Board Of Directors
We are grateful to have a multispecialty inspiring leadership team dedicated to fast-tracking diagnostics, therapeutics, technologies, and policies.
Board Of Directors
Sharn McNeill
Stephen Hawking
Professor Stephen Hawking Beacon of Courage and Dedication Award
Stephen William Hawking (8 January 1942 – 14 March 2018) was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who, at the time of his death, was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge.[6][17][18] Between 1979 and 2009, he was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, widely viewed as one of the most prestigious academic posts in the world.[19]
Hawking was born in Oxford into a family of physicians. In October 1959, at the age of 17, he began his university education at University College, Oxford, where he received a first-class BA degree in physics. In October 1962, he began his graduate work at Trinity Hall at the University of Cambridge where, in March 1966, he obtained his PhD degree in applied mathematics and theoretical physics, specializing in general relativity and cosmology. In 1963, at age 21, Hawking was diagnosed with an early-onset slow-progressing form of motor neurone disease that gradually, over decades, paralysed him.[20][21] After the loss of his speech, he communicated through a speech-generating device initially through use of a handheld switch, and eventually by using a single cheek muscle.[22]
Hawking’s scientific works included a collaboration with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation. Initially, Hawking radiation was controversial. By the late 1970s and following the publication of further research, the discovery was widely accepted as a major breakthrough in theoretical physics. Hawking was the first to set out a theory of cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. He was a vigorous supporter of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.[23][24]
Hawking achieved commercial success with several works of popular science in which he discussed his theories and cosmology in general. His book A Brief History of Time appeared on the Sunday Times best-seller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks. Hawking was a Fellow of the Royal Society, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. In 2002, Hawking was ranked number 25 in the BBC‘s poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. He died in 2018 at the age of 76, after living with motor neurone disease for more than 50 years.
Wikipedia
Paul M. Thompson
See Biography: Here
Paul Thompson is a Professor in the Keck School of Medicine of USC. His team’s research projects focus on the neuroscience, mathematics, computer science, software engineering and clinical aspects of neuroimaging and brain mapping.
Paul Thompson directs the ENIGMA Consortium, a global alliance of 307 scientists in 33 countries who conduct the largest studies of 10 major brain diseases – ranging from schizophrenia, depression, ADHD, bipolar illness and OCD, to HIV and addictions on the brain. ENIGMA’s genomic screens of over 31,000 people’s brain scans and genome-wide data (published in Nature Genetics, 2012; Nature, 2015) have brought together experts from 185 institutions to unearth genetic variants that affect brain structure, disease risk, and brain connectivity. At USC, Dr. Thompson is a Professor of Neurology, Psychiatry, Radiology, Pediatrics, Engineering, and Ophthalmology, and Director of the ENIGMA Center for Worldwide Medicine, Imaging & Genomics – a $11M NIH Center of Excellence in Big Data Computing. Using worldwide medication screens, ENIGMA discovers factors that affect progression of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, schizophrenia, depression and childhood brain
disorders. One study unites teams from the Thai Red Cross, the US, and South Africa, and uses methods developed by Dr Thompson’s team (Nature, 2000) to study how treatments restore brain growth in HIV+ children. Dr. Thompson also directs the USC Imaging Genetics Center– a group of 40 scientists in Marina del Rey. His team created the first maps of Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia spreading in the living brain, and a method to track brain growth in children. Dr. Thompson has an M.A. in mathematics and Greek and Latin Languages from Oxford University, and a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA.
Collaborating with imaging labs around the world, Dr. Thompson and his students have published over 1,300 publications (h-index: 116) describing novel mathematical and computational strategies for analyzing brain image databases, for detecting pathology in individual patients and groups, and for creating disease-specific atlases of the human brain.
Recent work has discovered new structural and functional brain changes during brain development and degeneration, Alzheimer’s Disease and other dementias, schizophrenia and bipolar illness, HIV/AIDS, methamphetamine abuse, and autism. For many of these illnesses, Dr. Thompson’s Center is creating population-based tools to understand factors that resist them. New computational tools, developed in the lab, are used to map how these diseases spread in the living brain, and in drug trials and basic research studies.
P. Sarat Chandra
Dr (Prof) P Sarat Chandra is a world-renowned neurosurgeon and currently works as a senior Professor in the Department Neurosurgery at the Prestigious All India Insititute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi. He is best known for his path breaking work in the field of epilepsy surgery, craniovertebral junction anomalies, complex spine and minimally invasive neurosurgery. In the field of epilepsy surgery, he heads one of the largest epilepsy surgery programs (>3500 surgical cases) in the world and also the MEG resource facility. He has described several minimally invasive and safer surgical techniques, which are now followed world over. To mention a few, these include endoscopic hemispherotomy, endoscopic corpus callosotomy and commissurtomy, robotic guided radio frequency thermocoagulation of hypothalamic hamartomas, and robotic thermo-coagulative hemispherotomy. His center is one of the few centers to perform routine SEEG’s for MRI negative epilepsy in India, and have demonstrated a high degree of success. In the field of cranio-vertebral junction anomalies, he has had a large experience (<1500 cases), and has described the revolutionary technique of distraction, compression, extension and reduction (DCER). This technique allows even the most severe CVJ anomalies (atlanto-axial dislocation and basilar invagination) to be reduced and fixed from a posterior only procedure, thus avoiding a trans-oral route all together. He also described the simple yet the highly effective technique of treating vertebral hemangiomas with myelopathy using intra operative absolute alcohol embolization with fixation. Apart from this, he has had a huge experience of more than 25,000 surgical cases consisting of a wide spectrum of neurosurgical pathologies that include tumors, vascular, skull base, and endosocpic surgeries. He is a well known lecturer having given more than 500 lectures world wide and has over 590 publications including some of the highest rated journals like NEJM and Nature. He is credited with over 14 extra mural projects and 9 patents.
Nicole Hockley & Mark Barden
Nicole Hockley chose to transform unspeakable grief and anguish into action after her youngest son, Dylan, was murdered in his first-grade classroom during the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy.
As the co-founder and CEO of the Sandy Hook Promise Foundation, Nicole works every day to protect children from gun and school violence.
Sandy Hook Promise Foundation is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to educating and empowering youth and adults to prevent violence in schools, homes, and communities. Under Nicole’s leadership, the research-driven Know The Signs violence prevention programs were created and are now available to schools at no cost. More than 18.5 million have participated in these life-saving programs in 23,000+ schools and youth organizations nationwide. As a result, countless acts of violence have been averted – including at least 15 planned school attacks – saving precious lives and helping youth get much-needed mental health support.
Nicole is a leading voice on school safety and gun violence prevention, rising above the political divide over gun control, focusing instead on helping young people get the help they need. She is a sought-after keynote speaker and commenter, sharing expertise on recognizing the warning signs of someone who may be in crisis or at risk of harming themselves or others, and how to safely intervene. She has presented several TEDx Talks, her opinion editorials have been published by Newsweek, CNN, USA Today, and InStyle, and her commentary has been featured in CNN, MSNBC, Newsy, ABC, CBS, and NBC news coverage, among countless other media outlets.
Mark Barden is co-founder and CEO of the Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund. Since the tragic murder of his son, Daniel, during the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012, Mark has dedicated himself to sparing other families the pain of losing children to gun violence.
Mark believes that thoughtful, sincere dialogue centered on protecting youth will lead us to shared common ground and nonpartisan solutions everyone can agree with. These include expanded background checks, secure storage of firearms, extreme risk protection laws, and other measures that are proven to prevent gun violence.
Under his leadership, the Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund successfully advances a holistic policy platform that promotes gun safety, youth mental health, and violence prevention education. The organization works at the state and federal level to pass nonpartisan legislation through inclusive partnerships, diverse grassroots education, and community mobilization. This includes writing and passing the Mental Health Parity Act under President Obama; the Students, Teachers, and Officers Preventing (STOP) School Violence Act under President Trump; and Suicide Training and Awareness Nationally Delivered for Universal Prevention (STANDUP) Act under President Biden. In the summer of 2022, the Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund helped a deeply partisan Congress come together to pass the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act,” the first gun safety package in nearly 30 years, which included enhanced background checks for buyers under the age of 21, partially closing the dating loophole, funding to support states implementing extreme risk protection orders, and additional funding for mental health services and school safety. Each piece of legislation passed through Congress with bipartisan support helps ensure that cost is never a barrier to school violence prevention.
