Earle P. and Ida S. Charlton Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Harvard Medical School
Senior Vice President for Research Education and Medical Affairs
Spaulding Rehabilitation Network
Chair of the Harvard Medical School Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital

Ross D. Zafonte, DO, is the Earle P. and Ida S. Charlton Chairman of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School, Vice President of Medical Affairs at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, and Chief of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Massachusetts General Hospital. He has published extensively on the topics of traumatic brain injuries and other neurological disorders, as well as presented on these topics at conferences nationally and internationally. Dr. Zafonte’s textbook is considered one of the standards in the field of brain injury care. Dr. Zafonte is currently the PI on an eight-center NIH clinical trial for the treatment of traumatic brain injury – the largest clinical treatment trial in the history of North America.

Prior to coming to Boston, he served as Professor and Chairman in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Dr. Zafonte also served as Vice President of Clinical rehabilitation Services for the UPMC Health System and Executive Director of the UPMC Institute for Rehabilitation and Research. Dr. Zafonte also serves on the Board of Governor’s for the International Brain Injury Association. 

A world-renowned expert on traumatic brain injury, he has made numerous media appearances as well as testified many times to Congress on brain injury related issues such as concussions in youth sports. He has published extensively on traumatic brain injuries, spasticity, and other neurological disorders, as well as presented on these topics at conferences nationally and internationally. Dr Zafonte is the author of more than 200 peer review journal articles, abstracts and book chapters. He also served as principal investigator on the University of Pittsburgh NIDRR TBI Model System and NIH Clinical Trials Center grant. Dr. Zafonte is the founding Chair of the Department at the University of Pittsburgh and while at Pittsburgh helped to direct its tremendous growth in both the research and clinical arenas.

In addition, he is on the editorial board of the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation and the American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and PMR. He has received numerous awards such as “Best Doctor in America,” “Top Doctors in America,” Young Investigator of the Year from the Brain Injury Association of America, listed in Boston Magazine’s Annual Top Doctors issue each year since 2008 and has been invited as visiting professor to several prestigious institutions. In 2006, Dr. Zafonte was selected to receive the Walter Zeiter award and lectureship by the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and in 2008 he was the recipient of the Association of Academic Physiatrists Distinguished Academician Award.