Staff & Colleagues

Kirsten Ambrose, M.S, C.C.R.C.
Kirsten Ambrose received her Master of Science in Clinical Exercise Physiology from George Washington University and her undergraduate degree in psychology from Carnegie Mellon University. She also is a Certified Clinical Research Coordinator through the Association of Clinical Research Professionals. Since beginning work with Dr. Clauw in 1998, she has focused her attention on various aspects of the research process, including: studying and implementing exercise as one part of an effective multi-modal treatment program; managing grant submissions to federal, industry and foundation sponsors; and educating the U-M research community on the importance of human subjects-related issues such as informed consent and adverse events.

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Samantha Chriscinske, B.S.
Samantha Chriscinske is a graduate of Morehead State University in Kentucky where she earned a B.S. in Biological Sciences and minored in Integrated Sciences. She is a research assistant with the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center and focuses her attention on the effects of exercise and sleep deprivation on the experience of pain. Samantha also will assist in the recruitment and testing of volunteers for the study.

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Daniel J. Clauw, M.D.
Daniel Clauw is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Rheumatology at the University of Michigan. He serves as Director of the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center and Director of the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research at the University of Michigan. Additionally, he serves as Associate Dean for Clinical and Translational Research within the University of Michigan Medical School. He attended the University of Michigan for both undergraduate and medical school studies and then completed his Internal Medicine residency and Rheumatology Fellowship at Georgetown University. He joined the faculty at Georgetown University in 1990, and while there, served as the Scientific Director of the Georgetown Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center, the Division Chief of Rheumatology, Immunology and Allergy, and a Vice Chair of the Department of Medicine. Since moving to UM in 2001, Dr. Clauw has continued his commitment to the clinical care and research into overlapping conditions such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, Gulf War Illnesses, and multiple chemical sensitivity. He leads a multidisciplinary team of collaborators at the University of Michigan, Georgetown University, the NIH, Department of Defense and Veteran's Administration, and other academic medical centers, who are studying the mechanisms and most effective treatments of these illnesses.

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Michael E. Geisser, Ph.D.
Michael Geisser, Ph.D., received his doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the Finch University of the Health Sciences/Chicago Medical School in 1988, and completed his internship in the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology at the University of Florida that same year. He currently is an associate professor in the U-M Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and is director of research for the Spine Program. Geisser's research interests include: studying the influence of psychosocial factors on the experience of acute and chronic pain; psychophysical assessment of pain; treatments for chronic pain and disability; and psychosocial factors associated with the progression and maintenance of pain. His primary interest is studying chronic back pain, although he also is involved in studies on fibromyalgia, spinal stenosis, and neuropathic and central pain.

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Jennifer Glass, Ph.D.
Jennifer Glass, Ph.D., received her doctorate in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Michigan in 1996 and currently is an assistant research scientist at the Institute for Social Research and the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan. Her research focus is on cognitive function in special populations, including the elderly, alcoholics, fibromyalgia patients and others with chronic pain and/or fatigue. Her current research with the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center examines attention, memory and executive control function in fibromyalgia patients, as well as the role of exercise and sleep deprivation as triggers for chronic pain and fatigue symptoms.

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Richard H. Gracely, Ph.D.
Richard Gracely, Ph.D., received his doctorate from Brown University in 1977. In 1974, he began working in what is now the Pain and Neurosensory Mechanisms Branch, National Institutes of Dental and Craniofacial Research, National Institutes of Health, and was chief of the Clinical Measurement and Mechanisms Unit and an adjunct member of the Department of Anesthesia at Georgetown University Medical Center. His research focuses on the neural mechanisms responsible for pain abnormalities observed in chronic multisymptom illness and the experimental models of these syndromes. Pain from clinical conditions and pain induced in the laboratory are assessed by subjective reports and functional brain imaging using positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging. Gracely has published extensively in the field of pain, and is an associate editor of the journal PAIN and an editor of the Journal of Pain. He currently is a professor in the Division of Rheumatology, Department of Internal Medicine and Department of Neurology at the University of Michigan and the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.

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Richard Harris, Ph.D.
Richard Harris, Ph.D., received his B.S. degree in Genetics from Purdue University in 1992 and his doctorate in Molecular and Cellular Biology from UC Berkeley in 1997. Following his graduate work, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at NIH studying the rhythmic properties of neural cultures. After this, he joined the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center at Georgetown University as coordinator of a pilot study of acupuncture in fibromyalgia, and attended the Maryland Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine where he studied acupuncture and graduated in June 2002. His current interests are the mechanism and efficacy of acupuncture in the treatment of chronic pain conditions.

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Steven Harte, Ph.D.
Steven Harte, Ph.D., a research fellow of Internal Medicine in the U-M Division of Rheumatology, joined the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center in 2005. His doctoral training in Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience at Wayne State University focused on the neuroanatomical and biochemical mechanisms involved in the emotion of pain and its suppression. At the CPFRC, he is leading the basic science component of the Center’s reverse-translational research initiative. His research uses animal models and advanced neurobiological techniques to investigate the underlying pathophysiology of fibromyalgia and related chronic multisymptom illnesses.

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Michael Hsu, M.D.
Michael Hsu, M.D., earned his B.A. from Harvard University and his M.D. from Duke University. He completed his PM&R residency at the University of Washington. Currently, he is a research fellow and clinical lecturer with the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at University of Michigan. Hsu's research interests include the psychophysiological management of chronic pain and fibromyalgia, as well as the mechanisms underlying the descending neuroinhibitory control of pain.

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Rossitza Iordanova, B.S.
Rossitza Iordanova graduated from the University of Michigan where she earned a B.S. in cellular and molecular biology. She is a research assistant with the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center and focuses her attention on testing research participants, processing samples and data, and interviewing patients for various studies.

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Virginia Leone, M.A.
Virginia Leone has a Master Degree in Rehabilitation Counseling from Michigan State University and significant work experience in the treatment planning and rehabilitation of adults with chronic pain syndromes. Prior to her involvement with the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center, she served as a consultant to federal agencies in the development of transitional work programs and job accommodations for disabled employees. Her primary responsibilities with the research program involve recruiting and screening research candidates. She also is involved in liaison efforts with local treatment providers and support groups.

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Angela Lyden, M.S.
Angela Lyden received her Master's of Science in Clinical Exercise Physiology from The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services and her undergraduate degree in Physical Education from the University of Delaware. She was Program Manager of the Women's Exercise Research Center at George Washington; a program designed to promote and study women's health and exercise issues, as well as provide individualized exercise prescriptions to women of all ages and abilities. More recently, Ms. Lyden has worked with Dan Clauw, M.D., assisting with all aspects of fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue syndrome research. Her current research interests include developing novel delivery systems for exercise and behavioral therapies and understanding the mechanisms underlying the role of these therapies for people with chronic multi-symptom illnesses.

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Laura Mayo-Bond, B.S.
Laura Mayo-Bond is a graduate of the University of Michigan and has been active in academic research focusing on Adult and Pediatric Hematology/Oncology for more than twenty-five years. She has co-authored more than twenty articles and participated in a gene therapy project for Leukocyte Adhesion Deficiency that was published in the journal Nature. Laura also helped identify previously unidentified genetic forms of Chronic Granulomatous Disease, a rare inherited disorder in children. She joined the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center in July 2004 and has been active in screening research candidates, as well as serving as a Molecular Biology consultant for future projects.

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Jennifer Miner, B.S., M.B.A., C.C.R.C.
Jennifer Miner received an M.B.A. from Case Western Reserve University and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern University. She joined the University of Michigan in 2001 to work on a NIH-funded project studying spinal stenosis in older adults. She joined the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center in 2005 as a clinical research coordinator and has served as study coordinator for center projects that focus on chronic pelvic pain and low back pain. She became a Certified Clinical Research Coordinator in 2006. Prior to working at U- M, Miner worked in new materials research, applications engineering and human resources. She holds two U.S. patents.

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Rupal Patel, M.S.
Rupal Patel received her M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and her undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences from Rutgers University. She recently moved to Ann Arbor from New Jersey to join the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center and work with Drs. Gracely and Clauw. In New Jersey, she was working at the War-related Illnesses and Injury Study Center and Chronic Fatigue Research Center. As part of the CPFRC team, Patel will be working on engineering and technical aspects of the research, mainly focusing on fMRI processing.

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Sherri Sprey
Sherri Sprey is the administrative and financial manager for the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center. She is responsible for financial and grants administration, as well as human resources and facilities management. She supervises other administrative staff and is a member of the Center's management team. Her previous employment includes more than 35 years of progressive administration responsibility, including a wide range of experience supporting top management and executives for a variety of companies, large and small. She returned to the U-M after a 17-year absence, and her contributions to the Center enhance its overall management.

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Emily Thorpe, B.S.

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David A. Williams, Ph.D.
David A. Williams, Ph.D., received his doctorate from Ohio State University and completed a 2-year postdoctoral fellowship in Behavioral Medicine and Pain Management at Duke University Medical Center. Currently, he is an associate professor of Medicine/Psychiatry at the University of Michigan, serves as an associate director of the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center and is director of research development within the Michigan Institute for Clinical Health Research (also at the U-M). Williams has held faculty appointments at both Duke and at Georgetown University Medical Center, where he served as the division chief of Behavioral Medicine. He has more than 25 years experience working with patients with pain and chronic illnesses. In addition to being an experienced clinician, he has more than 60 scholarly publications in chronic illness management, outcomes measurement and instrument development, mechanisms in chronic pain, and research methodologies. He has worked both as a collaborator and as principal investigator on NIH, Veteran's Administration and Deptartment of Defense-sponsored clinical treatment trials, mechanistic research and data coordination centers.

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Contributing Colleagues

Leslie Crofford, M.D. – Formerly of the U-M Division of Rheumatology, Dr. Crofford currently is professor of Internal Medicine, chief of the Division of Rheumatology and director of the Center for the Advancement of Women’s Health at the University of Kentucky. Her continued research and clinical interests in various rheumatologic disorders, including fibromyalgia, have made her an extremely valuable asset to her patients and colleagues at the University of Kentucky, and as a collaborator with the CPFRC.

Dina Dadabhoy, M.D. – Dr. Dadabhoy is a rheumatology fellow at the University of Michigan. She received her B.A. from Northwestern University and her M.D. from the University of Illinois. She completed Internal Medicine residency at University of Michigan in 2003 and stayed on to complete a fellowship in Rheumatology. Dadabhoy's current research is focused on health care services and physician education in regards to chronic pain.

Thorsten Giesecke, M.D. – Dr. Giesecke is an anesthesiologist who served as a visiting research fellow from Cologne, Germany, beginning when the CPFRC was at Georgetown University and continuing for several years at the University of Michigan. Much of his research effort was devoted to functional neuroimaging studies in fibromyalgia patients, as reflected in his publications. Upon his return to Germany, he and Dr. Petzke worked tirelessly to develop a research program with similar methodologies and research aims at the University of Cologne. He now works for Janssen-Cilag in Germany.    

Jutta Giesecke, M.D. – Dr. Giesecke is an Ob/Gyn who served as a visiting research fellow from Cologne, Germany beginning when the CPFRC was at Georgetown University and continuing for several years at the University of Michigan. Her research focus was on women’s health issues surrounding chronic pain, with an emphasis on vulvodynia.

Sam McLean, M.D., M.P.H. – Until very recently, Dr. McLean was an assistant professor of Emergency Medicine and Psychiatry at the University of Michigan. He has just moved to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and will maintain his ties from afar. He attended Dartmouth College and received his M.D. and M.P.H. in General Epidemiology from the University of Michigan in 1995. He completed Internal Medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1998 and Emergency Medicine residency at Boston Medical Center in 2001. He is board certified in both specialties. McLean is interested in understanding risk factors for developing whiplash syndrome, chronic pain and psychological sequella after trauma.

Bruce Naliboff, Ph.D. – Dr. Naliboff is a collaborator from UCLA where he is a clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine. He also is co-director for the UCLA Center for Neurovisceral Sciences & Women's Health in the UCLA Division of Digestive Diseases, and he is chief of the Psychophysiology Research Laboratory at the VA Greater Los Angeles Health Care System. He has extensive research experience in psychophysiological mechanisms of stress and pain, with much of his work involving visceral symptoms such as those found in irritable bowel syndrome. He has been an invaluable scientific advisor to the CPFRC since its inception.

Frank Petzke, M.D. – Dr. Petzke is an anesthesiologist who served as a visiting research fellow from Cologne, Germany while the research group was at Georgetown University. He was instrumental in the early days when the group was developing its functional neuroimaging studies, and he worked with Dr. Gracely to fine tune our psychophysical testing modalities. After returning to Germany, Petzke continued to collaborate on various publications with our group.   

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