Board of Directors
PRESIDENT![]() CSC Cogent Steps, LLC
Coatesville, PA
Donna Merkel has 30 years of experience in physical therapy, with most of her career devoted to sports medicine in the young athlete. Additionally, she specializes in the management of concussions, female athletes, endurance athletes and artistic athletes. She is a board-certified sports clinical specialist and a certified strength and conditioning specialist since 2002. In addition to working as full-time clinician, Donna is an adjunct lecturer for both Arcadia and Widener University’s physical therapy programs. Donna has been teaching sideline management of the injured athlete since 2009 and has been an instructor for Cogentsteps, LLC continuing education company since 2015. Her professional achievements include both journal and textbook publications in pediatric and adolescent sports medicine, sideline management of acute injuries, and prevention of eating disorders in ice skaters. Donna has been a PRiSM member since 2015 and has served on the Board of Directors as Director at large, and on the Education, Nominating, Scientific Programing and Awards committees. |
PAST PRESIDENT![]() Rady Children's Hospital
San Diego, CA Dr Eric Edmonds is faculty at Rady Children's Hospital San Diego serving as the Director of Orthopedic Research and Director for the 360 Sports medicine program. He is also a Professor of Clinical Orthopedic Surgery with the University of California San Diego. His clinical interests include youth sports medicine and musculoskeletal trauma. He has over 120 peer-reviewed publications and has written more than 20 book chapters. He actively participates in many multi-center research teams, including: the ROCK (osteochondritis dissecans), FACTS (clavicle fractures), MEMO (medial epicondyle fractures), PLUTO (pediatric ACL), and JUPITER (patella instability). He has received multiple research awards including the Provost Undergraduate Award for Research and Excellence from the Johns Hopkins University, the distinguished St Giles Young Investigator, and the Arthur H. Huene Memorial Awards from the Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America. He has served as an At-large Member on the PRISM (Pediatric Research in Sports Medicine society) Board of Directors, and previously Chaired the Elbow RIG and the UCL RIG. Outside of medicine, he enjoys spending time with his wife and two kids traveling the country and the world. When not on a 7000 mile road trip visiting the National Parks and Monuments, he and the family enjoy backpacking, jeeping, rockhounding, digging for fossils, Boogie boarding, birding and learning about native edible plants. Of course, a good nap is always welcome. |
PRESIDENT ELECT![]() The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Philadelphia, PA Dr. Master is Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine where she is a member of the Academy of Master Clinicians with over 30 years of experience in clinical pediatrics. Dr. Master is board-certified in pediatrics, sports medicine, and brain injury medicine, caring for over five hundred children with concussion annually in her clinical practice. She is the founding co-director of the Minds Matter Concussion Program, which provides clinical care, community outreach and education, and conducts cutting-edge translational clinical research in youth concussion which has influenced both national and international guidelines for concussion care in children and adolescents. Her particular research has focused on concussion-related vision disorders and identifying objective physiological biomarkers of concussion, in order to target active interventions to improve outcomes for youth with concussion. She has been a member of PRISM and attending annual meetings since 2015 and has been active in the Concussion Research Interest Group. She has served on the Scientific Presentation Award Committee and is now completing her second term on the Board of Directors. She is passionate about the unique professional space that PRISM occupies in the field of sports medicine and the tremendous impact that PRISM members are able to have by conducting ground-breaking research that optimizes outcomes in youth athletes. FAAP, CAQSM, FACSM, FAMSSM |
VICE PRESIDENT![]() Boston Children's Hospital
Boston, MA Benton Heyworth, MD is an Associate Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at Harvard Medical School and an Attending Orthopedic Surgeon of the Department of Orthopedics and the Division of Sports Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital. He is the Director of Orthopedic Sports Medicine and the
Associate Program Director for the Orthopedic Sports Medicine Fellowship in the Division of Sports Medicine. His education consisted of an BA degree in History at Princeton University, followed by medical school at Columbia University’s College of Physicians & Surgeons, where he completed a Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellowship and public health courses at the Columbia/Mailman School of Public Health. His Orthopaedic Surgery residency was at the Hospital for Special Surgery, after which he completed two subspecialty fellowships: one in Orthopaedic Sports Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and the other in Pediatric Orthopaedic Surgery at Boston Children’s Hospital. With PRISM, he has served as the first Co-Chair of the Research Committee and was on the Board of Directors from 2016-2018. He was the Program Chair for the second PRISM Annual Meeting in 2016. He previously served as the Team Leader/Chair of Meniscus Research Interest Group and remains a member of the Meniscus and Bone Stress Injury RIGs. He lives in Wellesley, Massachusetts with his wife, Kelley, who is a freelance health and parenting writer and editor, and their three boys, Charlie (18), Matthew (16), and Thomas (13), and dog, Buster (7). He enjoys coaching his kids in hockey and lacrosse, and hiking, golfing, surfing, jogging, skiing, and being outdoors with his family. |
SECRETARY![]() James MacDonald, MD MPH Nationwide Children's Hospital/Ohio State University
Columbus, OH James MacDonald M.D., M.P.H. has been a physician in the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Division of Sports Medicine for thirteen years and is currently a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Pediatrics at Ohio State University College of Medicine. His current research interests include salivary miRNAs as biomarkers of concussion, and pediatric exercise and inactivity, most especially the safety and efficacy of resistance training in youngsters. He has been Deputy Editor of one of his specialty's premier journals, the Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, for ten years. He completed the Ohio State Faculty Leadership Institute program in 2021 – 22 and was awarded the Satiani award. Other awards include the Traveling Fellowship of the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (AMSSM) in 2015 and the Global Research Exchange Fellowship of the AMSSM in 2022; for both he traveled to South Africa. He has completed the American Academy of Family Physician’s (AAFP) Leading Physician Wellness certificate program and is currently training with the AAFP as a well-being educator. He is a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine (FACSM), the AAFP (FAAFP), and the Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine, Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland (FSEM IRE). He is currently the Team Physician for Bexley (OH) High School and was previously Team Physician for the University of California, Santa Cruz and Ohio Dominican University. |
TREASURER![]() Henry B. Ellis, Jr., MD Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children
Dallas, TX Henry Bone Ellis, Jr., M.D., is an Associate Professor at the UT Southwestern Medical School. He has been instrumental in the development and growth of the Scottish Rite for Children Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Center in Frisco, Texas where he treats children, teens and young adults with sport-related injuries, hip conditions and other injuries and condition affecting the joints. As the Medical Director of Clinical Research, Ellis provides administrative leadership for the organization as well as leading many projects focused on pediatric sports medicine. Ellis shares his leadership outside of the institution in a variety of settings. In 2023-24, Ellis will serve as the Texas Orthopedic Association (TOA) President where he served on the Board of Councilors 2020-22. He participated in the 2018-2019 American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS) Leadership Fellows Program and now serves on the AAOS Evidence-Based, Quality, and Value committee. He is a founding member of the Pediatric Research and Sports Medicine (PRiSM) Society and actively contributes in multiple forums. He created, secured funding for, and continues to lead the Sports Cohort Outcomes Registry (SCORE), a large multi-center pediatric arthroscopy complications registry. He contributes to many multi-center projects including the Research in Osteochondritis Dissecans of the Knee (ROCK) group. Ellis received his medical degree from the UT Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas. He completed both his internship in general surgery and residency in orthopaedic surgery at the UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, Texas. There, he received the W. Brandon Carrell Distinguished Physician Award and was elected Chief Resident. He completed fellowships in pediatric orthopedics at the Hospital for Sick Children at the University of Toronto and sports medicine at the Steadman Philippon Research Institute in Vail, Colorado. |
SECRETARY-ELECT![]() Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children
Dallas, TX Dr. Sophia Ulman is the Division Director of Movement Science at Scottish Rite for Children, leading a motion capture laboratory that focuses on biomechanical risk factors of sports medicine patients and healthy athletes to answer clinical questions related to rehabilitation, recovery, and injury prevention. She also holds two faculty appointments at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and in the School of Health Professions. Her research focuses on lower extremity injuries and conditions, injury risk reduction strategies, as well as risk factors associated with sport specialization and overtraining. Within the Pediatric Research in Sports Medicine (PRiSM) Society, she holds numerous leadership positions, including Chair of the Injury Prevention Research Interest Group and Co-Chair of the Scientific Planning Committee. Previously, Dr. Ulman has led the Sports Specialization Research Interest Group and the Diversity Committee |
TREASURER- ELECT![]() Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, OH Justin Mistovich is the Division Director of Pediatric Orthopaedic Surgery at the MetroHealth System, the Fellowship Program Director of Pediatric Orthopaedics at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, and is an Associate Professor at Case Western Reserve University. He has been deeply involved in PRiSM since 2015, serving previously as Chair of the Tibial Spine Research Interest Group and as a Director at Large on the Board. He has published over 100 peer reviewed articles and book chapters. Justin attributes a significant portion of his clinical and academic success to the multidisciplinary peer relationships, research, and service opportunities he has cultivated through PRiSM. He cares deeply about PRiSM, its mission, its financial future, and the opportunities we have to best serve our membership through care financial stewardship and long term strategic planning. Justin lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio with Keili, his wife, a pediatrician and 2024 colorectal cancer survivor, Madeleine, a 7th grader who plays tennis, sails, and wants to either own a business, become a lawyer, or do “some sort of pediatric surgery” when she grows up, and Frank, a 6-year-old vizsla who is very facile with canine sports such as tennis ball fetching. |
DIRECTOR AT LARGE (2023-2026)![]() Children's Orthopaedic Center, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, USC
Los Angeles, CA Bianca Edison, MD, MS is an attending physician in the Jackie and Gene Autry Orthopedic Center, and is assistant clinical professor of Orthopedics at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. Dr. Edison’s clinical interests and experience include orthopedic conditions affecting young children and athletes, such as dance injuries, sports-related concussion, injury prevention, and biomechanics.
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DIRECTOR AT LARGE (2024-2026)![]() University of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN
Dr. Tompkins is an orthopedic sports medicine surgeon and Associate Professor in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at the University of Minnesota and a faculty for the orthopedic sports medicine fellowship at TRIA Orthopedic Center. Clinical interests for Dr. Tompkins are in complex reconstructive and joint preservation surgery in the knee and shoulder. In addition to an adult practice, he is the co-director of the pediatric sports medicine program at Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare. Areas of research focus are in patellofemoral surgery, chondral and meniscal pathology, complex ligamentous reconstruction, and rehabilitation. |
DIRECTOR AT LARGE (2024-2026)![]() Lasell University |
DIRECTOR AT LARGE (2025-2027)![]() Washington University |
DIRECTOR AT LARGE (2025-2027)![]() Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children |
DIRECTOR AT LARGE (2025-2027)![]() US Olympic & Paralympics
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