2018 Scientific Summit
Plenary Speakers
Maria Fitzgerald, PhD
University College of London
The Fitzgerald lab at University College of London (UCL) is internationally recognized for pioneering work in the basic developmental neurobiology of pain and is a world leader in science of pain in infants and children.
Maria Fitzgerald graduated in Physiological Sciences at Oxford University and studied for a PhD in Physiology at UCL. She was awarded a postdoctoral MRC training fellowship to work with Professor Patrick Wall in the Cerebral Functions Group at UCL and remained in that group as a postdoctoral fellow until starting her own research group. She became a Professor of Developmental Neurobiology at UCL in 1995.
Maria was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2000 and was awarded the Jeffrey Lawson Award for Advocacy in Children’s Pain Relief by the American Pain Society, in 2010. She was elected to the Royal Society of Anaesthetists Faculty of Pain Medicine in 2013 and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2016.
She is currently and has been a member of numerous strategic and research panels including the Medical Research Council Neurosciences and Mental Health Board, the UK Research Assessment Exercise (REF) and the Council of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
James Eisenach, MD
Wake Forest School of Medicine
Dr. Eisenach, the overall director of the laboratory, has a long history of scientific review and administration and of NIH funded research. He is the recipient of over $16 million in NIH support and $2 million in industry support since coming to Wake Forest School of Medicine in 1985, and is currently PI on two RO1 grants, one of which received MERIT status in 2011. He was the PI for the pivotal multi-center trial leading to FDA approval of epidural clonidine for intractable neuropathic pain associated with cancer. Dr. Eisenach holds 5 INDs from the FDA for novel analgesic drugs and one patent for a novel treatment for pain in women. He is a past member and chairman of the Anesthetic and Life Support Drugs Advisory Committee at the FDA. In addition to serving on several review committees for the NIH, VA, and national anesthesiology societies, he has been the Vice-Chairman for Research in the Department of Anesthesiology since 1998. Dr. Eisenach has trained 52 post-doctoral and undergraduate fellows and students since 1985. He has organized two major pain symposia at IASP international meetings. He is the current Editor-in-Chief of Anesthesiology.
Susan Dorsey, PhD RN FAAN
University of Maryland School of Nursing
Susan G. Dorsey PhD RN FAAN is a professor of nursing and chair, Department of Pain and Translational Symptom Science, at the University of Maryland School of Nursing. She received her PhD from the University of Maryland, Baltimore and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute. She holds secondary faculty appointments in the School Of Medicine Department of Anesthesiology and the School Of Dentistry’s Neural & Pain Sciences Department. She co-directs the campus-wide Center to Advance Chronic Pain Research and serves as an MPI for the NINR-funded P30 Center for the Genomics of Pain as well as an MPI for a newly awarded NINR-funded P30 Center, Omics Associated with Self-management Interventions for Symptoms (OASIS). In 2015, Dr. Dorsey was appointed as a translational research expert on the NCI Symptoms and Quality of Life Steering Committee and served as co-chair for the 2017 NCI Clinical Trials Planning Meeting for chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy. Dr. Dorsey’s translational program of research incorporates molecular, cellular and genetic/genomic methods to study chronic pain and cancer treatment-related neuropathic pain and related symptoms.
Srinivasa Raja, MD
Johns Hopkins Medicine
Dr. Srinivasa N. Raja is a professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine and neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Raja serves as director of pain research and director of the Division of Pain Medicine in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine.
Dr. Raja’s clinical interests include management of chronic pain states, such as complex regional pain syndromes, sympathetically maintained pain, post-therapeutic neuralgia and post-amputation pain.
He received his early medical training in India, his residency training in anesthesiology at the University of Washington and post-doctoral training at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He received diplomate certification from the American Board of Anesthesiology in 1982. He added qualifications in pain management in 1993 and was recertified in 2002.
Dr. Raja served as editor of Anesthesiology from 1998 to 2006. He established the “Classic Papers Revisited” section in 2000 and served as its section editor. He is presently a section editor (Clinical:Science, Epidemiology and Clinical Notes) for the journal Pain. He is vice chair of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), a neuropathic pain special interest group.
Dr. Raja and his collaborators have published more than 170 articles in peer-reviewed journals such as Anesthesia and Analgesia, Anesthesiology, Brain, Journal of Neurophysiology, The Journal of Neuroscience, Nature, Neurology, Pain and Science. He is an editor of four books and has written numerous book chapters. He has been invited to lecture both nationally and internationally and has been invited to several universities as a visiting professor.
Dr. Raja’s awards include the 14th annual Benjamin G. Covino lecture at Harvard University in 2008, the Wilbert E. Fordyce Clinical Investigator Award from the American Pain Society in 2008 and the John J. Bonic Award from the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine in 2010.
Roger Fillingim, PhD
University of Florida
Roger B. Fillingim, Ph.D., earned his doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, followed by a post-doctoral fellowship in pain research at the University of North Carolina. From 1996-2000 he was an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and in 2000 he moved to the University of Florida as an Associate Professor in the College of Dentistry. Currently, Dr. Fillingim is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Florida, College of Dentistry and the Director of the University of Florida Pain Research and Intervention Center of Excellence (PRICE). Dr. Fillingim is also the Past President of the American Pain Society.
Susmita Kashikar-Zuck, PhD
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital
Susmita Kashikar-Zuck, PhD, specializes in behavioral pain management with children. She leads the pediatric chronic pain research program at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Her research interests are in the psychological aspects of pediatric chronic pain including adjustment and coping of children and their families. She is specifically interested in evaluating the efficacy of cognitive behavior therapy and combined behavioral and exercise-based treatments for pain conditions such as juvenile fibromyalgia.
