When research gets personal
How circumstances motivated college scientists
Once world-ranked in an Olympic sport, Aliyah Snyder now helps athletes and others with concussion
Dr. Aliyah Snyder was inspired to pursue a research and clinical career in concussion after a brain injury cut short her athletic career in skeleton.
Photo by John Jernigan
By Michelle Koidin Jaffee
Sledding belly-down and head-first on an ice track at 70 miles per hour day after day, Aliyah Snyder could feel her chin and the side of her head vibrating against the ice. She was on the rise in the sport of skeleton, ranked 44th in the world and competing on the North America’s Cup circuit, when persistent headaches, dizziness and loss of balance forced her to step away.
This was before there was increased awareness nationally about concussions, before “getting your bell rung” meant something potentially more serious. During her yearlong recovery back home in the Florida Panhandle in 2010, she kept thinking about research-assistant work she did as an undergrad at the Florida Institute of Technology, looking at soccer heading and potential risks of concussion and neurocognitive impairment. As she bounced from medical appointment to appointment, she had a revelation.
“There was a lack of effective health care and education around concussion,” said Snyder, a clinical assistant professor in the PHHP department of clinical and health psychology and a member of UF’s McKnight Brain Institute. “I thought: This is meaningful to me. There is clearly a huge gap in health care that I can contribute to.”
Snyder was an assistant coach of the men’s rowing team at Connecticut College when a boyfriend who was training on the bobsledding team at the Olympic Center suggested she try skeleton. She thought it looked crazy and, as an adventure seeker, like a lot of fun.
“I remember the first time I went off the top of the track in Lake Placid, and you know you’re going to hit 70 miles an hour — nothing’s going to stop you from hitting that speed, and like, buckle up,” she said, laughing. “It’s like flying. It’s the biggest adrenaline rush I think there is.”
In the winter sport skeleton, athletes race down a frozen track head first at speeds of up to 80 miles an hour.
She trained for two years, earning a spot on the Israeli national team, before the constant subconcussive impact of her head knocking against the ice became too much. She reached out to her Florida Tech mentor Frank Webbe, Ph.D., a triple-Gator and an expert in sports-related brain injury. Could she come back to his lab, as a volunteer? He didn’t hesitate.
“She was on a mission,” Webbe said. “And that mission was to put people in touch with knowledge and with contacts that would help them, and it was also to create new knowledge to help them.”
Later, as a student specializing in neuropsychology in the College of Public Health and Health Professions’ clinical psychology Ph.D. program, Snyder focused on persisting symptoms after concussion, an under-researched area of study, says her mentor Russell Bauer, Ph.D., a professor emeritus of clinical and health psychology.
“Her situation fits to a T with what she’s interested in studying, because she did not have an ‘incident concussion’ where she banged her head and lost consciousness,” Bauer said. “Her concussions resulted from chronic subconcussive jostling of the head from going down the track.”
This year, Snyder parlayed her experiences into helping Olympians of today: Under UF Health’s partnership with the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee, she has provided concussion education and onsite training for USOPC faculty including psychologists, athletic trainers and other providers. She has also offered clinical guidance and resources for USOPC medical faculty regarding complex concussion cases and is working with USOPC psychologists to develop psychoeducation materials for athletes.
Snyder also serves as a project scientist for the UCLA Steve Tisch BrainSPORT Program, where she runs an arm of a large multisite NIH-funded study into pediatric concussion recovery. Snyder is tracking measures such as heartrate variability while collaborators are collecting blood and advanced neuroimaging, among other techniques, to predict which children will develop persistent symptoms.
At UF, Snyder is part of an interdisciplinary team that specializes in concussion assessment and treatment, and she directs the Holistic Interventions for Brain Health and Recovery Clinic, with techniques including psychotherapy, mindfulness meditation and biofeedback.
She plans to expand a UF interdisciplinary concussion database to track outcomes of various interventions, to better understand the efficacy of current treatments and design future trials to test new approaches, such as biofeedback and vagal nerve stimulation. She also plans to develop a standardized, self-paced online program.
Snyder says her personal experiences with concussion and with long COVID — a new area of study for her — drive her on a daily basis.
“Everybody’s journey is very different, but I empathize with every patient coming in and going through recovery,” she said. “What I relate to most is the search for answers, and we are finally coming to a place where we have more answers.”
It’s still ambiguous in many areas, she said. “But to give some type of empowerment or control back to patients in their recovery — that’s where I get the most satisfaction.”
Belief in a cure
By Candice Adams-Mitchell
Candice Adams-Mitchell, SLP.D., is a clinical associate professor of speech, language, and hearing sciences who studies health care disparities in people with sickle cell disease. She is also the director of the bachelor’s degree in health science, communication sciences and disorders program. She was recently awarded the National Institutes of Health’s Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Consortium to Advance Health Equity and Researcher Diversity program’s Clinicians Leading Ingenuity in AI Quality Fellowship.
Dr. Candice Adams-Mitchell’s research interests are directly inspired by the experiences of her son, Creid, who has sickle cell disease.
Photo by Nathaniel Guidry
My research interest in sickle cell disease began after my son, Creid, was born with the condition. As a mom to a child with sickle cell disease, I experienced firsthand how gaps in continuity of care and research were directly linked to an increased risk of adverse health outcomes. Despite years of training to become a “master clinician,” I found myself unable to find the answers when my own child needed help the most. This feeling of helplessness drove me to turn my pain into a purpose. Instead of asking, “Why hasn’t anyone researched this?” I began to wonder, “Why haven’t I?”
This shift in mindset became even more pronounced during one of our many visits to the pediatric infusion clinic. I vividly remember witnessing another patient with sickle cell disease coughing while eating, only to see that same patient hospitalized with pneumonia just days later. As a speech pathologist, I couldn’t help but ask myself, “Was that patient aspirating?” This pivotal moment ignited my passion for research, leading me to explore the neurological aspects of sickle cell disease — focusing on cognitive and swallowing deficits — and to understand how these issues intersect with the broader spectrum of the disease.
As time has passed, my research has naturally evolved, shaped by Creid’s experiences, the health care challenges we encounter, and my growing understanding of what is most urgent in sickle cell care. Currently, my focus is on acute chest syndrome and pneumonia. Why are some people with sickle cell more susceptible to these complications? And why, in 2024, are individuals with sickle cell disease still dying from these conditions? My goal is to broaden the understanding that sickle cell is not just a pain disorder; it affects every aspect of a person’s life. To address this, we need better education for health care providers and increased research funding to develop a comprehensive model of care.
Being Creid’s mom has profoundly impacted my approach to research, making me a more attentive listener and more focused on patient-oriented care. My commitment now is to engage more deeply in community in-reach, ensuring that I’m not only contributing to research but also helping patients live well. When I present my research or advocate on behalf of the sickle cell community, I always credit the patients and ensure that the knowledge we gain is shared with them. Sometimes, I share my personal connection by mentioning that my son has sickle cell, which opens up meaningful conversations with adult patients. I often ask them, “How can I be a better mom to my child?” or “What do you wish someone had done for you at his age?”
Ironically, we named Creid before we knew about his diagnosis. His name means “belief,” and that’s exactly what we hold onto. We have to believe there will be a cure. But even if there isn’t, I want him to know that his life is full of meaning and value. His journey has a purpose, even if it’s just to inspire his mama to research sickle cell disease.
Creid Mitchell, 7, loves golf and Legos. “He is the happiest and most resilient kid,” said his mom.
People behind the research numbers
Katherine Buzzanca-Fried and François Fried celebrate Buzzanca-Fried’s August Ph.D. graduation. A cybersecurity professional, Fried has continued his association with Brooks as a research consultant for the spinal cord injury program of Emily Fox, Ph.D., P.T., and as a sponsored athlete on the Brooks basketball team. “We’re just a Brooks-UF couple at this point,” Buzzanca-Fried said.
Photo by Tanya Consaul
By Katherine Buzzanca-Fried
Katherine Buzzanca-Fried, Ph.D., graduated with her doctoral degree in rehabilitation science in summer 2024. She’s now building a research program in concussion science with a psychologically-informed, interdisciplinary approach as a postdoctoral researcher with the Brooks-PHHP Research Collaboration.
“I was starting my second year of undergrad at UF when my boyfriend at the time (now my husband), François, was injured in a motocross race. Motocross was his hobby growing up in France, something he’d done since he was 7 years old and this was going to be his last race. He was brought straight to UF Health Jacksonville for surgery and then to Brooks Rehabilitation in Jacksonville for his inpatient rehabilitation. He has a spinal cord injury at about the T 7 level, and it’s currently considered a complete injury because of no sensory function or motor control below his injury level.
François had such a good inpatient experience as well as outpatient recovery with Brooks. I saw the multidisciplinary care that he was receiving, but also the really cool research that he was able to be involved in as a spinal cord injury patient.
I had always been interested in brain-behavior relationships and here I was as a student who was just starting to figure out that I may want to get a Ph.D. With the encouragement of my mentor, Dr. Jason Beneciuk, I decided on the Ph.D. in rehabilitation science with a concentration in neuromuscular plasticity and a specific interest in concussion rehabilitation. Our nervous systems are considered plastic, and that means that they’re adaptable and have the ability to regenerate. Those principles can be applied to spinal cord injuries or improving walking function, but they can also be used to improve cognitive functioning, psychological wellness and creating more functional connections after concussions.
The fact that I live with someone now who has a physical disability helps me remember that there’s always a patient behind the numbers that you’re looking at in research. Although I don’t work with patients as a clinician, I know that every patient who fills out a survey and everyone’s data I analyze, it isn’t just data, there’s an actual patient this data is attached to and they’re dealing with real concussion symptoms that may be affecting their ability to complete daily activities of living.”
