Georgetown Helps Build a Community of Scholars in Neurorehabilitation

Posted in GUMC Stories  |  Tagged biomedical research, health disparities, neurorehabilitation, research, stroke, training

(January 3, 2025) — At the start of the academic year, an innovative initiative launched to support early-career researchers at Georgetown who are dedicated to understanding and solving challenges related to health disparities for Black and Latino residents of the District of Columbia, including stroke.

With its focus on researcher training and investigator development, the DISCOVER (Development of Investigators Supporting Community Outreach and Value of Engagement in Health Disparities Research) initiative draws on the success of Georgetown’s K12 Neurorehabilitation and Restorative Neuroscience Training Network (NRNTN).

“The K12 solidified some of our strengths in this area that made us marketable for stroke and neurorehabilitation and show that we’re good at training people in this,” said Caleb McKinney, PhD, MPS, associate professor of rehabilitation medicine and principal investigator of investigator development for the DISCOVER initiative.

“The main fact that investigator development can continue through the DISCOVER initiative shows how impactful the K12 has been in the neurorehabilitation space,” added McKinney, who is also associate dean of graduate and postdoctoral training and development for Biomedical Graduate Education, and assistant vice president of master’s program administration and development at GUMC.

Funded by the National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research, part of NIH’s National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the K12 training network brought together leaders in neurorehabilitation and early-career faculty for mentored research training and career development.

“This model of what we built as part of the K12 is part of the new DISCOVER initiative,” said Barbara Bregman, PhD, professor and chair of the rehabilitation medicine academic department, who led the training program. “It is exactly what we did with the K12. We’re now implementing what worked in the K12 as part of the career development for the DISCOVER initiative.”

The ‘Most Exciting and Impactful’ Award

Before coming to Georgetown in 1988, Bregman trained as a physical therapist and helped to establish the physical therapy education program at Howard University, then pursued a doctorate in neuroscience studying plasticity and recovery of function after a spinal cord injury. Having grant funding from an NIH Minority Access to Research Careers award during her graduate work “made a huge difference,” she said.

At Georgetown, Bregman has had a long research career in the basic science of plasticity and recovery of function after spinal cord injury. Today, in addition to her work as professor of rehabilitation medicine and neuroscience, Bregman serves as chair of the academic Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at GUMC and director of research, training and education for the research division at MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital.

While she has received a variety of grants over the years, Bregman said the K12 award “has absolutely been the most exciting and impactful.”

“The intent was to help grow junior faculty in neurorehabilitation across institutions and across professions,” she said. “I had a long history in training grants for graduate students and postdocs, so I was excited that this was an opportunity to provide training and support for junior faculty, which is such a critical transition.

“Neurorehabilitation is an opportunity to help individuals get back to the best level of function that is possible, whether it’s after disease or injury,” Bregman said. “So the impact is very broad and very deep for the individuals who are involved.”

The Next Generation of Leaders in Neurorehabilitation

The NRNTN brought together early-career researchers with an interest in neural plasticity and recovery of function. “We did have a rigorous application process, so we did look for those individuals who were poised to move to the next level professionally,” Bregman said. “A key component of the program’s success was that it was not siloed in an individual institution or profession, but the scholars came from different institutions across the country and from a variety of rehabilitation professions.”

NRNTN scholars came from diverse backgrounds, including computer science, kinesiology, neurobiology, neuropsychology, pediatrics, physical medicine, physical therapy and speech-language pathology. “The thing they have in common is a deep commitment to research, no matter what field they came from,” Bregman said. “They’re really talented individuals with a commitment to neurorehabilitation.”

While Bregman celebrates the scholars’ individual achievements, she is especially proud of the strong relationships that they built.

“I was really excited that we were able to create a community of scholars, and now, most of the individuals who were trained as junior faculty have independent federal funding,” she said. “In my view, they represent the next generation of leadership in neurorehabilitation across the country.”

‘It’s More Than Just a Grant’

After earning his doctorate in speech, language and hearing sciences from the University of Arizona, Andrew DeMarco, PhD, CCC-SLP, assistant professor of rehabilitation medicine, came to Georgetown as a postdoctoral trainee in 2017. He later joined the NRNTN program and received a K99/R00 award, leading to a tenure-track position.

“The K12 program permitted me to prepare, submit and revise a very strong K99/R00 application, which was a significant step towards research independence,” said DeMarco, who currently leads the DeMarco Advanced Research in Neurorehabilitation (DARN) Lab at Georgetown.

While early-career researchers can struggle with imposter syndrome, being a NRNTN scholar can help them develop confidence in their skills, DeMarco said. “Even if you get a great grant, you can still be questioning, ‘Do I belong here? Am I an imposter?’” he said. “Being part of the NRNTN sort of puts all of that to rest. And there’s nothing else like it that I’ve experienced.”

Connecting with other scholars was the most rewarding part of DeMarco’s experience as a NRNTN scholar. “They link you up with a national cohort of junior neurorehabilitative researchers,” he said. “They are collaborators, professional models, co-authors and friends. They offer moral support, examples of how to run a lab and execute a career in interesting ways, and a sense of participating in the national network of NIH-funded researchers.”

“The K12 program is definitely financial support and it’s definitely practically useful,” DeMarco added. “But it’s more than just a grant.”

The success of the K12 program illustrates the importance of community-building among early-career researchers. Similar to the K12 program, scholars in the DISCOVER initiative will participate in interdisciplinary research cohorts, giving them opportunities to support and learn from each other as they work toward research independence.

“The DISCOVER initiative will build capacity and community in junior faculty members, continuing the legacy of the K12 program,” Bregman said.

Kat Zambon
GUMC Communications