Leadership
Senior Leadership Council
The APT Senior Leadership Council serves as the primary decision-making body for the Center. Its members consist of the Executive and Co-Director, Deputy Director, Associate Directors for Medical Affairs, Translation & Corporate Relations, Capacity Building & Career Development and Engineering and Quality. The group convenes monthly to set strategic goals, evaluate Center effectiveness, define new or redefine existing Center programs, and allocate Center resources to advance our mission to discover, develop, deploy and disseminate new interventions to improve the health, wellbeing and daily function of disabled Veterans
Ronald Triolo, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Ronald J. Triolo, Ph.D. serves as the Executive Director of the APT Center, a research center in the VA Rehabilitation R&D Service. He is a Tenured Full Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and serves as the Director of the Motion Study Laboratory (MSL) at the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center, which is a state-of-the-art facility for the biomechanical and physiological analysis of human motion and rehabilitation outcomes and assistive technologies for gait, posture, balance, and activities of daily living after neuromuscular dysfunction.
Gilles Pinault, M.D.
Co-Director
Gilles Pinault, M.D. is responsible for identifying the medical and rehabilitation needs of veterans and communicating them to the investigators and Center leadership. He actively solicits input from peers within the LSCVAMC and CWRU medical communities, as well as the local and national professional consumers of technology. He is specifically charged with maintaining strong and productive linkages with all investigators, clinicians and medical consultants, and medical students. Dr. Pinault is the Medical Director of the Surgical ICU and has over 15 years of full-time service at the LSCVAMC as a vascular surgeon. He has served as Co-Investigator or Investigator on NIH, DoD, and VA grants, as well as numerous industrial-sponsored clinical trials.
Dr. Triolo and Pinault are responsible for interactions within the local and national VA administration, inter-institutional relationships with academic and other affiliates, coordinating research activities with clinical services, budgetary oversight and reporting, allocating financial and support staff resources, space and facility management, advisory boards and external review oversight, monitoring return on investments, establishing internal Center policies and procedures, engaging and developing relationships with key stakeholders (Vets and VSOs) and prioritizing clinical, operational, educational, engineering, translational and capacity building initiatives.
Margot Damaser, Ph.D.
Deputy Director
Margot Damaser. Ph.D. is a Full Staff and Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Cleveland Clinic and a Senior Research Career Scientist at the Cleveland VA Medical Center. She has an international reputation for her high-quality research aimed at investigating the mechanisms of urinary incontinence. In 2000, Dr. Damaser was awarded a Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering for outstanding research on the human urinary bladder using mathematical modeling along with physiological and neurological studies. This is the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government on young professionals at the outset of their independent research careers.
As the Deputy Director, Dr. Damaser oversees Center reporting & internal/external communications, investigator engagement, orientation & reoccurring Center meetings, innovation incentives & pilot study investments, facilitating seminars, workshops and short courses and coordinates VA APT committee representation.
Clay Kelly, M.D.
Associate Director of Clinical Affairs
Clay Kelly, M.D. clinical area of work is amputee rehabilitation, where he has directed interdisciplinary amputee clinics for the past 25+ years. His goal is to restore and preserve function in amputees, thus collaborating in research initiatives through the APT Center is a natural extension of his work.
As the Director of Medical Affairs, Dr. Kelly provides medical monitoring and regulatory oversight, facilitating interactions with clinical services, ensures research projects have relevance to the VHA mission and clinical priorities, informs the Center of new medical center policies or leadership changes, provides general local and VISN level communication updates, represents rehabilitation & medical priorities to investigators and assist investigators with Identifying clinical collaborators.
Jonathan Baskin, M.D.
Associate Director of Translation & Corporate Affairs
Jonathan Baskin, M.D. has been the Section Chief of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery at the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center since 2008 and is also board certified in Facial Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery as well as Sleep Medicine.
As the Associate Director for Translation & Corporate Affairs, Dr. Baskin works closely with investigators to review and assess their projects readiness for Veterans Engagement Panels & market analyses, educates Investigator & staff on the translational process & opportunities for support, reviews and tracks project / technology translational readiness, allocates Center resources for translational activities, facilitates IP protection & interactions with Tech Transfer Offices and organizes the APTC Industrial Advisory Board.
Dustin Tyler, Ph.D.
Associate Director of Engineering & Quality
Dustin Tyler, Ph.D. holds the appointment of Kent H. Smith II Professor in the Department of Engineering at CWRU and Research Career Scientist at the Cleveland VA Medical Center. He has been awarded 17+ patents and is an expert in neuroscience, neural interfacing, and neural prostheses. Dr. Tyler is the recipient of research awards from the VA Merit Review program as well as the NIH, DoD, DARPA, and other external sponsors.
As the Associate Director of Engineering & Quality, Dr. Tyler is responsible for trans-project effort leveling & project management, engineering team effectiveness, quality system implementation, maintenance & training, center-wide outreach and support, technical hiring and/or contracting and new technology development or acquisition.
Jeffrey Capadona, Ph.D.
Associate Director of Capacity Building & Career Development
Jeffrey Capadona, Ph.D. is the Leonard Case Jr. Professor of Engineering and the Associate Chair of Graduate in the Department of Engineering at CWRU and Research Career Scientist at the Cleveland VA Medical Center. His research interest is in the neurodegenerative response to implanted biomedical devices. Dr. Capadona’s awards include: the Case School of Engineering Faculty Research Award, multiple graduate student mentoring awards, and the 2011 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).
As the Associate Director for Capacity Building & Career Development, Dr. Capadona is responsible for core infrastructure updates & unallocated fund requests, undergraduate (Ko Scholar & Co-op), graduate, & medical student programs, APTC Fellows & Scholars programs, internal grant reviews & guiding young investigators on grantsmanship and identifying & mentoring CDA, RCS or other career award applicants.
Leadership Council
The APT Leadership Council consists of the Senior Leadership Council plus additional highly engaged Investigators of the Center. This larger group meets monthly to bring and discuss emerging opportunities and issues affecting investigators and research programs. In addition, the group provides additional insight into key decision making affecting the APT Center.
Members:
Kath Bogie, DPhil
Allison Hess-Dunning, PhD
Steve Majerus, PhD
Paul Marasco, PhD
Pedram Mohseni, PhD
Doug Shire, PhD
Andrew Shoffstall, PhD
Mark Walker, MD
Chris Zorman, PhD
