The Cerebral Palsy Research Network hired Kristie Bjornson, PT, PhD, MS to lead its scientific direction. Dr. Bjornson, featured in our CP Stories in April 2021, is a leader in the field of research for cerebral palsy. In her new role, Dr. Bjornson will lead the network’s effort to pursue public funding from granting agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute and the National Institute on Disability Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research. Dr. Bjornson brings multi-center clinical trial experience for various interventions for CP (i.e. surgery, injections, orthoses, and rehabilitation).

“I’m excited to merge my experience in clinical research in cerebral palsy with the power of the network,” said Dr. Bjornson. “There are so many important to questions to answer for our community and the network is a highly efficient way to conduct this research.”

In addition to her role as Scientific Director, Dr. Bjornson will continue as a site principal investigator for Seattle Children’s Hospital (SCH) where her first-hand experience with our registry will be invaluable to our future research endeavors as she has real world experience with how the registry can be used to make clinical research more effective. Under her leadership, SCH has become a significant contributor to the richness of data in the network’s cerebral palsy registry as SCH has enrolled its entire CP population. Understanding and leveraging the registry to plan new research studies is a great strength that Dr. Bjornson brings to the network.