Jeanne Zanca, MPT, PhD

Jeanne M. Zanca, MPT, PhD, is chair, Institutional Review Board (IRB) and assistant director for the Center for Spinal Cord Injury Research at Kessler Foundation.

As IRB chair, Dr. Zanca ensures that the Foundation’s research protects the rights and safety of research participants. She collaborates with IRB staff to administer IRB activities, including reviews of research protocols; analysis and sharing of information about new or modified requirements for the conduct of clinical research; research protocol audits; reports on grant status to management and funding agencies; and maintenance of resource documents required for grant applications. Dr. Zanca also serves as liaison between Kessler Foundation, Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation, Children’s Specialized Hospital, and Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in matters related to the IRB and Fellowship committees.

As assistant director for the Center for Spinal Cord Injury Research, Dr. Zanca’s research focuses on secondary complications of spinal cord injury (SCI). Her emphasis is on empowering interventions – programs or services that enable people with SCI and their loved ones to take the actions needed in everyday life to prevent and manage complications of SCI. Her current research focuses on promoting self-management of chronic pain and its consequences and improving quality of personal care assistance services for people with SCI.

Dr. Zanca contributed to the development of the Rehabilitation Treatment Specification System, which provides a theoretical framework designed to improve research design and reporting, health professions education, and uptake of evidence-based interventions in clinical practice.

Dr. Zanca is a research associate professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. She is also co-investigator for the Northern New Jersey Spinal Cord Injury System (NNJSCIS), a National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR)-funded Spinal Cord Injury Model System (SCIMS), and co-chair of the national SCIMS Knowledge Translation Committee.

Dr. Zanca serves on the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine (ACRM) Board of Governors and is Chair of the Rehabilitation Treatment Specification Networking Group. She is past chair of the Spinal Cord Injury Interdisciplinary Special Interest Group (SCI-ISIG) of ACRM and a member of the Program Committee and ACRM Training Institute Committee of ACRM.