Team

Co-Director, TREAT
Rehabilitation Technology Assessment Core
Rehabilitation Technology Prototyping and Development Core

Dr. Greenwald is an entrepreneur and biomedical engineer with over 25 years of experience in research and development in sports and orthopedic biomechanics. He founded Simbex (Lebanon, NH), a product development company, in 2000 and has been directly involved in product development for numerous biofeedback and data acquisition products for the medical and rehabilitation industries. He and Simbex have received multiple awards from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and Department of Defense for product development through the Small Business Innovation Program (SBIR). He co-founded iWalk, Inc. (now BionX, Cambridge, MA, sold to Otto Bock) with Hugh Herr, PhD, to commercialize novel robotic prosthetic technologies, and was founding CEO from 2006-2009. Dr. Greenwald previously started and managed the US Division: Orthopedics, Sports, and Rehabilitation, for TÜV Product Service, a multinational firm specializing in product testing and regulatory certification of products for sale in the European Union. He previously served as a member of the National Advisory Child Health and Human Development Council of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, as a member of the Council of Councils, Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health and as President of the International Society for Skiing Safety. He is a Professor (adjunct) at Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College. Dr. Greenwald is currently directing five federally funded research and development projects.

Co-Director, TREAT
Comparative Effectiveness Clinical Research Core

Dr. Lurie is a Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Orthopaedics and the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice (TDI) at Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. He received his BSE in Geological Engineering from Princeton, an MD from Stanford University, and a Masters Degree in Evaluative Clinical Sciences from Dartmouth. He currently practices Hospital Medicine and serves as the Section Chief of Hospital Medicine at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. He has accumulated extensive experience in comparative effectiveness research as a Co-Investigator on the Spine Patient Outcomes Research Trial (SPORT), the Multi-Centered Prospective Study of Quality of Life in Adult Scoliosis, Chiropractic Care for Veterans: A Pragmatic Randomized Trial Addressing Dose Effects for cLBP, and as Associate Director of the Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Center in Musculoskeletal Diseases at Dartmouth. He directs the Pragmatic Clinical Trials Unit of TDI, and has been the Principal Investigator of randomized clinical trials of fall prevention in the elderly and decision coaching in lumbar spinal stenosis. His overarching research interests are in evidence-based decision-making and decision-based evidence-making. He is the Co-Director of TREAT and the Comparative Effectiveness Core Director for the New England Pediatric Device Consortium.

Mr. Beckwith is the Associate Director for TREAT and is responsible for evaluating nascent technologies and assisting clients to overcome technical design hurdles. As a biomechanist with a background in mechanical engineering and experimental design, Jonathan has spent his career developing novel technologies, integrating those technologies into new products, and then using those products to better understand the underlying mechanisms of human injury. These novel devices, which have required combinations of mechanical, electrical, software, and advanced algorithm design, have been used in a broad range of applications to evaluate injury mechanisms such as the mechanics of mild traumatic brain injury, fall kinematics in elderly populations, wrist fracture mechanics, and classifying gait abnormality for children with cerebral palsy. — Mr. Beckwith received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Tennessee Technological University and a MS in Mechanical Engineering with a focus on human interface design at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Comparative Effectiveness Clinical Research Core

Christine McDonough is Assistant Professor of Physical Therapy at the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and in Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh. She has a clinical background as a physical therapist focused in orthopedics, sports and geriatrics. Her mission is to enable optimal activity, participation and inclusion of people with health conditions and impairments. Her research includes clinical and health services research, and the application of contemporary disability and measurement theory and methods to the development and testing of patient-centered health outcome measures. She serves as Editor of Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Orthopaedic Section and Academy of Geriatric Physical Therapy of the American Physical Therapy Association.

Rehabilitation Technology Assessment Core

In the field of rehabilitation engineering and assistive technology for more than 39 years, Jerry’s extensive experience includes delivering rehabilitation engineering services, performing research and teaching in the field.  Currently, Jerry is the owner and principal of Rehabilitation Technology Services, a rehabilitation engineering consulting firm and the founder and President of Assistive Technology Solutions www.atsolutions.org.  At TREAT, Jerry serves as a Senior Engineer.   A member of the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) since 1982, Jerry has held numerous leadership positions including President.

Scott Holson is the TREAT Project Leader for Business Development and helps companies commercialize innovations in rehabilitation and assistive technology, and pediatric devices.

His career has spanned from manufacturing in consumer goods, business ownership in the automotive field and food products, retail in food and household goods, sales of computer hardware and software, consulting on government contracting, research and development funding options and commercialization.

Scott volunteers his time as the co-director at the Horizons Observatory where they integrate learning about astronomy and their curriculum.Scott enjoys the outdoors by hiking, skiing, snowshoeing and for fun he can be found flying his remote control airplanes and helicopters.

Scott received his BS at Western New England College, Springfield, Massachusetts.

Rehabilitation Prototype and Development Core

Douglas Van Citters is an Assistant Professor at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth.  He teaches courses in Statics, Dynamics, Biomaterials, and Advanced Biomaterials at the Thayer School of Engineering.  His areas of expertise span the field of orthopedic research, including biomaterials and biomechanics, with particular interests in the design process as it applies to medical devices and human interaction.  His current research interests are orthopaedic failure analysis and design, wear of polymers, polymer processing, biomaterials and surgical device design.

Rehabilitation Prototype and Development Core

Solomon Diamond is an Associate Professor at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth. He teaches courses in Machine Engineering, Computer-Aided Mechanical Engineering Design and Neuroengineering. His general areas of expertise and interests include mechanical engineering and design, biomedical imaging, magnetic nanoparticles, physiological modeling, brain injury, and cancer diagnostics. His research focuses on developing medical imaging technologies for studies of human brain function and magnetic nanoparticles in medicine.

Jeff Chu is Chief Technology Officer/Partner at Simbex and is responsible for the creation and development of nascent technologies from ideation through transfer to manufacturing. Over the past 15 years, he has delivered multiple products to market based on a wide spectrum of technologies in both the medical device and consumer marketplaces. His deep experience in software, hardware, and algorithm development coupled with his biomechanical systems expertise helps realize innovative solutions that seamlessly integrate with the consumer. He has served as Principal Investigator on several federally funded research programs from both the NIH and Department of Defense in the areas of rehabilitation, blast, and impact biomechanics. His work has received national recognition from Time Magazine, Sybase, and Computerworld. Prior to Simbex, Jeff worked as an advance concepts consultant for several companies in the sporting goods industry and taught courses in the areas of clinical biomechanics and computer modeling.

Jeff received his BS, MS, and completed PhD course work/exams at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in Biomechanics.

Assistant Professor
Section of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
Department of Medicine
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center/Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth

Karen Huyck is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Dartmouth in the Section of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. She is a former ACOEM Occupational Physician Scholar and former Howard Hughes Predoctoral Fellow in the Biological Sciences. She completed her residency in Occupational and Environmental Medicine and her MPH in Environmental Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. She received her PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of Vermont. Prior to her position at Dartmouth, she worked in diverse OEM settings in the Boston area, including as a staff physician, researcher, disability review consultant, impartial medical examiner, and expert witness. Her clinical and research interests include chronic pain, functional assessment and rehabilitation, preventing disability from work, and gene-environment interaction.

Dr. Ratts is a clinical representative from Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth (CHaD). Ryan completed his MD/PhD at Boston University and his residency training in the Harvard Combined Medicine-Pediatrics Residency Program with Internal Medicine training at Massachusetts General Hospital and Pediatrics training at Children’s Hospital Boston. He is currently working as both an Adult and Pediatric Hospitalist at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. In addition to attending on the wards, Ryan also splits his time doing basic science research on the mechanism of entry of diphtheria toxin into host cells. This research is an extension of his PhD work performed in John Murphy’s, PhD, laboratory, and focuses on how the toxin exploits basic protein sorting and vesicle trafficking pathways to gain access into targeted cells. This research allows for rational re-engineering of the toxin translocation machinery as a nano-device for the delivery of biological macromolecules inside specifically targeted cells.

Chris Coulter serves as a client adviser for TREAT and is Senior Systems Engineer and Project Manager for Simbex. A problem solver by nature, Chris has been helping medical device and biotechnology companies overcome challenges throughout his career. He has been instrumental in developing new products as well as the methods and equipment to manufacture them. His portfolio of products includes in vitro diagnostics, medical catheters, surgical instruments as well as electro-mechanical scientific instrumentation.

Chris has an affinity for advancing entrepreneurial ventures and has worked in multiple start-up companies. In 2002 Chris started his own business, Adaptive Engineering, LLC, a consulting company focused on assisting Vermont based bioscience and medical device companies. Chris is proficient with all aspects of product development – from market research, concepts and prototyping to project management, production and market launch. Chris graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute with a mechanical engineering degree. He lives with his family in Richmond, VT.

Laura Bleyendaal is a fellow at TREAT. Her background includes eight years of experience working in regulatory affairs for the DePuy Synthes companies of Johnson & Johnson where she focused on commercialization of spinal surgery medical devices. Laura received her MS in Regulatory Affairs from the Northeastern University College of Professional Studies and her MBA from Babson College.

Karen Page is the Program Administrator for TREAT. Karen has worked as a biomedical researcher, grant writer, patent liaison, and program administrator in both academic and start-up environments. She has a graduate degree from Dartmouth College.

Angela Smalley is the TREAT Project Leader for Product Evaluation. She is a  graduate of the University at Buffalo, where she received a PhD in Rehabilitation Science. Her research background is in Biomechanics and she has also worked in the fields of orthotics and prosthetics, where her specialty was in pedorthics. Her clinical experience informs her interest in multidisciplinary collaboration and healthcare innovation.

Jay’s early mechanical engineering career in the Boston area was primarily focused in consumer product development, with a strong focus on ideation and rapid iteration through physical prototyping and testing.  At Simbex he was a Project Engineer and then Project Manager for the ongoing development and manufacturing support of football helmet impact monitoring devices.  After leaving to pursue his own entrepreneurial ventures and two years of front line support for homeless individuals at a shelter in the Upper Valley, he currently serves as a TREAT Project Leader with a focus on product development. Jay received his BS in Mechanical Engineering from Northeastern University.

Justin provides business development services to TREAT, enabling the program’s mission to serve a wide spectrum of innovators in rehabilitation and assistive technology.  Justin oversees the direction of The Aebli Group, a full-service marketing agency, that has a strong focus on business development.  He credits his team’s success to their attention to detail, business development expertise, and desire to produce results every day.