Director of Education, The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis; Research Associate Professor, Department of Neurological Surgery
Dr. Kimberly Anderson-Erisman is the Director of Education for The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis and a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Her research focuses on translational investigations and bridging the gap between basic science, clinical science, and the public community living with SCI.
Her training spans the spectrum of SCI research, from cellular and molecular studies as a graduate student, to whole animal and behavioral studies as a post-doctoral fellow, to human clinical research as a faculty member. This breadth of knowledge is a great attribute in her role as the scientific interface to the public for the diverse array of cutting-edge research being conducted at The Miami Project. In 2008, she completed a comprehensive certification program for Clinical Trials: Medical Device and Drug Development, which has enabled her to be directly involved in developing the clinical trial programs involving Schwann cells that The Miami Project is pursuing. She recently completed a multi-center clinical study evaluating the reliability and validity of the Spinal Cord Independence Measure in the US healthcare setting and is currently focusing on issues specific to chronic injury such as exercise, pain, and neurotechnology.
A special perspective that Kim brings to the SCI research field is that she also has a spinal cord injury. When she was seventeen years old she was involved in a motor vehicle accident that left her with quadriplegic paralysis from a cervical spinal cord injury. After graduating from high school without delay, she went on to college at Texas A&M University and graduate school at the University of New Mexico. She has received numerous awards, including the Khatali Award for Outstanding Senior Graduate Student, a NIH National Research Service Award as a post-doctoral fellow, and the Paul H. Silverman Award for Outstanding Work on Science and Ethics in 2005. She was awarded the Stephen Aroff Memorial Award in 2004 and the Jerry Stein Independent Living Award in 2006 for being a role model in the SCI community, and she was inducted into the SCI Hall of Fame in 2007.