Roy H. Hamilton, MD, MS, continues his collaboration with Penn PM&R since 2013, holding a secondary appointment as the Associate Professor of Neurology in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Dr. Hamilton is a nationally recognized behavioral neurologist and cognitive neuroscientist, based in Penn’s Department of Neurology where he directs the Laboratory for Cognition and Neural Stimulation, employing transcranial magnetic and direct current stimulation, to treat a range of impaired cognitive domains including visuospatial processing, language production and semantic memory associated with cerebrovascular and neurodegenerative diseases. One of his two laboratories is based at the Penn Medicine Rittenhouse campus. Dr. Hamilton also holds leadership positions within Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine where he serves as the Director of the Clinical Neurosciences Training Program, and Assistant Dean of Diversity and Inclusion. Currently funded projects include identifying biomarkers of neural plasticity in aphasic stroke patients, and applying transcranial magnetic stimulation as an augmentative treatment for traditional speech therapy in aphasic patients who have sustained stroke and diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia. Most recently, Dr. Hamilton and his colleagues have received funding from the National Institutes of Health to support a phase II clinical trial to investigate the use of transcranial magnetic stimulation to enhance language therapy to treat post-stroke aphasia. Dr. Hamilton has a baccalaureate degree (Psychology) from Harvard University in Cambridge/Boston, MA where he also trained medically. He received masters level training in Health Sciences and Technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA. He participated neurology residency training at Penn where he also received subspecialty training in Cognitive Neurology.
Liliana E. Pezzin, PhD, JD collaborated with our faculty and was successful in receiving NIA funding to study CMS bundling for persons with joint replacements and the effects of this program on care outcomes and delivery. Dr. Pezzin is an internationally recognized health services researcher whose recent collaborative investigation has been based at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, WI where she is a professor in the Department of Medicine. Her newly funded R01 grant awarded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Aging, in collaboration with Penn PM&R Chair, Dr. Tim Dillingham, and Dan Polsky, Ph.D., the former executive director of the Penn’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, will examine the implications for rehabilitation of the new care bundling initiatives mandated by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, focusing on patients who receive lower limb joint arthroplasties. Other currently funded projects by the National Institutes of Health are elucidating the mechanisms of socioeconomic disparities as determinants of adherence to oral breast cancer therapies, and reducing the use of ineffective and unproven treatments of breast cancer. Dr. Pezzin will also serve as a methodological expert for Penn PM&R faculty and resident physicians who are pursuing research investigation using large and established data bases.
Dr. Pezzin has baccalaureate and masters level training in economics from the University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil, as well as legal training from the University of Sao Paulo. She has doctoral level training in economics from the University of Washington in Seattle, WA.
Frances S. Shofer, PhD continues her methodological advisory role for Penn PM&R faculty and residents who are participating in research investigation. Dr. Shofer is well established at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine across several academic departments including Emergency Medicine where she holds an adjunct faculty position as Professor. She also is a faculty member in The Penn Center for Public Health Initiatives’ Master of Public Health Program. Importantly for Penn PM&R, she is involved in teaching resident physicians basic statistical and research methodological strategies within their research module as part of their didactic seminar series. This supports the residents’ pursuits and success for their research requirement essential for graduation from the residency training program.
Sarah (Sally) Evans, MD, has joined the Penn PM&R faculty, having been successfully recruited to serve as the Division Chief of Rehabilitation Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Most recently, Dr. Evans had served as the Division Chief of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Children’s National Health System in Washington, D.C. Dr. Evan’s undergraduate education occurred at the University of Michigan (Genetics) in Ann Arbor, MI, and she received her medical training at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD. She is dually trained and board certified in Pediatrics and in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, with her residency training occurring at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, and at the Children’s Hospital in Denver, CO, where she also participated in subspecialty training in Pediatric Rehabilitation.