Board of Directors

The Coalition for National Trauma Research seated its first Board of Directors in August 2020, following the restructuring of NTI as CNTR. The Board is comprised of members of Core organizations, along with one at-large member from among our Stakeholder organizations.

Board Officers

Eileen Bulger, MD

Chair

Ben Zarzaur, MD

Vice Chair

Rachael Callcut, MD

Secretary/Treasurer

The ATS is excited to be partnering with CNTR to ensure the inclusion of survivors in trauma research.

Anna Newcomb, PhD, LCSW

President, American Trauma Society

Directors

Eileen Bulger, MD, FACS

ACS-COT Representative

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Eileen Bulger, MD, is Chief of Trauma at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. She has previously served on the editorial boards of Surgical Research, Surgical Infections, Shock Journal, and Prehospital Emergency Care. Dr. Bulger has served as a Principal Investigator on five multi-site studies and as the Site PI on 11 multi-site studies. Her research focus involves advancements in pre-hospital care and the early resuscitation of injured patients. She was co-investigator of the Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium (ROC), and directed its Data Coordinating Center.

Rachael Callcut, MD, MSPH, FACS

AAST Representative

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Rachael A Callcut, MD, MSPH, FACS, a nationally recognized expert in trauma care and data science/health services research, is the current Vice Chair of Clinical Sciences in the Department of Surgery, the Director of Trauma Research, and holds a major institutional leadership role as the inaugural Chief Research Informatics Officer (CRIO) at the University of California- Davis Health. She is a practicing clinician double board certified in General Surgery and Surgical Critical Care. As the institutional CRIO, Dr. Callcut oversees the clinical research informatics strategy and enterprise research data governance for all UC Davis clinicians, researchers, faculty and staff.

Dr. Callcut has a long track record of extensive extramural research support including from the NIH, DoD, and industry sources. She is also the recipient of recent funding from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine and holds a NIH R01 focused on Artificial Intelligence in trauma care. Prior to joining UC Davis, she served as Director of Data Science for the Center for Digital Health Innovation at UC San Francisco, where she was recognized as a surgeon-scientist with significant extramural funding from federal and industry sources, and as an innovator (licensed technology/provisional patents) in research and teaching mentorship. Dr. Callcut has published more than 80 peer reviewed publications and her research featured in over 50 news media publications in the last few years.

Angela Gibson, MD, PhD, FACS

ABA Representative

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Angela Gibson, MD, PhD, FACS, is Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery, Division of Acute Care and Regional General Surgery at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Medical Director, UW Health Wound Healing Services.

Dr. Gibson graduated from the Medical Scientist Training Program in 2009 from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, where she also completed her surgical residency. Subsequently, she completed a visiting Burn Surgery fellowship at the University of California, Davis, and a fellowship in Surgical Critical Care at the University of Wisconsin.

Certified by the American Board of Surgery in General Surgery and Surgical Critical Care, Dr. Gibson specializes in burn, trauma, emergency surgery and surgical critical care and treats complex wounds. She is the Medical Director of Wound Healing Services at UW Health – a program that she developed. Her research interests focus on epithelial regeneration in burn injury, evaluation of advanced tissue products, human skin model development for wound healing, and understanding the burn wound microenvironment. Dr. Gibson leads a basic and translational science laboratory studying wound healing and clinical trials involving her burn patients.

Elliott Haut, MD, PhD, FACS

EAST Representative

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Elliott Richard Haut, MD, PhD, FACS is Vice Chair of Quality, Safety, & Service in the Department of Surgery at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. He also has a faculty appointment in the Department of Health Policy & Management at The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is certified in both General Surgery and Surgical Critical Care by the American Board of Surgery. Dr. Haut’s clinical practice at The Johns Hopkins Hospital covers all aspects of trauma and acute care surgery, as well as surgical critical care. Dr. Haut is a core faculty member in the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality at Johns Hopkins Medicine. He has authored more than 250 peer-reviewed articles, as well as dozens of invited editorials, books and chapters.

Dr. Haut is Past-President of the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma (EAST) and recently chaired the Guidelines Committee. He was lead author of a paper commissioned by the National Academies of Medicine titled “Military Trauma Care’s Learning Health System: The Importance of Data Driven Decision Making” which was used to support the report titled “A National Trauma Care System: Integrating Military and Civilian Trauma Systems to Achieve Zero Preventable Deaths After Injury.” Dr. Haut was a member of the National Quality Forum (NQF) Trauma Outcomes Committee.

James Holmes, MD, FACS

ABA Representative

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Dr. Holmes is a Professor of Surgery at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and the Director of the Burn Center at the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, NC, with appointments in the Department of General Surgery and the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. He received his medical degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, TX and trained in General Surgery at the Virginia Mason Medical Center, including an Immunology Research Fellowship at the Virginia Mason Research Center/Benaroya Research Institute in Seattle, WA. Subsequently, he completed fellowships in Burn Surgery at the University of Washington Harborview Medical Center and Trauma/Surgical Critical Care at theUniversity of Pennsylvania.

His clinical specialty is burn/acute care surgery, with research interests in the pathophysiology, treatment, & outcomes of burn injuries, as well as burn disaster/surge management. Dr. Holmes’ current research focus is the development of skin substitutes and other alternatives to standard autografting of burn wounds. Dr. Holmes is also the Director of the American Burn Association Burn Research Network (ABuRN) and chairs its Burn Science Advisory Panel (BSAP). His investigative work has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the US Department of Health & Human Services, and the Department of Defense.

Bellal Joseph, MD, FACS

WTA Representative

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Dr. Joseph is the Martin Gluck Endowed Professor of Surgery, Professor of Neurosurgery, Chief of the Division of Trauma, Critical Care, Burns & Emergency Surgery, at the University of Arizona. He is also the Vice Chair of Research for the Department of Surgery. Dr. Joseph has authored over 260 peer reviewed publications and 20+ books chapters. His research has been funded by the NIA, DOD and DARPA. His areas of expertise encompass traumatic brain injury, coagulopathy in trauma patients, frailty and geriatric trauma. Dr. Joseph is a member of numerous national associations, he is Executive Director of GeriTrac for the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma and vice chair of Committee on Trauma in the State of Arizona. Dr. Joseph, is also a member of the steering committee of the National Trauma Research Action Plan (NTRAP)..

Raminder Nirula, MD, MPH, FACS

AAST Representative

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Dr. Nirula was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He attended Queen’s University (BA, Life Sciences), University of Manitoba (MD), Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital (General Surgery Residency), and University of Washington/Harborview Medical Center (Surgical Critical Care Fellowship/MPH).

He currently serves as Chief, Division of General Surgery and Head of the Acute Care Surgery Section at the University of Utah. He has served on the Board of Managers of the AAST as well as a past Chair of the AAST MITC. Dr. Nirula’s clinical interests lie in general surgery with a specific interest in chronic pain from rib fractures, hernias, abdominal wall reconstruction, emergency and urgent surgical conditions..

Ronald M. Stewart, MD, FACS

ACS-COT Representative

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Ronald M. Stewart graduated from medical school and completed his surgical residency at UT Health San Antonio. He then completed a Trauma and Surgical Critical Care Fellowship at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis. He returned to San Antonio in 1993 as the Director of the Trauma Service. Dr. Stewart has served as the Board Chair of the Southwest Texas Regional Advisory Council for Trauma since 1996. In 1999 he was awarded the Faculty Member of the Year Award from The University Health System. That same year he and the Shattered Dreams development team were awarded the Bronze Quill for writings on the award winning injury prevention program Shattered Dreams/D.E.A.D. (Drinking and Driving End All Dreams).

In 2000, Governor George W. Bush appointed Dr. Stewart to the Governor’s Emergency Medical Services and Trauma Advisory Council where he served until 2014. He was the chair of the South Texas Chapter of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Committee on Trauma for six years, and followed for another six years as the ACS COT Region VI Chief (Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana and Arkansas). He currently serves as the Chair of the ACS Committee on Trauma. Dr. Stewart was a founding member and the first Chair of the National Trauma Institute.  At UT Health San Antonio he is a tenured Professor of Surgery and Anesthesia, and since 2008, he has served as the Chair of the Department of Surgery, holding the Dr. Witten B. Russ Chair in Surgery.

Dr. Stewart has received numerous awards for teaching and service. A partial listing of these includes the Presidential Award for Clinical Excellence (2004), the Distinguished Alumnus of the UT Health San Antonio School of Medicine (2005) and the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award (2007).   In 2013 he was the recipient of the National Safety Council Surgeons Award for Service to Safety and the American College of Surgeon’s Arthur Ellenberger Award for Excellence in State Advocacy.   He is a member of the American Surgical Association, the Southern Surgical Association, the Western Surgical Association, Immediate Past President of the Southwestern Surgical Congress and the Secretary of the Texas Surgical Society.

Ben Zarzaur, MD, MPH, FACS

EAST Representative

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Dr. Zarzaur attended college at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama where he graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology. He went on to medical school at The University of Alabama School of Medicine in Birmingham, Alabama. Dr. Zarzaur completed residency training in General Surgery at The University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis.

After residency, Dr. Zarzaur completed a Surgical Critical Care fellowship at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and accepted a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. While there, Dr. Zarzaur earned a Masters of Public Health in Epidemiology from the School of Public Health at UNC-Chapel Hill. In 2006 he moved back to Memphis and became an Associate Professor of Surgery at The University of Tennessee Health Science Center.

Dr. Zarzaur received a K23 Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health to study the role of socio-economic disparities in quality of life and functional ability after injury. He has also been the Principal Investigator of an 11-site multi-institutional study funded by the National Trauma Institute to determine long-term outcomes after blunt spleen injury in adults. In 2014, he was recruited to Indiana University School of Medicine as the Founder and Director of the Center for Outcomes Research in the Department of Surgery. While at Indiana University School of Medicine, he served as the Vice-Chair of Clinical Research as well as the Chief of Surgery and Trauma Medical Director at Eskenazi Health. Dr. Zarzaur joined the faculty in the Department of Surgery at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in 2019.

Currently, Dr. Zarzaur is funded by the National Institutes of Health to study the effectiveness of collaborative care interventions at improving long-term outcomes in older injured patients. In addition to his research interests, he has also served as a member and leader in many local, regional and national trauma organizations. He has served as the Chair of the Tennessee Committee on Trauma as well as the Chair of the Trauma Care Advisory Council. He was a member of the Indiana Department of Health Trauma Advisory Council. Currently, he is a member of the National Committee on Trauma. While in Memphis, Dr. Zarzaur was a medical team manager for an Urban Search and Rescue Team and has been deployed as part of disaster response.

Stakeholder Member At-Large Representative

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TBD