- Occupational Therapy
Ellen Modlin, PhD
Dr. Modlin is an early career researcher who possesses almost three decades of experience working as an occupational therapist in Early Steps, Early Childhood, and school-based settings. Her research agenda is an extension of her clinical experience, which focuses on the incorporation of occupational therapy on interprofessional teams who offer therapeutic interventions to children with disabilities and their families. As PI on a multi-year project, Dr. Modlin was awarded significant funding through a grant competition funded by the U.S. Department of Education. This project, ReServ-OPS aims to enhance preservice programming for occupational therapy, physical therapy, and speech-language pathology students entering educational practice settings. In addition to her own research, Dr. Modlin mentors OT graduate students, working with them on conducting original studies and presenting their findings to the scientific community.
Tana Carson, PhD, OTR/L
Dr. Carson has two lines of research aimed at addressing important, yet understudied, issues facing children with autism and their families: (1) decreased sound tolerance (DST) and (2) drowning prevention. To address these understudied problems, she has established multidisciplinary collaborations.
She has presented at 36 state/regional, 8 national, and 7 international conferences and has given 8 invited talks. Her work has been featured in 11 media outlets and she has published 9 peer-reviewed manuscripts to date with several in progress.
Decreased Sound Tolerance.Dr. Carson’s publications on DST in autism have been highly impactful. Her brief report titled: Prevalence and Severity of Auditory Sensory Over-Responsivity in Autism as Reported by Parents and Caregivers was published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders provides evidence from a large dataset confirming that DST is much more prevalent in autism than the general pediatric population. This article is ranked in the 97th percentile (ranked 4th) of articles published at the same time in JADD (as of January 21, 2025).
After establishing the increased prevalence of DST in autism, she and colleagues (Dr. Angela Medina and Dr. Yuxi Qiu) began to address the critical gap in pediatric DST assessments. First they developed and tested the Pediatric Hyperacusis Questionnaire (P-HQ). This work has been presented nationally and internationally and is published in the International Journal of Audiology and is ranked in the top 25% of all research outputs ever trackedby Altmetric. Researchers from around the world have contacted Dr. Carson to report their studies of the P-HQ in other languages and cultures including Turkish, Malay, Hebrew, Brazilian Portuguese, Persian, Tamil/Sinhala, and Chinese.
This assessment was then further improved and studied with support from the Wertheim Endowed Innovation Award resulting in the Pediatric Misophonia and Hyperacusis Questionnaire (PMHQ-4; Carson et al., in press). The PMHQ-4 is the first valid parent-report questionnaire aimed at identifying and differentiating two of the most common DST conditions (hyperacusis and misophonia) in a single questionnaire. Based on qualitative findings from these studies, Dr. Carson and her team developed the Inventory of Decreased Sound Tolerance (I-DST), a checklist intended to help clinicians with treatment planning after a DST condition has been identified (Carson et al., in press).
In occupational therapy (OT) practice, she developed a treatment program combining sensory-based self-regulation strategies from OT with cognitive behavioral therapy, and behavioral management strategies from psychology to comprehensively address DST for autistic children. She has recently published a clinical case report detailing this approach in Frontiers in Psychiatry.
Through this work, Dr. Carson has achieved her goal of developing an intervention and a valid assessment of DST in pediatrics that will not only improve identification of DST conditions in pediatrics but will enable clinicians and researchers to monitor treatment outcomes for children with autism.
Drowning Prevention. Drowning the leading cause of injury or death for children. Those with autism are at significantly higher risk. Adequate access to swimming instruction is a necessary part of the solution to this global health crisis. Although teaching a child to swim is well within the scope of most rehab professions; curricula on this topic are lacking. To address the current lack of swim instructors skilled at working with children with disabilities, Dr. Carson established an interdisciplinary team of researchers to conduct studies on the training needs of professionals in aquatics, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and recreational therapy. After establishing consensus for the need for training opportunities, she developed an interdisciplinary training program for students at FIU and is studying training outcomes. As a PI has received several grants to support drowning prevention research at FIU including: the Carolyn L Tarloff Occupational Therapy Endowment ($2,700), a seed grant from FIU Embrace ($49,951), and the Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (DOD CDMRP) Autism Research Program Autism Idea Award ($670,969) to evaluate the short- and long-term outcomes of the FIU-ASI curriculum. She is also a Co-Investigator on a project at The Ohio State University aimed at determining the real-world effectiveness of the AquOTic intervention for swimmers with autism.
Dr. Carson’s long-term goal is to equip rehab professionals with evidence-based training needed to improve access to drowning prevention services and to develop clinical tools needed to identify needs, intervene and monitor changes. Ultimately, she hopes to reduce the risk of drowning and increase safe participation in aquatics for those with disabilities, particularly autism.
- Nursing
Trudy Gaillard, PhD, RN, CDE, FAHA
Dr. Trudy Gaillard’s research focuses on reducing barriers to health care access and promoting healthy aging among culturally different older adults. She was the recipient of a National Institute on Aging award (Award #R24AG067951) for the Florida Statewide Registry for Aging Studies. Dr. Gaillard led a tri-institutional, multidisciplinary team of researchers with the goal of leveraging intergenerational influence—the interaction between generations—to enhance the involvement of underrepresented populations in aging research. A central component of this work involves engaging family members to support recruitment, enrollment, and education around research participation. By doing so, the team aims to increase awareness, build trust, and address long-standing disparities in research representation among vulnerable populations in Florida.
This body of work highlights the importance of intergenerational influence in health decision-making, particularly regarding research participation. Although older adults frequently seek advice and discuss health concerns with trusted family members, Dr. Gaillard’s findings reveal that most individuals still make their final health care and research participation decisions independently. These insights are crucial for designing responsive and effective engagement strategies.
Dr. Gaillard’s research is grounded in strong community-engaged action research and long-standing partnerships with community-based organizations, faith leaders, and key stakeholders across the state of Florida. The results emphasize the importance of collaborating with trusted community leaders to deliver health messages and promote research participation. These collaborative efforts also build sustainable relationships that empower communities and enhance the relevance and impact of aging-related research. Ultimately, Dr. Gaillard’s work seeks to advance healthy aging by removing barriers, building trust, and promoting person-centered care models.
Ellen Leslie Brown, EdD, MS, RN, FAAN
Erica Wertheim Zohar Endowed Chair in Community Mental Health
Dr. Ellen Brown’s long-standing program of research focuses on the emotional health and well-being of community-dwelling older adults; the mental welfare of those who provide their care; and support for the choice of older adults to age in place. She has received funding from the National Institute of Mental Health, Florida’s Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, and most recently, the National Institutes of Health.
In September 2020, The National Institute on Aging awarded $1.6 million to Dr. Brown, her FIU based research team, and researchers from the University of Alabama to design touch-screen technology to improve communication between dementia patients and their caregivers. The 5-year R01 project title is “Integration of Health Information Technology and Promotion of Personhood in Family-Centered Dementia Care.” The new interface will be customizable and grounded in evidence on Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices and touchscreen-use by persons with dementia. The AAC will be developed to compensate for the persons’ communication deficits by using photographs, graphics and text to promote engagement of the person with dementia, promote personhood, and offer providers access to real-time, tracked behavioral trends that support early detection, intervention, and monitoring of community dwelling older adults. Dr. Nicole Ruggiano, Associate Professor at the University of Alabama is the Co-PI for this project. Full details about the clinical trial can be found here. ( https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04571502)
The project builds on Dr. Brown’s and the team’s earlier work developing “Care Heroes,” a multi-function app designed to support caregivers and improve dementia care coordination including communication between healthcare providers and caregivers. Dr. Brown and her colleagues previously received a Florida State appropriation and federal funding (AHRQ R21 HS026571) to develop and test Care Heroes.
Dr. Brown’ scholarly work has been presented nationally and internationally and she is the author of more than 60 articles appearing in multiple high impact journals. Dr. Brown is an elected member of the American Academy of Nursing (AAN). The nursing intervention developed by Dr. Brown and colleagues, “Training in the Assessment of Depression” (TRIAD), established efficacious and effective, received national recognition from the AANs’ Raise the Voice Edge Runner Program. Dr. Brown is a founding editorial board member of the journal Research in Gerontological Nursing and an editorial board member of the Journal of Applied Gerontology.
Eric A Fenkl, PhD, RN, CNE
Dr. Fenkl’s research interests include HIV/HPV prevention and related disease among LGBT populations with an emphasis on MSM (men who have sex with men). He has been co-Principal Investigator on two grants from the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, SAMHSA: one to develop a program focusing on HIV/STD and substance abuse prevention for minority LGBT students on college campuses; and a second one to implement a program for outreach in the greater Miami metropolitan area specifically for at-risk minority MSM. Dr. Fenkl has also been the Principal Investigator of a research grant from the Florida Nurses Foundation to study HPV and anorectal carcinoma knowledge in MSM.
Deborah Witt Sherman, PhD, ARNP, ANP-BC, ACHPN, FAAN
Dr. Sherman has a strong program of palliative care research, as well as breast cancer research, with two studies funded by the National Institutes of Health. She has received a Predoctoral Research Fellowship by the Langer Foundation and a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship Award from the Aaron Diamond Foundation. Dr. Sherman is a member of several nursing and palliative care editorial boards and is currently an Associate Editor for the Journal of Palliative Medicine. Dr. Sherman has also served on several NIH review panels and was a research consultant for the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.
Dr. Jean Hannan, PhD, ARNP
Dr. Hannan is a member of the American Academy of Nursing whose program of research focuses on improving health outcomes of minority mothers and their infants leading to lower healthcare costs. Dr. Hannan has been a Principal Investigator on a grant funded by the National Institutes of Health examining an intervention to improve healthcare access for low-income mothers and their infants. Dr. Hannan has also served as a Co-Investigator on a Canadian Institute of Health-funded grant for a multi-international study examining ethno-cultural infant feeding practices with HIV+ mothers.
- Physical Therapy
Edgar Ramos Vieira, PT, MSc, PhD
I am a tenured associate professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at Florida International University. I am also a researcher at the Miami Veteran Affairs (VA) Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center (GRECC), and I am the Editor-in-Chief of the Taylor & Francis Group journal “Physical & Occupational Therapy in Geriatrics”. I serve as a member of CDC’s Special Emphasis Panel for Injury Control Research Centers (R49) reviewing projects that include older adult falls prevention components. My expertise is in risk assessment and prevention of aging-related mobility impairments, fatigue, frailty and falls in older adults from different populations. I have a BSs and an MSc degree in physical therapy and a PhD in rehabilitation science. During my PhD, I studied patient transfer-related low back injuries in nurses. I then completed a post-doc in mixed-methods health research, and another one evaluating mobility impairments, fatigue and falls risk in older adults in long term care (LTC) facilities. My research program aims to help older adults to stay functionally independent by optimizing mobility, preventing frailty, falls and related injuries. I have experience in supervising graduate students, post-docs, and visiting professors. I have completed several projects on the identification of risk factors and in the implementation of frailty and falls assessment and prevention programs for older adults. I had projects funded by agencies such as the Florida Department of Health, the Administration for Community Living (ACL-HHS), the Department of Veteran Affairs, and NIH (co-I).
Lauren S. Butler
Dr. Lauren Butler’s 2025 research has focused on advancing pediatric and adolescent sports medicine Specifically, her work emphasizes improving return-to-sport decision-making following ACL reconstruction by identifying biomechanical predictors of high joint loads and addressing both psychological readiness and gender disparities in rehabilitation. One study revealed significant gender differences in how physical therapists prescribe and progress exercises post-ACL reconstruction—findings that inform efforts to reduce gender bias and improve rehab outcomes. Another publication examined foot progression angle during cutting tasks, identifying movement patterns linked to reinjury risk in youth athletes. Dr. Butler also explored sex differences in psychological readiness, highlighting consistently lower scores in females. Expanding her focus beyond ACL, Dr. Butler evaluated the impact of an educational intervention on parent perceptions of early sports specialization, aiming to promote a healthier, more informed youth sports culture. Finally, she authored a clinician’s guide to softball pitching biomechanics to help providers assess movement faults and reduce injury risk in youth pitchers. These publications reflect Dr. Butler’s continued commitment to injury prevention, optimal rehabilitation, and safe youth sport participation. Links to the articles can be found below.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1466853X25000276?via%3Dihub
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11969493/
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/ijahsp/vol23/iss1/22/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268003325001020
Roman D, Ulman S, Butler L, Walker C, Douthit T, Kueneze C, ARROW, Baez S. Age and Sex Differences in ACL-RSI Subscale Scores of Emotion, Risk Appraisal, and Confidence after ACL Reconstruction. Accepted for publication on OJSM.
Inae Gadotti, PT, PhD
Dr. Gadotti’s research area is on head and neck orthopedics physical therapy and the application on rehabilitation. Her publications include studies evaluating head and neck posture; electromyography of the masticatory and cervical muscles; and neck dysfunction in temporomandibular disorders. For her PhD research funded by the Physiotherapy Foundation of Canada and Canadian Institutes of Health Research, she tested the measurement properties of photogrammetry to measure head and neck posture. More recently at FIU, she expanded her research to evaluate eye, head and trunk movement in subjects with whiplash injury. She established collaborations with colleagues from FIU’s Lehman Center for Transportation Research and colleges of Electrical Engineering and Public Health to pilot test methods to evaluate subjects with whiplash injury in a driving simulator.
Curriculum Vitae (docx)
- Athletic Training
Dr. Jeff Konin
Dr. Konin is considered a leading International authority on the topic of cannabis and athletic performance. His research and educational endeavors focuses on identifying 1) how marijuana impacts sports performance and 2) the therapeutic benefits that cannabinoids such as CBD possess.
Dr. Konin’s work is ongoing and actively tracks common performance metrics such as sleep, muscle strength, injury recovery, and much more to better understand the impact of cannabis in one’s body. Findings have been related to all sports in all positions with an emphasis on educating athletes, players, coaches, and parents.
Dr. Konin’s work has been published in the Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice, the Journal of Sports Medicine and Allied Health Sciences, Current Sports Medicine Reports, Cannabis News Florida, Sports Medicine Legal Digest, and Training and Conditioning Magazine. Dr. Konin has been a guest on numerous podcasts and is a frequent speaker throughout the United States and abroad on this topic. Dr. Konin has also been a sought after consultant for many professional and college sports teams to better understand how to maximize performance and minimize limitations due to cannabis use.
- Communication Sciences & Disorder
Dr. Angela Medina
Dr. Angela Medina’s research focuses on the manifestation of stuttering in bilingual individuals. Her ground-breaking work has been presented at national conferences of the American Speech Language Hearing Association conferences.
Additional areas of study by faculty in this department include:
- Aphasia
- Hearing loss and stuttering in bilingual children / Bilingual therapy interventions
- Vocabulary comprehension in autism
- Augmentative and alternative communication with severely impaired children
- Brain organization of language
- Role of bilingualism in delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s and dementia
Alliete Rodriguez Alfano, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, LSLS Cert. AVT
Dr. Alfano’s program of research focuses on oral bilingual speech and language development in children with hearing loss, perceptions of professionals and parents regarding bilingualism, culture and communication issues in Hispanic-Deaf families who use American Sign Language, and test development and adaptation in Spanish for children with hearing loss. Her clinical expertise is in the areas of auditory-verbal therapy, aural rehabilitation, and child articulation disorders.
Dr. Chelsea Sommer
Dr. Chelsea Sommer is a bilingual speech-language pathologist (SLP) and an assistant professor in the department of communication sciences and disorders at FIU. She mentors master’s thesis students and teaches courses on voice disorders, cleft palate, phonetics, research, and bilingualism. Her research interests include prenatal consultations for mothers expecting an infant with cleft lip, speech outcomes for children with cleft palate, global health, and cross-linguistic assessment of bilinguals with and without cleft palate. She has conducted research and collaborated with colleagues in Ghana, Peru, Trinidad & Tobago, and Jamaica. Additionally, she collaborates with several nonprofit organizations to provide care for children in low resourced settings throughout the world.