Our Researchers
Casa Colina's research team conducts basic, translational, and clinical
research, striving to rapidly transform scientific advances into improved
patient care and outcomes.
Casa Colina Research Institute Team
Emily Rosario, PhD – Director, Research Institute

Dr. Emily Rosario is a neuroscientist and current Director of the Research
Institute at Casa Colina Hospital and Centers for Healthcare. She has
more than 15 years of research experience in rehabilitation medicine,
age-related disease and dysfunction, neurologic disorders, and endocrine
dysfunction at both the basic science and clinical level. She has nearly
40 peer-reviewed publications in the areas of neuroscience, neurologic
disorders, and rehabilitation including several publications in high-impact
journals such as the
Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA),
Journal of Neuroscience,
Neurology, and
Frontiers in Neurendocrinology. Dr. Rosario has received several awards and grants funding her research
from the Alzheimer’s Association, the UniHealth Foundation, and
the National Institutes of Health (NIH), specifically, the Eye Institute,
National Institute of Aging, and National Institute of Neurological Disorders
and Stroke. She has been invited to present her work both nationally and
internationally at over 50 conferences, including the International Conference
for Alzheimer’s Disease, World Congress on Traumatic Brain Injury,
and Society for Neuroscience.
Caroline Schnakers, PhD – Assistant Director, Research Institute

Since the beginning of her career, Dr. Caroline Schnakers focused her research
on severely brain-injured patients recovering from coma and, more particularly,
on the detection of conscious cognitive activity using behavioral and
electrophysiological techniques. She has shown the difficulty to detect
signs of consciousness (40% of error rate) and the difference of sensitivity
between existing coma scales to detect these signs. In parallel, she has
developed electrophysiological paradigms for detecting conscious cognitive
activity without the intervention of motor and verbal functions (using
mental tasks) in severely brain-injured patients who are unable to actively
interact with their surroundings. Finally, she has created and validated
the first scale allowing pain assessment in patients with disorders of
consciousness. In 2010, she received the Young Investigator Award from
the International Brain Injury Association in recognition of her work.
Dr. Schnakers has published more than 70 articles (H-index: 38), and she
is the editor of
Coma and Disorders of Consciousness (Springer-Verlag, Paris, 2011; Springer-Verlag, London, 2012).
Collaborators
As an innovator in rehabilitative care, Casa Colina is committed to clinical
research that leads to improved outcomes for patients recovering from
stroke, brain injury, and other catastrophic conditions. The Casa Colina
Research Institute collaborates with renowned institutions like UCLA,
Caltech, USC, Harvard, Princeton, Western University of Health Sciences,
and University of La Verne. The institute has received funding from the
National Institutes of Health, UniHealth Foundation, Disability Communications
Fund, and many more.