NFL Research and Innovation Committee

Matthew Matava, M.D. is currently a Professor of Orthopedic Surgery and Physical Therapy at Washington University in St. Louis where he is also Chief of the Sports Medicine Service. Dr. Matava earned his Medical Degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Six-Year Combined B.A./M.D. Program. He completed his internship and orthopedic surgery residency at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, followed by a fellowship in sports medicine and arthroscopic surgery at the Cincinnati Sports Medicine and Orthopedic Center. He is the recipient of several research awards including the AAOS Kappa Delta Award, the AOSSM O'Donoghue Award and the NCAA Research Award, and he is a member of Alpha Omega Medical Honor Society. Dr. Matava is currently the Medical Director of the NHL's St. Louis Blues and has cared for team for the past 24 years. He was the Head Team Physician for the St. Louis Rams for 16 years and was president of the National Football League Physicians Society from 2013-2015. He is currently the Head Team Physician for Division II Lindenwood University and has been the Head Team Physician for the Washington University Varsity Athletic Program since 1996. Dr. Matava has authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters dealing with orthopedic sports medicine topics. In 2019 he was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame. Dr. Matava specializes in sports-related injuries in adults and children. Special interests include ligament injuries of the knee, meniscal repair and transplantation; articular cartilage injuries of the knee, and athletic injuries of the shoulder including instability and rotator cuff issues.

Richard Y. Hinton, MD, MPH, PT, is the Medical Director of MedStar Sports Medicine, Director of the MedStar Sport Medicine Fellowship Program, and an attending orthopaedic surgeon at MedStar Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Hinton's practice is concentrated on knee and shoulder conditions and involves athletes at the recreational, scholastic, collegiate, and professional levels of play. Dr. Hinton specializes in ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament) reconstruction and complex revision surgery. He has a special interest in pediatric and adolescent sports medicine, injury epidemiology, and sport and culture in American society.

Having trained at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Margaret Moore Scholar 1981) and the University of Virginia (Eddie Wojecki award NATA 1983), Dr. Hinton began his sports medicine career as a physical therapist and certified athletic trainer. He then received his medical degree from The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (AOA 1990) and residency training in orthopaedic surgery at MedStar Union Memorial Hospital. He completed fellowship training in both pediatric orthopaedic surgery and adult sports medicine at these same institutions. He then received his Master of Public Health from the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins with a concentration in epidemiology and injury prevention.

Dr. Hinton has served as a team physician for the NFL Baltimore Ravens, Towson University, Loyola University, Morgan State University, the Women's US National Lacrosse Team, and a number of scholastic and youth organizations. He is an executive board member of US Lacrosse's Sports Science Committee and director of the nation's leading lacrosse-specific sports medicine program at MedStar Health. He serves as Vice Chair of the NFL's Research and Innovations Committee. He has served as president of the Maryland Orthopaedic Association and held membership on various AOSSM committees, as well as the Maryland Board of Physicians Athletic Trainers Oversight Committee. Dr. Hinton has authored numerous articles in the areas of injury epidemiology, lacrosse sports medicine, ACL injury, and reconstruction and knee conditions in the skeletally immature.

Dr. Cindy Chang has specialized in the sports medicine care of children and adults, preventing, diagnosing, and treating injuries and illnesses related to exercise and sports participation for the past 30 years. She now serves as the Chief Medical Officer of the National Women's Soccer League, overseeing league medical operations and protocols, and building on best practices for athlete health, safety and wellbeing including guidance on improved strategies for injury management, rehabilitation and preventative care.

Chang continues to stay involved at UCSF as teaching faculty, educating medical students and residents. As the former program director of the primary care sports medicine fellowship, she maintains a teaching and mentorship role in the program and continues to assist with coverage of sporting events. She also provides care as a sports medicine consultant at the University of California-Berkeley. Chang is an active member of US Rowing's Medical and Sports Science Committee, the NFL Research & Innovation Committee, and the Sports Advisory Council of the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance.

Chang attended The Ohio State University for her undergraduate and medical school education, and then completed her residency in Family Medicine at UCLA before returning to OSU for her fellowship in Sports Medicine. She was on faculty at OSU in the Department of Family Medicine, serving as Assistant Residency Director and Assistant Team Physician for the OSU Buckeyes until moving back to California to serve as the Head Team Physician for Cal's 27 athletic teams from 1995 to 2008.

Ron Courson, ATC, PT, NRAEMT, CSCS, currently serves as Executive Associate Athletic Director – Sports Medicine with the University of Georgia Athletic Association. He joined the University of Georgia in May of 1995, after serving four years as Director of Rehabilitation at the University of Alabama. He received his undergraduate degree in education/physical education from Samford University. Courson performed two years of graduate work at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, and graduated with honors from the Medical College of Georgia in 1989 with a degree in physical therapy. Ron is additionally a nationally registered advanced emergency medical technician as well as a certified strength and conditioning specialist by the National Strength and Conditioning Association. Courson has been involved in many athletic training activities including work as an athletic trainer with the U.S. Olympic Team at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea; 1990 Goodwill Games in Seattle; 1987 World University Games in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, 1987 Pan American Games in Indianapolis and the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain. He served as the chief athletic trainer for the 1996 U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials as well as the chief athletic trainer for track and field for the 1996 Olympic Games.

Dr. Munro Cullum is a professor of Psychiatry, Neurology, and Neurological Surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, where he serves as Vice Chair of the Department of Psychiatry, Chief of the Division of Psychology, and Senior Neuropsychologist in the Peter O'Donnell Brain Institute. He holds the Pamela Blumenthal Professorship in Clinical Psychology and is board certified in clinical neuropsychology (ABPP). He earned his PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin and completed his internship and postdoctoral residency in Neuropsychology at UCSD and the San Diego VA. Dr. Cullum is involved in research, education, administration, and clinical service delivery in neuropsychology. He has been a consultant to the NFL and is the lead neuropsychologist for the NHL Dallas Stars. Dr. Cullum is a leader in the field and is a Fellow and past president of the Sports Neuropsychology Society, the National Academy of Neuropsychology, and the Society for Clinical Neuropsychology. He has published widely, with most of his work focusing on short- and long-term outcomes from concussion, risk factors and neuropsychological characterization of neurodegenerative disorders of aging, the application of telehealth technology in neuropsychological assessment, and cognitive test development.

James DuBois, PhD, DSc, is the Director of the Bioethics Research Center, the Steven J. Bander Professor of Medical Ethics and Professionalism, and Professor of Psychology and Brain Sciences at Washington University School of Medicine. DuBois completed his PhD in philosophy at the International Academy of Philosophy in Liechtenstein and his DSc in psychology at the University of Vienna in Austria, where he focused on cross-cultural moral psychology. He directs the NIH-funded Professionalism and Integrity in Research Program (PI Program), which offers personalized assessments, a group workshop, and post-workshop coaching calls to help researchers operate professionally in today's complex environments. He is the founding Editor (with Ana Iltis) of Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics: A Journal of Qualitative Research, published by Johns Hopkins University Press. He has received more than $11 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health to support his research and training programs. He conducts social science research on ethical issues including informed consent, data sharing, organ transplantation, medical business ethics, and the outcomes of ethics education. He has served on committees of the Institute of Medicine, National Academies of Science, the American Psychological Association, the National Institutes of Health, and the United Network for Organ Sharing. He is a fellow of the Hastings Center, and has received many awards including the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Foundation John A. Benson Jr., MD Professionalism Article Prize (in 2014 and 2019).

Dr. Dallas Hack M.D. served as the Director of the US Army Combat Casualty Care Research Program and Chair of the Joint Program Committee for Combat Casualty Care from 2008 to 2014. He coordinated more than 70% of the DoD trauma research to improve battlefield trauma care of those injured in combat totaling more than $2 billion in grant funding. During that time, the Department of Defense funded the largest Traumatic Brain Injury research program to address the increasing awareness of the massive burden of Traumatic Brain Injury in the military. He held numerous military medical leadership positions including Commander of the NATO Headquarters Healthcare Facility, and Command Surgeon at the strategic level during Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. COL(R) Hack received numerous military awards including the Bronze Star, two Legion of Merit awards, and was inducted as a Distinguished Member of the Military Order of Medical Merit. He has a BA from Andrews University, a MPH from Johns Hopkins University, a MD from Loma Linda University, a MSS from the US Army War College, and a CPE from the Certifying Commission in Medical Management. He was recognized as the Distinguished Alumnus of the Year by Loma Linda University in May 2015 and is a Fellow in the American College of Military Public Health. He has an appointment from the School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh as Adjunct Professor of Neurosurgery and from Virginia Commonwealth University as an Associate Clinical Professor, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. After retiring from military service, Dr Hack has worked with numerous biotechs and non-profits to advance research in Brain Health and transition the progress to improved clinical practice.

Dr. Kurt Spindler is the Vice Chairman of Research in the Orthopaedic & Rheumatologic Institute, the Director of Orthopaedic Clinical Outcomes, and the Academic Director of Cleveland Clinic Sports Health. Dr. Spindler joined Cleveland Clinic after 23 years as Head Team Physician, Director of Sports Medicine, and Vice Chairman of Orthopaedics at Vanderbilt University. He focuses on knee ligament reconstruction, arthroscopic surgery of the knee and evaluation and treatment of sports musculoskeletal injuries. Dr. Spindler earned his M.D. at the University of Pennsylvania and remained at Penn to serve a General Surgery Internship, a year of Orthopaedic research and an Orthopaedic Surgery residency. He then completed a Sports Medicine/Orthopaedics fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation before going to Vanderbilt in 1991 as assistant professor of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation. At Vanderbilt, he implemented the Multi-center Orthopaedic Outcomes Network (MOON), an evidence-based medicine effort he thought up during his fellowship. He also serves as grant reviewer for the NIH and chairman of the Grant Review Committee of the National Football League.