Early Career Network (ECN)

Dr. Nahman-Averbuch is an Assistant Professor at the Washington University Pain Center and the Division of Clinical and Translational Research at the Department of Anesthesiology, Washington University School of Medicine.

Dr. Nahman-Averbuch has a Ph.D. in Medical Sciences from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. During her PhD, she worked with Dr. David Yarnitsky and specialized in pain modulation mechanisms in adults with chronic pain. Dr. Nahman-Averbuch completed her post-doctoral fellowship at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital with Dr. Robert Coghill, where she studied the neural changes in pediatric patients with chronic pain and after interventions such as cognitive-behavioral therapy.

In her Pain across the Lifespan (PAL) lab, she focuses on studying the impact of sex hormones on pain. Her studies are funded by NIH, the International Headache Society, International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), and the US Association for the Study of Pain (USASP). She is involved with IASP and USASP and aims to increase the representation of early career members in these organizations.

Dr. Marie-Eve Hoeppli is a research associate in the lab of Dr. Robert Coghill at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. During her post-doctoral fellowship in the lab, she has been working extensively on the brain mechanisms of individual differences in the experience of pain. She has also conducted and collaborated on studies investigating chronic pain conditions in children, e.g. complex regional pain syndrome, musculoskeletal pain, and migraine, using mainly quantitative sensory testing and neuroimaging techniques.

Dr. Hoeppli completed her PhD in Dr. Petra Schweinhardt’s lab at McGill University (Montreal, Canada). During her time there, she worked primarily on behavioral responses and cerebral representations of muscle pain and fatigue in healthy individuals. Muscle pain and fatigue were achieved by the selective and physiological activation of muscle afferent metabo- and mechanosensitive fibers. Dr. Hoeppli research interests include the study of brain and peripheral mechanisms involved in musculoskeletal pain and fatigue in individuals with and without chronic pain conditions across the lifespan. She also works on the predictive power of such mechanisms for pain recovery.

Lizbeth Ayoub is a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto and Krembil Brain Institute. She specializes in pain research using neuroimaging, quantitative sensory testing and qualitative methods under the supervision of Dr. Massieh Moayedi and Dr. Mary Pat McAndrews. Her work focuses on understanding the role of the hippocampus, a brain region responsible for memory, in pain. She served as a member of the Local Arrangements Committee for IASP in Toronto.

Dr. Daniela Rosenberger is an assistant physician in physiology and anaesthesiology, working at the Department of Anesthesiology, Intensive Care and Pain Medicine, University Hospital Muenster, Germany. She is a research associate in Professor Pogatzki-Zahn’s laboratory on peripheral and central mechanisms relevant to postoperative (chronic) pain. She completed her doctorate and master’s studies in the Department of Neurophysiology under the supervision of Prof. Rolf-Detlef Treede, Heidelberg University, Germany, where she was mainly working on mechanisms of pain modulation and the role of TRPV1.

Dr Lydia Coxon is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford in the Pain in Women and EndoCaRe groups. Her research investigates pelvic pain mechanisms in women, with a particular focus on endometriosis. She uses a range of clinical research techniques including fMRI, quantitative sensory testing and questionnaire data. In her work she aims to help identify stratification methods within chronic pelvic pain that may aid understanding and treatment of pain in women.

Dr. de la Vega received her doctorate in Health Psychology from the Rovira i Virgili University in 2014. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Washington (USA), under the supervision of Dr. Mark Jensen, in 2017 and a postdoctoral research contract at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute (USA), under the supervision of Dr. Tonya Palermo, in 2020. In 2020 she joined the University of Malaga as a Ramon y Cajal researcher in the Department of Personality, Evaluation and Psychological Treatment.

Dr Aidan Cashin is an accredited exercise physiologist, NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow and Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales and Neuroscience Research Australia. His research focuses on investigating the mechanisms of healthcare interventions for optimisation and translation into clinical practice and health policy. Most of his work is applied to the management of chronic musculoskeletal conditions. Dr Cashin also conducts methodological work that aims to improve research transparency and openness.