Early Career Network (ECN)

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.

Dr. Morika Williams is an accomplished veterinarian and researcher with a focus on pain mechanisms, assessment, and treatment. She obtained her B.S. degrees in Laboratory Animal Science and Animal Science from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine from North Carolina State University, and completed a residency in Laboratory Animal Medicine, becoming board-certified. In 2020, she earned her PhD in Comparative Biomedical Sciences at NC State, exploring the effects of early life injury on chronic pain such as osteoarthritis. Dr. Williams joined UNC Chapel Hill in April 2020 as a Clinical Fellow and Veterinarian, quickly advancing to Assistant Professor by November. Since March 2021, she’s directed the UNC Laboratory Animal Medicine Residency Program. Dr. Williams leads the Pain, Aging, and Interdisciplinary Neurobehavioral (P.A.I.N.) Laboratory, where she spearheads innovative research in behavioral neuroscience. Her work is dedicated to advancing acute and chronic pain management and assessment in newborns and adults, enhancing the quality of life in both animals and humans. She’s also committed to educating future scientists in biomedical research.

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. 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.

Rachel Fitzpatrick is a PhD candidate at the School of Psychology at the University of Galway, Ireland. Her research is focused on pain communication and pain management among autistic children and children with intellectual disability. Rachel has completed a BA and MSc in Psychology at the University of Galway. She has worked supporting many individuals with intellectual disability on accessing healthcare (venipuncture, blood pressure monitoring and attending medical appointments).

Rachel and her supervisors (Dr. Helena Lydon and Prof. Brian McGuire) have developed a pain management programme ‘Feeling Better’ which aims to provide education for autistic children by teaching the skill of communicating pain.

Rachel is passionate about ensuring access to healthcare treatments for autistic individuals and individuals with intellectual disability.

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 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 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.

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.

Flavia P. Kapos, DDS MS PhD
Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America

Dr. Kapos is an assistant professor and American Board of Orofacial Pain diplomate. She completed her DDS at the University of São Paulo, MS and orofacial pain residency at the University of Minnesota, PhD in Epidemiology at the University of Washington, and postdoctoral fellowship at Seattle Children’s Research Institute.

As a pain epidemiologist and clinician-scientist, Dr. Kapos’ research aims to expand the effectiveness and equity of pain prevention and management strategies using population health and life course approaches. Her work bridges public health, biomedical and social sciences, to identify and address multilevel social determinants of chronic pain and pain inequities.

Don Daniel Ocay is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Division of Pain Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital, under the mentorship of Dr. Charles Berde. His interest in improving the way we assess pain in the clinic influenced him to complete a Ph.D. in 2022 at McGill University in Experimental Surgery under the supervision of Dr. Catherine Ferland at the Shriners Hospitals for Children – Canada. Dr. Ocay’s work focuses on quantitative sensory testing and profiling youth based on their biopsychosocial characteristics to improve personalized pain management. His current research interests are on answering the long withstanding question of what are the underlying mechanisms involved in pediatric erythromelalgia. Dr. Ocay is spearheading an international multicenter and multidisciplinary collaboration on pediatric erythromelalgia. The ultimate goal is to have a functional data registry to standardize data collection and reporting with the objective to establish consensus recommendations for the diagnosis and management of pediatric erythromelalgia.