SCIRB Advisory Board Bios

Adam B. Stein, M.D., is Chair and Professor, at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra Northwell.

Dr. Stein completed his medical degree in 1987 at New York University School of Medicine. His residency training in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation took place at New York University School of Medicine-Rusk Institute for Rehabilitation Medicine, and was successfully completed in 1991. In his final year of residency, Dr. Stein was elected Chief Resident and ultimately honored with the Highest Overall Performance Award. Dr. Stein has been board certified in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation since 1992. He is also board certified in Spinal Cord Injury Medicine since 2003.

After residency, Dr. Stein joined the faculty at The Mount Sinai School of Medicine in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine; he remained at Mount Sinai until 2008. At Mount Sinai, Dr. Stein directed the Spinal Cord Injury Unit and developed the department’s program for ventilator dependent individuals. He served as the Residency Program Director for the Residency Training Programs in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Spinal Cord Injury Medicine, respectively. Dr. Stein coordinated all educational programs provided by the Department to the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and was able to incorporate Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation into each of the four years of the medical school’s curriculum; a rarity in United States Medical Schools.

Dr. Stein began his chairmanship at Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra Northwell in July, 2008. In this capacity, he oversees the delivery of rehabilitation services for the health system for its many hospitals and outpatient therapy centers as well as helping to oversee the Residency Training Program in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Dr. Stein also facilitates the education of medical students. He directs the PM&R portion of Advanced Clinical Experience and has contributed as a content leader for “The Human Condition”, one of the core courses at the school. Further, he is a member of the Admissions Committee, a core faculty member of the Communication portion of the school’s first course, CPR: Challenges, Privileges and Responsibilities, and serves as a coach and assessor for the medical students during Reflection, Integration and Assessment periods.

Dr. Stein serves as a member of the Board of Trustees for the Association of Academic Physiatrists and is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Spinal Injury Association.

April B. Coughlin, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz in the School of Education. She has been a "wheeler" since the age of six, is a disability rights advocate, and worked as a high school English teacher in NYC public schools. Her research, teaching, and advocacy focus on access and equity for students with disabilities/Disabled students in schools, healthcare for women with disabilities, and transit accessibility.

Jessica received her Master’s in Occupational Therapy from New York University in 2001. Jessica’s focus has been in the area of outpatient neurological rehabilitation. In addition, she established and implemented the STARS Wheelchair Clinic. Her areas of focus are spinal cord injury, stroke, brain injury and multiple sclerosis. Jessica’s diverse clinical experience is highlighted by 7 years at Mount Sinai Medical Center. Of those, she spent a year on the TBI/stroke/brain injury unit, 6 years on the acute spinal cord injury unit and her final year was spent in the outpatient spinal cord injury program, including the wheelchair clinic. Throughout her many years of experience, she developed her primary specialty, neurological rehabilitation with a focus in spinal cord injury.

Two weeks before he planned to start college in August 2010, Keith Gurgui sustained a spinal cord injury while diving, leaving him permanently paralyzed below the neck. After leaving the hospital, he underwent six months of rigorous physical therapy to maintain muscular, orthopedic, respiratory and cardiovascular health as well as to learn how to use assistive technology and a wheelchair.

With Mr. Gurgui's accident and rehabilitation came an understanding of disability and rehabilitation, and a personal desire to advocate for issues, knowledge, concerns, needs and rights of people with disabilities. Keith works as the System Advocate for the New York Statewide Systems Advocacy Network at the Resource Center for Accessible Living (RCAL) in Kingston, New York, where he works with a network of community members who advocate for the needs of the disability community. He is also very interested in stem cell research and the field of regenerative medicine and attended the 2010 World Stem Cell Summit in Detroit, Michigan, hosted by the Genetics Policy Institute. Mr. Gurgui received his Associates in Individual Studies from Ulster County Community College in the summer of 2014, and his Bachelors in Political Science from SUNY New Paltz in the Fall of 2018.

Dr. Mendell is a Distinguished Professor at Stony Brook University, and his laboratory focuses on the functional effects of neurotrophins in pain and segmental reflex pathways. Specifically, his research centers on the physiology of neurotrophins, and their action in modifying well-delineated circuits in the intact and injured spinal cord, including sensory input and motor output. His group is investigating the effects of neurotrophins on nociceptors and nociception in rats. In previous work, the team determined that administration of the neurotrophin nerve growth factor (NGF), known to be normally upregulated in skin during inflammation, produces hyperalgesia, and now is studying the basis for the peripheral component of this hyperalgesia. Another focus in his research is the action of neurotrophins such as NT-3 and BDNF on spinal reflexes and pathways in the neonatal rat. Dr. Mendell is the author of numerous journal articles and a past president of the Society of Neuroscience. Dr. Mendell has been a member of the SCIRB for several years and served as Chair from 2015-2022.

Ramin Rak, MD, FAANS, FCNS, is a board certified neurosurgeon who performs complex neurosurgery. He has extensive experience in performing awake craniotomies. Dr. Rak specializes in the treatment of neurological tumors and cerebrovascular and skull base diseases. He uses stereotactic radiosurgery, such as Cyberknife®, as well as complex and minimally invasive spinal procedures. Dr. Rak is an expert in micro-neurosurgical techniques which he utilizes to perform most of his surgeries. 

Dr. Rak received his undergraduate degree with high honors in Medical Basic Sciences and his medical degree from the Free University of Brussels, Brussels, Belgium. He then completed an externship followed by Internship and another year of General Surgery residency in the department of surgery at Washington Hospital Center, Washington, D.C. Dr. Rak was a clinical neurosurgery fellow, NIH/NINDS/Surgical Neurology Branch, Bethesda, MD; then a neurosurgery resident at the department of neurosurgery, George Washington University, Washington, D.C. He then joined Dr. Sekhar at the Mid-Atlantic Brain and Spine Institute in Annandale, VA and University of Maryland in Baltimore, MD for a microneurosurgery clinical and research fellowship. He established the “Brain and Spinal Cord Foundation” with Dr. Sekhar in Northern Virginia. 

Dr. Rak became a clinical neurosurgery fellow, cerebrovascular and skull base surgery under Dr. Sekhar at North Shore-LIJ, then chief neurosurgery resident, department of neurosurgery, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, where he also taught a neurosurgery lecture series. 

For more than twenty years Dr. Rak has conducted basic neuroscience and clinical research in a variety of neurologicial conditions, including reperfusion injuries after treatment of stroke, micro-neurosurgical techniques and outcomes of difficult skull base and cerebrovascular diseases and usage of adult Olfactory Ensheathing Glial and Schwann Cells (OEC) in spinal cord injuries. He has published several dozen articles and book chapters in the main neurosurgical journals and book atlases. Dr. Rak has presented at more than twenty professional meetings on topics such as Minimizing Reperfusion injuries after treatment of stroke, Neuronavigation in Skull Base Surgery, Reconstruction Options for the Complex Posterior Fossa and Middle Cerebral Artery Aneurysms, and Functional Recovery after Spinal Cord Injuries/Optic Nerve Injuries/Brain Stem Injuries in Patients Transplanted with Olfactory Ensheathing Glial and Schwann Cells (OEC.) 
In 2020, Dr. Rak was appointed the Director/Liaison of Neurosurgical Trauma at Mount Sinai South Nassau in Oceanside, NY. He is also Director of the Long Island Brain & Spine Tumor Center; NSPC/ Mount Sinai South Nassau. 
Dr. Rak is a member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS). He has also served as president of the New York State Neurosurgical Society (NYSNS), the Suffolk County Medical Society (SCMS), and the Suffolk Academy of Medicine. 
Dr. Rak speaks fluent Persian and French. 

Dr. Rachel M. Santiago obtained her medical degree from the Stony Brook School of Medicine in Stony Brook, NY. She completed an Internal Medicine internship at NYU Winthrop Hospital in Mineola, NY and her residency training in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. Her final year in residency she was awarded the Kristjan Ragnarsson Resident of the Year Award. She then went on to complete a Spinal Cord Injury Medicine fellowship at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City with a research interest in bone density in spinal cord injury and exoskeleton assisted walking devices. Since completing her training she has joined the team at Sunnyview Rehabilitation Hospital in Schenectady, NY with a focus on spinal cord injury treatment and research.

Fraser Sim is an Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the State University of New York, University at Buffalo. His laboratory focuses on understanding glial development and dysfunction using a combination of human stem and progenitor cells with animal models of neurological disease. Dr. Sim earned his undergraduate and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Cambridge (UK) in Neuroscience. He received postdoctoral training at the University of Cambridge, Weill Cornell University Medical College, and University of Rochester Medical Center with Drs. Robin Franklin and Steven Goldman. In 2009, he joined the faculty of SUNY University at Buffalo. He has developed novel methods to identify and isolate defined progenitor cells from the human brain. By genomic analysis of these purified cell populations, he has identified novel pharmacological targets for treatment of myelin disease. 

Lauren is a licensed occupational therapist, receiving her Masters of Science in Occupational Therapy in 2007. She taught 4 years as an Adjunct Professor for the Assistive Technology and Home Modifications course at New York Institute of Technology’s Occupational Therapy Department. Prior to joining Northwell Health, she worked on the inpatient spinal cord injury unit at Mount Sinai Medical Center as an Advanced Clinician, where she participated in multiple research studies and assisted with the Outpatient Wheelchair & Assistive Technology Clinic. During her time at Mount Sinai, Lauren participated in the Model System research for SCIRehab, as well as the SCIM and cranial electrotherapy stimulation study for pain. She developed the mentor program for new therapists, as well as the discharge resource binder for “Life after Injury”. She coordinated the education lecture series for patients and caregivers. Lauren was Mount Sinai’s representative for the Model Systems meetings and worked closely with the nursing staff to develop the SCI bowel and bladder program and improve the skin rounds protocol hospital wide. Lauren has guest lectured at Mount Sinai to assist with the development in “Intimacy after Injury” conference, as well as the “Sexuality after SCI” website. Lauren was co-author to multiple articles in the Journal of Spinal Cord Injury Medicine, and Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA: Assistive Technology) and authored two articles in Spinal Connection magazine. She has presented nationwide at multiple conferences. Lauren’s clinical focus has been in the area of neurological rehabilitation, with a specialty in wheelchair seating and positioning. Since the start of her time at Northwell, Lauren has expanded the wheelchair clinic to serve the community with seating and mobility throughout multiple locations. She has been instrumental in the development of the Northwell Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Multidisciplinary Clinic and has assisted in the mentorship program between inpatient therapy and outpatient services including wheelchair and equipment procurement.