, Caregivers, and Clinicians. John’s research focuses on use and usability of interactive technology by target populations, which he currently conducts for the LiveWell RERC. He has previously served as operations manager and project director for consumer research for the Wireless RERC. Prior to joining Shepherd Center, John worked for Oracle Corporation as senior product development manager.

David Reinkensmeyer, Ph.D. - Project director

David Reinkensmeyer is Professor in the Departments of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Anatomy and Neurobiology, Biomedical Engineering, and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of California at Irvine. He is co-director of the NIDILRR COMET Robotic Rehabilitation Engineering Center, co-director of the NIH K12 Engineering Career Development Center in Movement and Rehabilitation Sciences, and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Neuroengineering and Rehabilitation. He recently received the Innovator of the Year Award from the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and the Distinguished Midcareer Faculty Research Award from UC Irvine. He is a fellow of the AIMBE.

Naveen Khan, PgDL - Project director

Ms. Khan is the Founder and CEO Health Tech Pal and inventor of Pt Pal, the first mobile patient-clinician rehabilitation communication technology in hospitals. Pt Pal is used in world-class hospitals to improve patient outcomes. Apple’s healthcare team with Pt Pal used Pt Pal to develop HealthKit, ResearchKit and Carekit (iOS) and Researchstack (Android). Prior to inventing Pt Pal, Naveen was a director at the Los Angeles Orthopedic Hospital, and earlier she was recruited to the position of Vice President at a technology company in Canada. Before moving back to the United States she worked as a global business analyst in London while completing a Graduate Diploma in Law. She received her B.A. (Hons) from the University of Sheffield, England.

Daniel Zondervan, pH.D. - Project director

Dan Zondervan is the Vice President and co-founder of Flint Rehab, a company that specializes in affordable technologies for at-home physical rehabilitation. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from UC Irvine, and has helped lead the commercialization for several successful rehab devices from the lab bench to the real world. He believes the unique physiological data provided by these tools will be a key factor in shaping rehabilitation in modern practice.

Ben Lippincott

Is a research project coordinator at Shepherd Center and will oversee training activities of the LiveWell-RERC. He is currently Project Director of the Wireless RERC’s project on Industry and Consumer Outreach, Education & Support. He has worked in assistive/accessible technology for over a decade. For the past several years he has been disability/accessibility advisor on AT&T’s Advisory Panel on Access and Aging. Prior to working at Shepherd Center, he was in sales/marketing for IBM.

Ian russel, ph.d.

Ian is a Research Engineer at Flint Rehabilitation Devices. He is a biomedical engineer with extensive experience in biomechanics research. He is skilled in experimental design, human subject testing, and human movement analysis in both the medical and athletic fields. 

Delaney Cowart

Delaney is a user experience researcher for the AURC at Shepherd Center. She recruits AURC members for studies, manages the database of members, and designs and implements data collection tools. Delaney graduated from the University of North Carolina with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering, so she loves finding and testing new technology that’s designed inclusively. In 2019, she co-founded Carolina Adapts Toys for Children (CATCH, Inc), a non-profit organization that makes toys more accessible for children with disabilities. In her free time, you can find her hiking in national and state parks, whipping up a cool new recipe, or schooling the boys on the soccer field.

Veronica Swanson - Graduate Student Researcher

Veronica Swanson is a Graduate Student Researcher in the Biorobotics Lab at the University of California at Irvine led by Professor David Reinkensmeyer. After earning her BS and MS degrees in Mechanical Engineering she worked as a research and development engineer focusing on 3D printing and mechanical design. Her current work focuses on aspects of uptake and usability for rehabilitation technologies.

Amanda Rabinowitz, ph.d. - Project director

Dr. Rabinowitiz is interested in chronic brain injury outcomes across the spectrum of TBI severity. In particular, her work focuses on the psychosocial factors that confer resilience after brain injury, with an interest in self-regulation as a key mechanism. A number of Dr. Rabinowitz’s projects leverage mobile technology to augment brain injury assessment and intervention. She works with local and national collaborators on studies of long term brain injury outcomes, including neuroimaging studies to elucidate neuropathological substrates of chronic and neurodegenetitive effects of brain injury, and large epidemiological studies of participation in contact sports as a risk factor for cognitive and emotional dysfunction later in life.

Kelsey koupal, MA, CCC-SLP - User Experience Researcher

Kelsey is a user experience researcher for the AURC at Shepherd Center. Her responsibilities include recruiting members for studies, tracking data, and designing and implementing various research projects with partners. Kelsey graduated with a M.A. in Speech Language Pathology at the University of South Dakota, and holds degrees in Communication Disorders, Interpersonal Disability Studies, and Spanish. Before coming to Shepherd, she was a practicing speech language pathologist and specialized in pediatric neurodevelopmental disabilities. She also was a program manager for Special Olympics International and ran multiple qualitative research projects over the years.  

George Collier – Project director

George Collier is a Senior Data Scientist at the Virginia C. Crawford Research Institute at Shepherd Center. During his career, he has been the technical lead of multiple commercial products. Recently, as a Principal Solution Architect, George led data science and analytics teams at a major Telecom company, creating innovative new data-intensive business applications. Additionally, he has had a long relationship with Moss Rehabilitation Research, co-developing cloud, and mobile-based rehabilitation applications.

John DZivak - Project Director

John Dzivak is the VP/CIO for Pt Pal. John develops partnerships and leverages his unique grasp of healthcare technology systems, processes and delivery models to help clinicians and healthcare leaders understand the new paradigm shift caused by actively engaging patients in the emerging field of digital therapeutics. John has over 20 years of enterprise and departmental clinical application system design and implementation experience, implementing EMR's across adult and pediatric critical and acute care units, ancillary departments, ambulatory clinics and home care. John is taking that inside healthcare knowledge and experience and leveraging it to expand hospital technology to include patients.

Raeda Anderson, Ph.D.

Raeda Anderson is a Research Scientist at Shepherd Center where she also serves as the AppFactory Project Manager. Raeda is an applied sociologist, demographer, and survey methodologist. She has published and presented research largely focusing on the relationship between disabilities, social interaction, and mental health. She earned her PhD in Sociology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Raeda also holds a MS and BA in Sociology from Valdosta State University. Prior to working at Shepherd Center, Raeda was an assistant professor and Quantitative Data Specialist at Georgia State University.

dalise robinson, MA, ccc/slp

Dalise is a Speech Language Pathologist and Outpatient Speech Pathology Therapy Manager at Shepherd Center with 25+ years of experience in clinical rehabilitation and program management. She earned her Master of Arts degree in Speech Language Pathology from the University of Tennessee. Dalise’s oversees clinical implementation of the R2 implementation trial of the SEAM platform (Flint FitMi devices integrated with the Pt Pal system)

Edgar Ramos Munoz, Ph.d.

Edgar is a recent mechanical and aerospace engineering PhD graduate with experience in Data Analysis. His goal is to continue honing his skills in optimization theory, numerical optimization, and data analytics. He enjoys using abstract theoretical concepts to find solutions to challenging, real-world problems.