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Board of Directors

The National Trauma Institute is governed by a Board of Directors comprising leaders in the trauma field and representatives of the major national trauma organizations. The Board convenes regularly via conference call and holds a face-to-face meeting twice a year, in the fall and spring.

NTI Board Meeting Schedule

Winter 2019January 29, 2019
Spring 2019 (Dallas)April 28-29, 2019

The Board’s Science Committee is responsible for the development of the national research agenda, issuance and communication of Requests for Proposals to a national audience, consideration of proposals, and recommendation of contracts and funds to be awarded. This committee will create Study Sections to provide expertise in the appropriate clinical research areas consistent with the national research agenda.

Board Officers

Gregory (Jerry) J. Jurkovich, MD, FACS

Chair

UC Davis Health System

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Gregory “Jerry” Jurkovich, MD, FACS, is Professor and Vice-Chairman of the Department of Surgery at the UC Davis Health System in Sacramento, California. In this role, he is responsible for the clinical affairs and quality of the department, as well as being an acute care surgeon.

Dr. Jurkovich has held numerous leadership positions in addition to serving as Chair of the National Trauma Institute for the past three years. He has been the President of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST), the Western Trauma Association (WTA), and the Western Surgical Association (WSA). He also has served as Vice Chairman and Chief of Regions of the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma (ACS/COT), and is currently a Director of the American Board of Surgery. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, Annals of Surgery, and the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. He is also the editor of the textbook “ACS Surgery: Principles and Practices.”

Dr. Jurkovich has held numerous leadership positions in addition to serving as Chair of the National Trauma Institute for the past three years. He has been the President of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST), the Western Trauma Association (WTA), and the Western Surgical Association (WSA). He also has served as Vice Chairman and Chief of Regions of the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma (ACS/COT), and is currently a Director of the American Board of Surgery. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, Annals of Surgery, and the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. He is also the editor of the textbook “ACS Surgery: Principles and Practices.”

Dr. Jurkovich is well known for his leadership of the AAST Committee on the Acute Care Surgeon, working to define the future training and practice paradigm for trauma surgery that combines surgical critical care, emergency general surgery, and trauma surgery. Throughout the course of his career, Dr. Jurkovich has explored some of the most critical problems in trauma, including methods of measuring outcome in trauma patients, the role of hypothermia in trauma, alcohol and injury, the immune-inflammatory response to injury, and nutritional support in the critically injured.

He received an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering (cum laude) from Northwestern University and his MD degree from the University of Minnesota. His surgery residency was at the University of Colorado, with a trauma research fellowship at Duke University.

Timothy C. Fabian, MD, FACS

Immediate Past Chair

University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis

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Dr. Fabian is a Professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, Tennessee. He earned his undergraduate degree from Loyola University of Chicago and his doctorate from Loyola University’s Stritch School of Medicine. He completed surgical residency training at Ohio State University, then attended Emory University School of Medicine and completed a fellowship in trauma/critical care at Grady Memorial Hospital. After serving on the faculty at Emory, he moved to the University of Tennessee in Memphis, where he began an academic career in trauma.

Dr. Fabian helped organize and develop one of the largest volume trauma centers in the United States — The Presley Memorial Trauma Center at Memphis. His academic interests have been in both clinical and laboratory research dealing with shock and organ injury management. He was a member of the Committee on Trauma of the American College of Surgeons for 18 years. He has served as Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the American College of Surgeons. He is Past President of both the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma (EAST) and the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST). He is a member of the executive committee of the Coalition for National Trauma Research (CNTR). He is Editor-in-Chief for Trauma Surgery and Acute Care Open (TSACO).

Donald H. Jenkins, MD, FACS

Vice Chair

UT Health San Antonio

 

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Donald H. Jenkins, MD, FACS, is Vice Chair for Quality, Department of Surgery, at UT Health San Antonio. He is also a professor in the Division of Trauma and Emergency Surgery, the Betty and Bob Kelso Distinguished Chair in Burn and Trauma Surgery and Associate Deputy Director of the university’s Military Health Institute. 

 

Dr. Jenkins has decades of experience in care of the injured patient, trauma system development, and advanced resuscitation of patients with hemorrhage, and collaborates locally, regionally, nationally and internationally to further the science of health care delivery as it relates to these fields of expertise. He also has a wealth of experience related to surgical quality measures, performance improvement and patient safety.

 

Dr. Jenkins is also an Adjunct Professor of Surgery at America’s Medical School at the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, MD. He retired in 2008 from the U.S. Air Force, having served as the Trauma Medical Director at Lackland AFB, TX. He was responsible for all trauma medical care and administration of the USAF’s only American College of Surgeons Verified Level 1 Trauma Center at Wilford Hall USAF Medical Center in San Antonio in the decade prior to his retirement. He was also the Flight Commander and Chairman of General Surgery for 59MDW.

 

Dr. Jenkins was formerly Professor of Surgery and Director of Trauma in the Division of Trauma, Critical Care and General Surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where he worked from 2008 (upon his retirement from the USAF) until 2016. In this role, he helped establish the first regional trauma organization in the State of Minnesota, oversaw a nearly 50 percent decline in trauma mortality at Saint Mary’s Hospital in Rochester and led a team in the use of plasma in the pre-hospital setting as well as initiated the use of cold stored platelets and whole blood.

 

Dr. Jenkins received his BS in biochemistry from the University of Scranton, Pennsylvania; earned his MD from the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Maryland; and performed residencies at Wilford Hall and Lackland AFB. He was a trauma/critical care fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and received the Diploma Medical Care of Catastrophes from the Society of Apothecaries of London.

 

Dr. Jenkins is Past President of the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma (EAST) and a founding board member and Past Chair of the National Trauma Institute.

 

Greg J. Beilman, MD, FACS

Science Committee Chair

University of Minnesota

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Dr. Beilman is Deputy Chair of Surgery and Owen H Wangensteen Chair of Experimental Surgery at the University of Minnesota. He completed medical school at the University of Kansas and surgery training at the University of Kansas in Wichita prior to moving to Minnesota for a fellowship in Surgical Critical Care and Trauma. He manages an active translational research program, with over 220 peer-reviewed publications.

As a retired Colonel in the Army Reserves, Dr. Beilman has deployed five times; serving during his penultimate deployment as the CENTCOM Joint Theater Trauma Director in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dr. Beilman’s research interests include understanding of metabolic pathophysiologic processes during injury, and improving process and outcomes in critically-ill patients. He leads the University of Minnesota Health System Critical Care Program, which involves all of the hospitals in the Fairview system in Minnesota. This includes critical care services delivered at the appropriate level throughout the Fairview system, including direct bedside service and tele-ICU services.

Ronald M. Stewart, MD, FACS

Secretary

UT Health San Antonio

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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.

Get Involved

“It has been proven in many other major disease categories that research works— it establishes the evidence that improves outcomes and saves lives. Accelerated progress in trauma care requires significant and sustained funding of trauma research.”

Ronald M. Stewart

Founding Chairman National Trauma Institute

Directors at Large

Col. Jeffrey A. Bailey, FACS

Joint Theater Trauma System

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Colonel Jeffrey Bailey serves as Professor and Director for Surgery at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. He is a past Director of the Joint Trauma System Defense Center of Excellence at Joint Base San Antonio, Texas and the USAF Center for Sustainment of Trauma and Readiness Skills in Saint Louis, Missouri. Colonel Bailey deployed during Operation Iraqi Freedom to serve as Chief of Trauma at the Air Force Theater Hospital, Balad Air Base Iraq. He has also deployed to serve as the US Central Command Joint Theater Trauma System Director. He is the Chief of the Military Region of the American College of Surgeons Regional Committees on Trauma and on the National Committee on Trauma. He is a Director at Large for the National Trauma Institute He is a past-Specialty Governor of the American College of Surgeons and a past-President of the St. Louis Surgical Society.

Eileen Bulger, MD, FACS

Harborview Medical Center, Seattle

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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. Dr. Bulger serves as an at-large member of the NTI Board.

William C. Chiu, MD, FACS

University of Maryland School of Medicine

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William Chiu, MD, is Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and an Attending Surgeon at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center/University of Maryland Medical Center. He is Chair of the Shock Trauma Center Research Committee and Director of the Surgical Critical Care Fellowship Program. Dr. Chiu received a Bachelor of Science degree with Special Honors from the George Washington University and a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He completed his surgery residency at UMDNJ – Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey and a Trauma/Surgical Critical Care Fellowship at the University of Maryland Medical Center/R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center.

Dr. Chiu’s literary contributions include more than fifty articles and twenty book chapters, and he is co-editor of the textbook “Critical Care Emergency Medicine, Second Edition.” His research interests include neuroendocrine function in sepsis and circulatory shock, resuscitation, abdominal ultrasonography for trauma, and field triage. Dr. Chiu is a Fellow of the American College of Critical Care Medicine (FCCM) and has most recently been busy developing SAFAS, the Surgical critical care and Acute care surgery Fellowship Application Service, sponsored by the Surgical Critical Care Program Directors Society.

Martin Croce, MD, FACS

University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis

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Martin A. Croce, MD, FACS, obtained a Bachelor of Science from the University of Notre Dame in 1979, and his medical degree from the University of Tennessee in 1983. He completed his residency at the University of Tennessee in 1988 and then completed a Fellowship in Surgical Critical Care at the University of Miami, Jackson Memorial Hospital in 1989. He returned to the Department of Surgery at the University of Tennessee in 1989. He currently is Professor of Surgery and Chief of Trauma and Surgical Critical Care at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis. Dr. Croce presently serves as the President-Elect for the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, First Vice President of the Southern Surgical Association, and also is a Director for the American Board of Surgery. His research interests include all aspects of the care of the trauma patient, with a particular interest in blunt cerebrovascular injuries, solid organ injuries, and ventilator-associated pneumonia.

James Michael Ecklund, MD, FACS

Inova Fairfax Hospital

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Dr. Ecklund represents the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) on the NTI Board. He retired as a Colonel in the U.S. Army. He is Chair of the Department of Neurosciences at Inova Fairfax Hospital and Medical Director of the Neurosciences Service Line for the Inova Health System. He holds faculty appointments at George Washington University, Virginia Commonwealth University-Inova Campus, and Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences. While serving in the military, Dr. Ecklund held surgical positions at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center, Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Capital Consortium. He is on the International Spirit of Healing Advisory Board, the AANS Joint Emergency Neurosurgical Care Regionalization Task Force, the NREF Neurosurgery Education Committee, among many national appointments. He serves as an ad hoc reviewer for Neurosurgery, Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, The Lancet Neurologyand World Neurosurgery.

Brian J. Eastridge, MD, FACS

UT Health San Antonio

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Dr. Eastridge is Clinical Professor in the Department of Surgery at UT Health San Antonio and the Trauma Medical Director at University Hospital in San Antonio Texas. Dr. Eastridge also currently serves as a Colonel in the Medical Corps of the U.S. Army Reserves. He has spent more than 28 years both in active and reserve service with six operational deployments to support Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. COL Eastridge was one of the principal architects in the development of the military trauma system and served as the Chief of Trauma at the Brooke Army Medical Center, Director of the Joint Trauma System and Trauma Consultant to the Army Surgeon General during his tenure on active duty.

Dr. Eastridge received his BS in biochemistry in 1985 from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Virginia; earned his MD in 1989 from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore Maryland; and completed his residency in general surgery at the University of Maryland Hospital. He completed his fellowship training in surgical critical care at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, TX in 1997.

Dr. Eastridge’s research interests and grant support are focused upon trauma system development, including development of the regional trauma system performance improvement initiatives, predictive modelling of injury outcomes, improved pre-hospital resuscitation strategies for casualties and pre-hospital mortality surveillance and mitigation.

CAPT Eric A. Elster, MD, FACS, MC, USN

Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

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Dr. Eric A. Elster, MC, USN, is Professor and Chairman, Department of Surgery, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences/Walter Reed National Medical Center

Dr. Elster received his undergraduate and medical school degrees from the University of South Florida in Tampa as a recipient of the U.S. Navy’s Health Professionals Scholarship Program. Upon graduation, Dr. Elster completed a general surgery residency at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, Dr. Elster served as ship’s surgeon aboard the USS Kitty Hawk while stationed in the Persian Gulf. Upon returning, Dr. Elster completed a solid organ transplantation fellowship at the National Institutes of Health and then was stationed at the Naval Medical Research Center in Silver Spring, MD, where he directed a translational research program focused on the development of improved diagnostics and therapies for serious traumatic injuries, transplantation and advanced operative imaging.

CAPT Elster now serves as the 3rd Chairman and Professor of the Department of Surgery at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences & the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, a department which includes 89 staff surgeons across all surgical specialties, 135 surgical residents and fellows, and supports 170 medical students per year (of which a quarter matriculate in surgical residency programs). This robust academic department has a research portfolio across the spectrum of surgery with peer review funding from DoD and the NIH and publishes more than 250 papers per year in high-impact journals.   Dr. Elster is also the Director of the Surgical Critical Care Initiative, a joint military and civilian program developing clinical decision support tools for critically ill patients. Dr. Elster was last deployed as a surgeon and Director of Surgical Services at the NATO Role 3 Military Medical Unit in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Dr. Elster is a member of several key organizations including a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, Society of University Surgeons, American Society of Transplant Surgeons, the Southern Surgical Association, the Halsted Society and the American Surgical Association. Dr. Elster is the co-chair of the strategic partnership between the Military and the ACS, the Military Health System Strategic Partnership American College of Surgeons, focused on advancing a shared ethos, as well as the Inaugural President of the Excelsior Society. Dr. Elster and has published over 150 scientific manuscripts in leading journals such as JAMA, Annals of Surgery, American Journal of Transplantation, and Science Translational Medicine, and has received numerous research grants across all aspects of surgery.

His decorations include the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal (One Gold Star), Navy Commendation Medal (Two Gold Stars), Navy Achievement Medal, Navy Unit Commendation (One Bronze star), Meritorious Unit Commendation, Navy Fleet Marine Force Ribbon, National Defense Service Medal (One Bronze Star),  Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Sea Service Deployment Ribbon (One Bronze Star), Navy/Marine Corps Overseas Service Ribbon (One Bronze Star), NATO Medal, and Pistol Marksmanship Medal (Silver E).

James Ficke, MD

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

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James Ficke, MD, is Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Director of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. Prior to his current position, Dr. Ficke was Chairman of the Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation at the San Antonio Military Medical Center. He also served the U.S. Army Surgeon General as the senior advisor on policy and personnel for orthopaedics and extremity injuries for seven years. During active service, he deployed as Deputy Commander of Clinical Services in Mosul, Iraq. He has served as the co-chair of the Extremity War Injury Symposium sponsored by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons since 2005. Dr. Ficke serves as the liaison member from the Orthopaedic Trauma Association (OTA).

Alice Angela Gervasini

Massachusetts General Hospital

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Dr. Gervasini represents the Society of Trauma Nurses (STN) on the NTI Board. She is Nurse Director in the Division of Trauma, Emergency Surgery and Surgical Critical Care at Massachusetts General Hospital. She serves on the ACS Committee on Trauma (COT) Verification Review Committee. She is a past president of the Society of Trauma Nurses and an active member of the American Association of Critical Care Nurses, the Society of Critical Care Medicine, and the Massachusetts ACS-COT. Dr. Gervasini has received multiple awards recognizing her contributions to improving quality of care from Partners Healthcare, the Massachusetts General Hospital Board of Trustees, and the White House Medical Unit, where she served as a physician to the President and Vice President between 2000 and 2016.

Nicole Gibran, MD, FACS

University of Washington

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Dr. Gibran is Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education, Harborview Medical Center, following service as a Professor of Surgery at the University of Washington and Medical Director of the UW Medicine Regional Burn Center. After completing her medical degree and residency in surgery at Boston University, she completed a one-year fellowship at the Burn Center at Harborview, followed by a two-year National Institutes of Health Trauma Fellowship in the UW Department of Surgery. Her research includes the role of neuroinflammation in wound repair, genetic influences on scarring, and long-term functional outcomes following burn injuries. She is committed to improving quality of burn care nationally and internationally.

David B. Hoyt, MD, FACS

American College of Surgeons

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Dr. Hoyt is executive director of the American College of Surgeons. Prior to this appointment, he served as executive vice-dean of the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine; chairman of the Department of Surgery; and the John E. Connolly Professor of Surgery at the University of California, Irvine. He now holds the title of professor emeritus at that University. He received a BA degree with honors from Amherst College, followed by an MD degree from Case Western Reserve University in 1976. From 1976-1984 Dr. Hoyt was a surgical resident and research fellow at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and Scripps Immunology Institute. He joined the faculty at UCSD and immediately became involved in their trauma service, where his role as director lasted from 1989 – 2006. In 1995 he was appointed professor of surgery and was awarded The Monroe E. Trout Professorship in Surgery at UCSD (1996). He is a member of the American Surgical Association, Surgical Biology Club, Western Surgical Association, and Society of University Surgeons and holds membership in other prestigious surgical organizations. He is a past president of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, past president of the Society of General Surgeons of San Diego, past president of the Shock Society, past chairman of the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma, and past medical director of trauma at the American College of Surgeons.

Christopher Kang, MD, FACS

Madigan Army Medical Center

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Dr. Kang represents the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) on the NTI Board. He is an emergency physician, serving at Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, WA since 2001. He also holds assistant professorships at Baylor University, the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences and the University of Washington. In the Army, he served in many roles including Battalion Surgeon, Staff Flight Surgeon, and Field Surgeon for the 52nd Medical Battalion, the 121st General Hospital, Joint Task Force-Bravo, the 296th Brigade Support Battalion, 1-14 Cavalry Squadron, and 5-20 Battalion. Dr. Kang is on the Board of Directors of the American College of Emergency Physicians and is a past president of the Washington Chapter of ACEP. He is a peer reviewer for the Journal of Wilderness and Environmental Medicine. He is a decorated officer, serving as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Army.

M. Margaret Knudson, MD, FACS

University of California

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M. Margaret (Peggy) Knudson MD, FACS attended medical school at the U. of Michigan. After completing her surgical residency at U. of M., she joined the surgical faculty at Stanford University, where she served as the Assistant Trauma Director. In 1989, Dr. Knudson was recruited to the University of California at San Francisco and has attained the rank of Professor in the ladder series. Her practice is based primarily at the San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, where she is an attending surgeon on the trauma/critical care/emergency surgery service.

For 20 years, Dr. Knudson has served as the Director of the San Francisco Injury Center for Research and Prevention, one of the first CDC-funded Centers nationally. Her research focuses on resuscitation, venous thromboembolic disease, and pediatric injury prevention. Dr. Knudson served on the Committee on Trauma for 17 years, including four years as the Vice-Chair for the central COT. She was awarded the National Safety Council Award from the COT/AAST for her work in trauma and injury prevention. She has also been on the Board of Managers of both the Western Trauma Association and the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma. She is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, the Journal of the American College of Surgeons and Shock.

She served as the Science Chair for the National Trauma Institute for four years and continues on its Board of Directors. Dr. Knudson has recently been appointed as the Medical Director for the Military Health System Strategic Partnership with the American College of Surgeons.

Rosemary A. Kozar, MD, PhD, FACS

University of Maryland School of Medicine

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Rosemary Kozar is Professor of Surgery, Director of Translational Research at Shock Trauma and Associate Director of Shock Trauma Anesthesia Research (STAR) at the University of Maryland. She received her medical degree from Temple University, Philadelphia, PA and a PhD in Molecular Physiology and Biophysics at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX. She began her residency at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston and completed her training at Temple University School of Medicine. She also completed a fellowship in Surgical Critical Care at the University of Texas.

Dr. Kozar remains active in trauma surgery and critical care. Her research interests are the impact of enteral nutrients on the post-ischemic gut and hemorrhagic shock and resuscitation, for which she has been NIH-funded for more than 15 years.

Dr. Kozar is a former Chair of the Education Committee of the AAS and SUS. She has served on the Board of Managers for the AAST, as Chair of the Women in Surgery Committee for the ACS and Chair of the Verification Committee for the ACS Committee on Trauma. Dr. Kozar has also been President of the Association of Women Surgeons and of the Shock Society. She is currently Secretary of the Western Trauma Association.

COL Matthew Martin, MD, FACS

Joint Theater Trauma System

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Colonel Matthew J. Martin is currently the Trauma Medical Director and Chief of Surgical Critical Care at Madigan Army Medical Center (MAMC), Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington. He is also the Director of Surgical Research and the former Associate Program Director for the MAMC General Surgery residency program. He is a Clinical Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and Associate Professor of Surgery at the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, MD. COL Martin also serves as a staff trauma surgeon and the Director of Trauma Informatics at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Portland, Oregon. He is the current Chair of the Army State, Region 13, for the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma. He has deployed twice in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and twice in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Dr. Martin received his BA in psychology in 1990 from Boston University, an MA in Medical Science from Boston University School of Graduate Education in 1995, and his MD from the Boston University School of Medicine in 1998. He completed residency training in General Surgery at Madigan Army Medical Center, and a fellowship in Trauma and Surgical Critical Care at Los Angeles County Hospital + USC Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA.

Dr. Martin maintains an active surgical practice in general surgery, bariatric surgery, and trauma/critical care. He established an active basic science and animal trauma research laboratory at Madigan Army Medical Center in 2005, and his research interests are currently focused on combat injuries and resuscitation, traumatic acidosis and coagulopathy, and ischemia-reperfusion injury.

COL Shawn Nessen, MD, FACS

U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research

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COL Shawn Nessen is Director of the US Army Institute of Surgical Research in San Antonio. COL Nessen’s Military education includes graduation from the AMEDD Officer Basic and Advanced Courses, the US Army Flight Surgeons and Airborne Courses, and Command and General Staff College where he received a Masters of Military Arts and Sciences in the field of Strategy. He deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan. He is the lead editor and author of the award winning textbook War Surgery in Afghanistan and Iraq: A Series of Cases 2003-2007. His research focuses on combat casualty care and blood transfusion of trauma patients.

Anna Newcomb, PhD, MSW, LCSW

Inova Fairfax Hospital

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Anna Newcomb, PhD, is the Research Manager for Trauma and the Surgical Simulation Center at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Virginia, where she coordinates research and evaluation, providing guidance on study and curriculum development as well as research methodology, implementation, analysis and dissemination. Dr. Newcomb obtained her PhD in Health Services Research from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, studying under Ellen MacKenzie and the Center for Injury Research and Policy; her dissertation work focused on the family’s experience of trauma at the hospital and home.

Dr. Newcomb had served as the trauma and emergency department clinical social worker at Inova Fairfax Hospital from 1994 – 2011 during which time she started a trauma support group, “Rebuild.” The group expanded into a program to include support for orthopedic survivors, TBI, SCI, family members, parents of TBI, and provided education to trauma providers about the experience of injury and recovery. Based on the Rebuild model, Dr. Newcomb partnered with the American Trauma Society to develop the Trauma Survivors Network (TSN).

Dr. Newcomb’s continuing research focuses on the development and evaluation of interventions addressing patient and family stress following trauma, such as the surgical residency communication curriculum she initiated and is disseminating nationally. The curriculum integrates patient volunteers as simulated patients and provides ongoing practice and evaluation of surgical residents’ patient and family centered communication skills. She is the liaison member of the American Trauma Society.

Raminder Nirula, MD, FACS

University of Utah

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Dr. Nirula is a Professor of Surgery at the University of Utah, where he is the Chief of the Division of General Surgery, Trauma Medical Director, SICU Fellowship Director and co-director of the SICU. He is currently a member of the Board of Managers of the AAST and is a past Chair of its Multi-Institutional Trials Committee. His research interests include comparative-effectiveness research in trauma and emergency surgery with specific emphasis on thoracic trauma and TBI.

Dennis Rowe, Paramedic

National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians

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Dennis Rowe is the President of the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians NAEMT) and lives in Tennessee. NAEMT is the recognized leader in advancing the profession of emergency and mobile health care. Mr. Rowe began involvement with NAEMT in 1976, rising soon to board and leadership positions. He was the trauma coordinator for the Level One Trauma Center at the University of Tennessee Medical Center—Knoxville, where he was actively involved in research publications, Trauma Center financial analysis, and day-to-day operations. Currently, Mr. Rowe is the Director of Government and Industry Relations for Priority Ambulance Corporation. Also, he is a member of the Tennessee Emergency Medical Services Board. He represents NAEMT on the ACS-COT EMS Committee and is a liaison to the STB Steering Committee. He has given more than 1,150 national and international presentations and has participated in multiple clinical trials. Mr. Rowe is the liaison member from NAEMT.

Steven Venticinque, MD

Audie L. Murphy Veterans Hospital

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Dr. Steven Venticinque, a critical care anesthesiologist, is Professor of Clinical Anesthesiology and Surgery, the Director of the TRISAT Critical Care Consortium for the joint Surgical and Anesthesia Critical Care Fellowship training program at the University of Texas Health Science Center—San Antonio, and the Medical Co-Director of the SICU at Audie L. Murphy VA Hospital in San Antonio. He is also Vice Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology.

Before his career in medicine, Dr. Venticinque entered military service in the United States Navy where he served as an Aircrewman on the EP-3 Orion electronic reconnaissance aircraft. He later obtained his undergraduate degree in biology from the University of West Florida, and then attended medical school at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Following medical school graduation in 1994 he completed his surgical internship, anesthesiology residency, and anesthesiology critical care fellowship at Wilford Hall Air Force Medical Center in San Antonio.

While later serving as faculty at Wilford Hall, Dr. Venticinque helped to organize and develop the TRISAT Critical Care Fellowship Consortium, which now trains critical care fellows from four anesthesia and surgery critical programs in San Antonio. Dr. Venticinque also served as a Critical Care Air Transport Physician, moving critically ill patients by air to higher echelons of care in peacetime and in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.

Dr. Venticinque received the Air Force Association’s annual Paul W. Myers award for his significant contributions to Air Force Medicine. After retirement from the Air Force, Dr. Venticinque accepted a position at UTHSCSA, where he practices cardiac anesthesiology and critical care medicine. He currently serves as Program Director of the Anesthesiology Critical Care Fellowship, and he was recently awarded with the UTHSCSA President’s Clinical Excellence Award. His academic interests include point-of-care ultrasonography cardiovascular monitoring, the anesthesia workstation, airway management, and medical device design. He has served as the anesthesiology section coordinator at the National Trauma Institute Annual Symposium, and he is the Director of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit at the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans’ Hospital.