Stroke: Physician Providers
- Emergency Medicine
- Internal Medicine
- Interventional Neuroradiology
- Neurocritical Care
- Neurosurgery
- Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
- Vascular Neurology Core Faculty
Vascular Neurology Core Faculty:
Lewis B. Morgenstern, M.D.
Professor, Department of Neurology, Neurosurgery, Emergency Medicine, and Epidemiology
Director, Stroke Program
Research Interest
- Race/ethnic and gender health disparities in stroke. Along with Dr. Lisabeth, Dr. Morgenstern is a Principal Investigator of the Brain Attack Surveillance in Corpus Christi (BASIC), an NIH funded stroke surveillance project in Nueces County, Texas. BASIC compares stroke in Mexican American and non Hispanic whites in this population-based study. BASIC also examines race/ethnic differences in acculturation and access to care. Along with Dr. Brown, Dr. Morgenstern is also Principal Investigator of Stroke Health and Risk Education (SHARE), a community-based behavioral intervention study aimed at reducing first stroke among Mexican American and non Hispanic white participants of the Catholic Church in Corpus Christi, Texas.
- Delivery of acute stroke therapy. Dr. Morgenstern studies ways to increase delivery of acute stroke therapy in communities. The recently completed TLL Temple Foundation Stroke project demonstrated successful increase in appropriate IV rt-PA use in a non-urban East Texas community. Dr. Morgenstern is Principal Investigator of the Kids Defeating Stroke (KIDS) trial, a youth-based behavioral intervention study aimed at increasing appropriate 911 calls for acute stroke.
- Acute treatment of intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Dr. Morgenstern has led several investigations in acute treatment of ICH and is currently working on new surgical and non-surgical approaches to this devastating disease.
Devin L. Brown, M.D., M.S.
Associate Professor of Neurology
Associate Director, Stroke Program
Director, Vascular Neurology Fellowship
Research Interests:
- Sleep disorders and stroke: Dr. Brown is a principal investigator of an NIH-funded project to assess the frequency of sleep-disordered breathing after stroke, and the relationship of this sleep disorder to stroke outcomes . Dr. Brown is also the principal investigator on an NIH-funded project to study the treatment of stroke patients with sleep apnea. She further conducts studies on the pathophysiology of sleep apnea in stroke patients.
- Health services research: Dr. Brown is a principal investigator of SHARE, an NIH-funded primary stroke prevention behavioral intervention.
- Health disparities research: Dr. Brown studies ethnic and gender disparities in stroke within the BASIC study.
Lynda D. Lisabeth, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Neurology
Research Interests:
- Health disparities with a focus on understanding the excess burden in special populations, including Mexican Americans and women.
- She is Principal Investigator of the Brain Attack Surveillance in Corpus Christi (BASIC) Project , an NIH-funded stroke surveillance project in the bi-ethnic community of Nueces County, Texas.
- She is also interested in the area of sleep and stroke and how sleep apnea may explain ethnic differences in stroke.
- She is Principal Investigator of an NIH-funded grant to expand the BASIC Project to include sleep apnea screening with the goal of studying the epidemiology of sleep apnea after stroke, with a focus on Mexican Americans.
Michael M. Wang, M.D., Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Neurology
Director of Molecular Stroke Research
Research Interest
- Dr. Wang's laboratory studies the molecular basis of stroke and molecular neuroscience with three main lines of ongoing studies. (1) molecular basis of the hereditary disorder, CADASIL (Cerebral Autosomal Dominant Arteriopathy with Subcortical Infarcts and Leukoencephalopathy), that results in ischemic stroke and vascular dementia. (2) rapid effects of estrogen in neurons, and how these effects are mediated. (3) Collaborative studies with Dr. Pam Lein (Oregon Health Sciences University) to elucidate the genetic targets of bone morphogenetic protein stimulation of dendritic growth, a process which may be critical to neuronal recovery in diseases such as stroke.
Darin B. Zahuranec, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Neurology
Research Interests:
- Dr. Zahuranec’s research focuses on determining how doctors, patients, and families make decisions about medical treatment in patients with intracerebral hemorrhage. By better understanding these processes, he plans to develop ways to improve decision making in this severe disease. He has published papers on the impact of do-not-resuscitate orders on survival and prognostic model performance after brain hemorrhage.
- He also maintains a research interest in identifying the appropriate cardiac imaging after ischemic stroke.
Leslie E. Skolarus, M.D.
Clinical Lecturer, Neurology
Research Interests:
- Community based interventions to increase stroke awareness
- Health disparities
James F. Burke, M.D.
Clinical Lecturer, Neurology
Research Interests:
- Understanding how information acquired from diagnostic tests improves clinical outcomes.
- Developing more efficient mechanisms of determining which patients need diagnostic tests.
Kate Maddox M.S.,R.N.,C
Research Interests:
- Stroke prevention, improving in-hospital stroke care, and improving recognition of and response to stroke symptoms.
- She served as the project manager of the NIH funded Kids Identifying and Defeating Stroke (KIDS) intervention.
William G. Barsan, M.D.
Professor and Chair, Department of Emergency Medicine
Dr. Barsan’s research interests include emergency treatment for stroke patients, thrombolytic treatment of stroke patients, the role of EMS in emergency stroke treatment, and the use of neuroprotective agents for stroke. He is the Principal Investigator, Clinical Coordinating Center, Neurological Emergencies Treatment Trials (NETT)
William J. Meurer, M.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine
Research interests:
- Dr. Meurer currently works on several ongoing projects including the Increasing Stroke Treatment through Interventional Behavior Change Tactics (INSTINCT) and the Brain Attack Surveillance in Corpus Christi (BASIC): Epidemiologic stroke surveillance project in a bi-ethnic southeast Texas community projects. He has received grant funding from the Emergency Medicine Foundation to study the care of acute stroke patients in Corpus Christi.
Phillip A. Scott, M.D.
Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine
Research Interest
His interests include acute stroke treatment and cerebrovascular disease and computer modeling of access to healthcare. He is currently the Principal Investigator for The Increasing Stroke Treatment through INterventional behavior Change Tactics (INSTINCT) Trial an NIH-funded 5-year study to increase tPA use in acute stroke. He was the site-PI for another NIH study investigating the use of integrillin and tPA in stroke (the CLEAR study) and is an investigator on its successor, the CLEAR-ER study. He is currently the co-Chairman of the Michigan Stroke Initiative and works closely with the Michigan Department of Community Health studying methods to improve regional stroke care as well as the incorporation of Geographic Information Systems in the design of statewide systems of acute stroke care delivery.
Robert Silbergleit, M.D.
Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine
Dr. Silbergleit’s research interests include neurological emergency clinical trials, clinical stroke research, experimental cerebral ischemia, hyperbaric oxygenation, fatigue in health care workers, air medical transport, resuscitation and hypothermia. Dr. Silbergleit is an investigator in the Neurological Emergencies Treatment Trials (NETT).
Internal Medicine
Deborah Levine, M.D., M.P.H.
Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine
Research interests:
- Epidemiology, prevention and care of vascular cognitive impairment with a focus on the role of stroke, vascular risk factors, and health disparities.
Teresa L. Jacobs, M.D.
Associate Professor of Neurosurgery and Neurology
Director, Neurosurgical Intensive Care Unit
Venkatakrishna Rajajee, M.B.B.S.
Clinical Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery and Neurology
Research interests:
- Optic nerve ultrasonography and other methods of non-invasive intracranial pressure estimation.
- Transcranial sonography and doppler after acute brain injury.
- Novel ultrasound guided techniques for bedside procedures (e.g. tracheostomy and lumbar puncture.)
Jeffery Fletcher, M.D.
Clinical Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery and Neurology
Research interests:
- Clinical outcomes research in patients who have suffered subarachnoid hemorrhage.
- Management of refractory intracranial hypertension.
- Medical education research.
Lauren Rochlen, M.D.
Lecturer, Department of Anesthesiology
George A. Mashour, M.D., PhD
Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology & Neurosurgery
Director, Division of Neuroanesthesiology
Laurel Moore, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology
Joseph J. Gemmete, MD
Associate Professor of Radiology
Director, Division of Interventional Neuroradiology
Neeraj Chaudhary, M.D., M.R.C.S., F.R.C.R.
Assistant Professor of Radiology
Research interests:
- The role of early and late recanalization
B. Gregory Thompson, M.D.
Professor
Departments of Neurosurgery, Radiology and Otolaryngology
Director, Section of Neurovascular Surgery
Research Interests
- Endothelial regulation of cerebral blood flow
- Metalloprotease mediated vascular remodeling and development of cerebral aneurysms
- Hypothermia during cerebral aneurysm surgery
- Investigation of new imaging studies (CT perfusion, MR perfusion, CT Xenon) to define patients at risk for stroke
- The effectiveness of cerebral arterial bypass for prevention of stroke
Richard F. Keep, Ph.D
Research Interest
- Dr. Keep’s primary interests focus on the blood-brain and blood-CSF barriers (the tissue interfaces between the brain and blood) and on stroke. In particular, he is interested in how pathological conditions affect the blood-brain barriers, how the barriers can be protected by techniques such as preconditioning, the normal physiological functions of the barrier tissues and drug transport between blood and brain. These processes are examined in vivo (using rodent models of disease) and using in vitro models of the blood-brain and blood-CSF barriers.
- In relation to stroke, we investigate the mechanisms of brain injury that follows hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke. Using rodent models of intracerebral hemorrhage, we are focusing on the roles of thrombin, iron, complement and inflammation in inducing brain injury. In ischemic stroke, we are focusing on the roles of thrombin, endothelial injury and inflammation in brain injury. We are also examining the effects of novel preconditioning stimuli on both hemorrhagic and ischemic brain injur
Aditya Pandey, M.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Neurosurgery
Research interests:
- Mechanism of aneurismal healing post coiling
- Development of mechanical therapy techniques in the treatment of large vessel stroke
GuoHua Xi, M.D
Associate Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery.
Research Interest
- Causes of edema formation and brain injury following intracerebral hemorrhage with the long term goal to inhibit brain edema formation and limit brain injury after intracerebral hemorrhage.
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Lisa A. Di Ponio, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
