"I saw this position at The Miami Project as a great opportunity that does not come around very often," said Anderson-Erisman, whose passion for her work is deepened by her membership in the community to which she reaches out. When Anderson-Erisman was 17, she was involved in a car crash that left her with a cervical spinal cord injury.

"There really are no other major research centers that are as comprehensive as The Miami Project for spinal cord injury research and I decided this was the place I could make the largest impact on people's lives," Anderson-Erisman said, adding that she long knew about the great work at The Project and previously collaborated with some of the faculty, including Mark Nash, Ph.D., professor of neurological surgery.

On the job since October 2009, Anderson-Erisman also is scientific liaison to the media, donors, and the scientific community, and coordinator of the undergraduate summer internship program, as well as the growing remote learning program for students. She travels to conferences to give lectures and to work with collaborating organizations to keep the SCI field moving forward, and recently returned from Toronto and Nashville.

Understanding the advanced science taking place in the many labs at The Project, housed at the Lois Pope LIFE Center, is a big part of her job, and one for which the doctor in biomedical sciences is well-suited. Anderson-Erisman also has completed a comprehensive clinical trials drug development and medical device certification program and her expertise and connections in the SCI community will help advance the Miami Project's goals to further develop and implement clinical trials.

"SCI is a very complex problem and one of the things I really enjoy is to bridge the gap of communication between people living with SCI, scientists, and clinicians,'' she said.

Some of the credit for narrowing the gap goes directly to Anderson-Erisman, who published a study in the Journal of Neurotrauma in 2004 that detailed how the outcome assessments of scientists researching SCI often did not address the priorities, such as bladder control and hand function, of actual people with SCI.

"There have been a lot of changes in the field as a result of that study," said Anderson-Erisman. "It's a very big accomplishment for the SCI community. It's not that scientists were disregarding what people deemed important; it's just that they didn't know how to reach them to gather their opinion in a usable format."

Though marine biology was her first love, Anderson-Erisman developed a fascination with neuroscience after her accident. She pursued advanced studies at the University of New Mexico where she completed her doctorate in four years without having to complete a master's degree.

Prior to The Miami Project, Anderson-Erisman was an assistant professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of California, Irvine, and a core faculty member of the Reeve-Irvine Research Center. In California, her research focused on evaluating hand function in animals and clinical investigations in humans, as well as furthering her initial efforts to connect clinicians, scientists, and the SCI public.

After 14 years in the field, Anderson-Erisman says she has witnessed major changes in SCI research and is confident significant advances lie ahead.

"That's why it's so exciting for me to be part of The Miami Project, with so many people all working toward a common goal," she said. "So much good research is happening here, which gives me more reasons to make sure the scientific information is getting out to the people who need it most."