Director
Nancy D. Chiaravalloti, PhD, is director of the Center for Neuropsychology and Neuroscience Research and the Center for Traumatic Brain Injury Research at Kessler Foundation. She is also a research professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. Dr. Chiaravalloti conducts research in cognitive rehabilitation, particularly in new learning, memory and processing speed. She has led numerous externally funded randomized clinical trials to evaluate the efficacy of cognitive rehabilitation protocols in clinical populations, examining post-treatment changes from multiple vantage points such as objective behavior (neuropsychological tests), everyday life (questionnaires, tests of daily life functioning) and at the level of the brain (functional neuroimaging).
Dr. Chiaravalloti has obtained over $20 million in grant funding, including grants from the National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, National Institute on Disability Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR), National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and the NJ Commissions on TBI and SCI Research. She has published over 200 peer-reviewed manuscripts, including a book on changes in everyday life following brain injury and illness. Dr. Chiaravalloti has been the recipient of several national and international early career awards. She is considered an expert in cognitive rehabilitation in both multiple sclerosis and traumatic brain injury. Dr. Chiaravalloti is the project director of the Northern NJ Traumatic Brain Injury Model System, one of 16 federally funded model systems of research and clinical care for persons with traumatic brain injury.
Dr. Chiaravalloti’s research focuses on understanding cognitive changes that are common with neurological illness and injury. The large majority of her work has been conducted with persons with multiple sclerosis and traumatic brain injury (TBI), although recent work has expanded to include cognitive changes in normal aging and in persons diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). She is particularly interested in learning and memory deficits, as well as the identification of the source of these deficits. A major focus of her work seeks to identify effective means of treating new learning and memory deficits both through the development of new treatment protocols and the testing of existing treatment protocols through randomized clinical trials.
View a comprehensive listing of Dr. Chiaravalloti’s publications on PubMed.