BrainSPORT

Our Team

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The UCLA BrainSPORT Program is led by Director Dr. Giza, and six Associate Directors from across UCLA. Together they bring expertise in pediatric and adult neurology, neuropsychology, sports medicine and brain injury research, so every patient benefits from coordinated care, research and education.

Director

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Christopher C. Giza, MD, 

is Professor of Pediatrics and Neurosurgery and the Rubin Brown Chair and Chief of Pediatric Neurology at UCLA Children's Hospital. He founded and directs the UCLA BrainSPORT Program and the UCLA Operation Mend BRAIN TBI Program and also directs the UCLA Easton Clinic for Brain Health. He graduated from Dartmouth College, earned his MD at West Virginia University, interned at the University of Pennsylvania, and completed adult and pediatric neurology training at UCLA before joining the UCLA Brain Injury Research Center in 1998. Dr. Giza co-authored concussion and mild TBI guidelines for the AAN, CDC, and Concussion in Sport Group and co-leads the CARE4Kids Concussion Consortium. He advises and consults for MLS, US Soccer, the NBA, NHL, NFL, the LA Lakers, and the LA Chargers.

Associate Directors

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Meeryo C. Choe, MD, FAAN, 

is an Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and Program Director of the Child Neurology Residency. As Associate Director of the UCLA BrainSPORT Program, she also directs its Sports Neurology Fellowship. She grew up in the Los Angeles area, earned her BA in Fine Arts at Amherst College and her MD at the University of Southern California, and completed pediatrics residency, child neurology training, and a sports neurology fellowship at UCLA. Dr. Choe's research focuses on clinical outcomes after pediatric TBI, including post-concussive autonomic dysfunction and gender disparities in concussion. She co-authored the CDC's pediatric mild TBI guidelines in JAMA Pediatrics and is a site PI for the CARE4Kids U54, a multi-institutional longitudinal pediatric concussion study.

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Talin Babikian, PhD, ABPP, 

is a board-certified clinical neuropsychologist and Associate Clinical Professor in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. As Associate Director of the UCLA BrainSPORT Program, she oversees its two-year Sports Neuropsychology Fellowship, and she serves as Training Director for the UCLA Semel Institute Neuropsychology Fellowship. She earned her PhD in Clinical Psychology, with an emphasis in neuropsychology, at Loma Linda University and completed her neuropsychology fellowship at UCLA. Dr. Babikian's research identifies biopsychosocial markers of repair, recovery, and outcomes after childhood brain injury, and she has published and presented this work nationally and internationally.

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Mayumi Prins, PhD, 

is Professor and Vice Chair of Academic Affairs in the UCLA Department of Neurosurgery and Director of the UCLA Brain Injury Research Center. She earned her BS in Biology and PhD in Neurobiology at UCLA and completed postdoctoral training at UCLA and the Medical College of Virginia. A leader in adolescent TBI research, Dr. Prins studies brain metabolism after head injury, the use of alternative fuels such as ketones in recovery, and repeat concussion in young athletes. Her translational work brings together UCLA Engineering, Pediatric Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Neurocritical Care, and she supports collaborative programs in brain stimulation, headache, and concussion care, along with basic science research in imaging, sensory processing, glymphatics, and metabolism.

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Joshua L. Kamins, MD, 

is an Associate Professor of Neurology at UCLA and an Associate Director of the UCLA BrainSPORT Program. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, earned his MD at UC San Diego, and completed neurology residency at UCLA, where he became the first neurologist to complete fellowships in both Headache Medicine and Sports Neurology. Dr. Kamins sees pediatric and adult patients in the BrainSPORT clinic and the UCLA Goldberg Migraine Program, treating primary headache, facial pain, post-traumatic headache, and persisting post-concussion symptoms. His research investigates treatments for post-traumatic headache and better methods for diagnosing concussion. He serves on the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine's mild TBI task force, the International Congress of Athlete Brain Health's pain working group, and the American Headache Society's Post-Traumatic Headache interest group.

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Joshua T. Goldman, MD, MBA, 

is a Health Sciences Associate Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Orthopaedic Surgery at UCLA, Associate Director of the UCLA BrainSPORT Program, and Program Director of the UCLA Sports Medicine Fellowship. He is also Associate Director of the Center for Sports Medicine at the Luskin Orthopaedic Institute for Children. He earned his MD and MBA at the University of Southern California and completed his family medicine residency and sports medicine fellowship at UCLA. Dr. Goldman cares for family medicine and sports medicine patients of all ages and supervises medical students, residents, and fellows. His research interests include sport concussion, pediatric sports injuries, running medicine, and hamstring injuries. He is a team physician for UCLA football and men's soccer and for the Los Angeles Chargers.

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Kevin Bickart, MD, PhD, 

is an Assistant Professor of Neurology specializing in sports and behavioral neurology within the UCLA BrainSPORT Program, the UCLA Mary S. Easton Center for Alzheimer's Research and Care, the UCLA Neurobehavior Program, and UCLA Operation Mend. He earned his MD/PhD in anatomy and neurobiology at Boston University School of Medicine, completed postdoctoral work at Northeastern University and Harvard University, completed neurology residency at Stanford University, and completed a dual fellowship in behavioral and sports neurology at UCLA. He is board certified in Brain Injury Medicine and in Behavioral Neurology and Neuropsychiatry. Dr. Bickart was the first to identify neuroimaging correlates of social network size in humans; his current research maps and modulates brain circuits to support brain health and personalized recovery from chronic neurological symptoms. He runs the Bickart Lab, co-hosts The Better Brain Podcast, and directs the student-led Brain Health Project.

Clinicians

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William P. Flavin, MD, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at UCLA who practices at the UCLA Mary S. Easton Center for Alzheimer's Research and Care and the UCLA BrainSPORT Program. He specializes in sports neurology and TBI-related neurodegenerative disease, including chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). A former varsity football player at the University of Notre Dame, he earned his BS in Biochemistry there and his MD/PhD at Loyola University Chicago, where he studied the prion-like spread of protein aggregates in neurodegenerative disease. He completed neurology residency and sports neurology fellowship training at UCLA and joined the faculty in 2025. Dr. Flavin's research focuses on tau-mediated neurodegeneration in cell and animal models.

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Madison B. Harris, OTD, is a board-certified occupational therapist and head of the Occupational Therapy Program at the UCLA BrainSPORT Program, where she treats concussion and TBI across the lifespan, researches post-concussive autonomic dysfunction and gender disparities in recovery, and leads community education. A Los Angeles native, she earned her MSOT and OTD at the University of Southern California, where she also served as an intern athletic trainer for the football team, and completed her doctoral residency with BrainSPORT. She is part of the interdisciplinary care team at UCLA Operation Mend, which supports post-9/11 combat veterans with TBI. Dr. Harris created the occupational therapy teaching program for BrainSPORT and Operation Mend, precepts doctoral students, and developed a transition program for adolescents with epilepsy.

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Alexandra Tanner, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. She earned her BA in Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College and her PhD in Clinical Psychology, with a minor in Quantitative Psychology, at UCLA. Dr. Tanner specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy for emotional disorders and persisting post-concussion symptoms.

 

 

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McKenna Borras, OTD, is a board-certified occupational therapist at the UCLA BrainSPORT Program. Originally from Northern California, she earned her BS in Kinesiology at Sonoma State University (2020), followed by her MS (2022) and OTD (2024) in Occupational Therapy at the University of Southern California, and completed her doctoral residency with BrainSPORT in 2024. In addition to rehabilitating athletes, Dr. Borras has a special interest in treating patients with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS).

 

Research

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David A. Hovda, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of Neurosurgery and Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the Lind Lawrence Eminent Scholar. He earned his PhD at the University of New Mexico and completed postdoctoral training at UCLA. The Department of Neurosurgery recruited him in 1989 to lead its research on the cellular pathophysiology of brain injury, and he founded the UCLA Brain Injury Research Center, which earned NIH recognition as a Center of Excellence. Dr. Hovda is past president of the National and International Neurotrauma Societies and has chaired study sections for the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). The U.S. Army honored him with its Strength of the Nation Award for his work on military TBI.

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Robert F. Asarnow, PhD, is the Della Martin Professor of Psychiatry in the UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, a Professor in the UCLA Department of Psychology, and Director of the UCLA Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury Research Program. He earned his PhD at Wayne State University. A neuropsychologist, Dr. Asarnow uses neuropsychological evaluation, brain imaging, and electrophysiology to study language, cognition, and school and adaptive functioning after TBI in children and adults. His group has conducted one of the major studies of outcomes after mild pediatric TBI and one of the largest controlled trials of cognitive training in children with brain injury. He also studies neurobehavioral outcomes after pediatric epilepsy surgery and sees patients with TBI and their families.

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Neil G. Harris, PhD, is a Professor-in-Residence in the UCLA Department of Neurosurgery, where he directs the NEIL lab and serves as scientific director of the UCLA 7T animal imaging core. He earned his BSc in Biology at the University of Portsmouth and his PhD in Physiology at King's College London, then trained in multimodality imaging in London, Cambridge, and Florida. His early work addressed infantile hydrocephalus and ischemic stroke. Dr. Harris's current research explores plasticity and recovery of function after traumatic brain injury, combining cell biology techniques with in vivo MRI and PET to study axonal injury, cerebral blood flow, and metabolism.

Current Fellows

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Todd Rubin, MD, PhD, 

is a physician-scientist and fellow in the UCLA BrainSPORT Program who studies the risks and long-term consequences of repetitive head injury in sports. After graduating from New York University, he worked as a research assistant in Dr. Bruce McEwen's lab at Rockefeller University. He earned his MD/PhD at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, using diffusion tensor MRI to study repetitive head injury in soccer players and rats in Dr. Michael Lipton's lab. During his research-track neurology residency at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where he served as chief resident, he worked with Dr. Fanny Elahi on susceptibility and resilience to repetitive head trauma and its potential role in neurodegenerative disease. Dr. Rubin aims to advance the understanding and prevention of brain injury in athletes.

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Jake Levine, MD, 

is a fellow in the UCLA BrainSPORT Program. Originally from Chicago, Illinois, Dr. Levine earned a BA in Spanish and Portuguese at Dartmouth College and then lived and taught in Medellín, Colombia. He went on to earn his MD at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and completed residency in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Mount Sinai. A former soccer, rugby, and hockey player, Dr. Levine brings firsthand athletic experience to the care of sports-related brain injury.

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Antonio Vega Ortiz, PsyD, 

is a neuropsychology fellow in the UCLA BrainSPORT Program. Originally from Puerto Rico, he moved to the mainland in 2024 to continue his training toward becoming a neuropsychologist. His clinical interests include sports-related brain injury, neurodegenerative disorders, and culturally responsive neuropsychological care. Dr. Vega Ortiz is especially committed to expanding access to neuropsychological services for people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities.