Diane Damiano

Dr. Diane Damiano is a Senior Scientist at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland USA.

She also serves as the Chief of the Functional and Applied Biomechanics Section within the Rehabilitation Medicine Department in the NIH Clinical Center.

A physical therapist by training, Dr. Damiano holds a PhD in research methods/biomechanics from the University of Virginia, a Master of Science in physical therapy from Duke University, and an undergraduate degree in biological sciences from Catholic University. Her previous academic appointments were in the Department of Orthopaedics at the University of Virginia where she is still an Adjunct Professor and the Department of Neurology at Washington University of St. Louis.

Dr. Damiano's primary research focus is on the identification of biomechanical or neurophysiological factors that disrupt motor control and physical functioning in cerebral palsy (CP), so as to inform the investigation and design of novel rehabilitation approaches in this population.

Recently, her laboratory has pioneered the use of non-invasive brain technologies such as EEG and Near-Infrared Spectroscopy to study motor coordination in children and adult with cerebral palsy and has designed and tested the first wearable exoskeleton to improve crouch gait in both the short and long term using motorized and FES assistance to knee extension.

Dr. Damiano has published more than 125 peer=reviewed papers and book chapters and is an Associate Editor for Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair. She is a past president of the Clinical Gait and Movement Analysis Society and the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine. She is a Catherine Worthingham Fellow of the American Physical Therapy Association.

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The Elsass Foundation is a non-profit organisation that conducts research and provides knowledge on cerebral palsy to the professional community as well as people with cerebral palsy.

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