Executive Faculty

Dr. Andrew Cornwell is the Associate Director of the Case-Coulter Translational Research Partnership (CCTRP) in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University. In this role, he works directly with the Program's awardees to ensure the projects are moving efficiently toward patient care, and also interacts on the Program's behalf with strategic partners in industry, finance, and management. Andy is also the director of the newly formed VA-TEAM Center, to bring translational and entrepreneurial mentorship and education to VA investigators across the country.

Alongside his role with the CCTRP, Andy serves as the Director for Industrial and Strategic Collaborations at the Cleveland FES Center, where he works to find homes for neurotechnology intellectual property coming out of the FES Center, and also maintains strong industrial ties to ensure strategic alignment between clinical needs, market realities, and research priorities. He is the founder of a company using holographic visualizations of complex medical devices for physician engagement and training.

Andy earned a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University, and performed brain recording research for several years before becoming more involved in ways to accelerate and facilitate academic technology transfer.

Professor Drummond has been active in the development of educational programs and the application of pedagogy to facilitate student competency in moving medical research and technology into practice. This academic focus aligns with successful initiatives by the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the field of Translational Research. Professor Drummond co-created the highly successful CWRU version of the Stanford BioDesign program that now over a decade later engages students from medicine, management, and engineering in unique interdisciplinary teams. This experience is leveraged in his teaching role for the NeuroDesign Fellowship program.

Professor Drummond’s research interests center on the practical application of simulation and healthcare information technology to support clinical decision-making, including advances in understanding wearable analytics for human performance assessment. Current projects involve clinical studies to obtain primary data-based for human performance modeling and simulation studies. More recently, Professor Drummond’s research has expanded with three new project initiatives involving machine learning and natural language processing: (a) the use of conversational agent technology to improve the activities of daily living for polypharmacy patients in isolated living situations (b) voice disorder detection, and (c) delirium detection and assessment.

January 2015, Professor Drummond re-joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering as Professor and Assistant Chair, having spent a year as a faculty member in the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing. Professor Drummond’s strong focus on translational research has led to numerous clinical collaborations and secondary appointments in the CWRU School of Medicine, University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, and the Cleveland Clinic.

Stephen D. Fening is the Director of the Case-Coulter Translational Research Partnership (CCTRP) in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University. In this role, Steve drives innovation and translational research to move technologies to the market, where they can improve patient care. He received undergraduate and masters degrees in mechanical engineering, an interdisciplinary Ph.D. degree in biomedical engineering, and a postdoctoral fellowship in orthopaedic biomechanics. His career goal is to make a broad and substantial improvements to patient care through translational research and commercialization.

Dr. Fening is a co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Apto Orthopaedics Corporation, an early stage company focusing on non-invasive methods to adjust orthopaedic implants. He also has served as on the board of directors for several for- and not-for-profits.

Prior to joining Case Western Reserve University, Dr. Fening was the Director of Orthopaedic Devices at the Austen BioInnovation Institute in Akron and the Director of Orthopaedic Research for Summa Health Systems. Prior to that, he was the Director of Research for Cleveland Clinic Sports Health. His areas of research focus included the biomechanics of sports injuries to the knee, shoulder and head and in innovation more broadly across orthopaedic devices. In the last 10 years, he has received over $8.7M in grant funding, published more than 100 peer reviewed publications and presentation, and has several patents. He was a 2017 recipient of the Crain's Cleveland Business Forty Under 40, and is a member of several national and international professional societies.

In 2013, after two years in practice at the regional level I trauma hospital, MetroHealth Medical Center, Dr. Sean Nagel joined the Center for Neurological Restoration at the Cleveland Clinic where he now focuses on the neurosurgical management of movement disorders, pain, cranial vault reconstruction, spasticity and hydrocephalus in the adult.

In this role, Nagel sets the strategic direction for the IFR, establishing partnerships with key stakeholders within industry, foundations, and donors. The IFR works to establish favorable regulatory and reimbursement policies and practices for neuromodulation systems intended to address the needs of orphan markets.

These devices include deep brain stimulator systems, epidural spinal cord stimulators, intrathecal programmable pumps and ventricular shunts. Nagel's clinical practice has influenced his clinical research activities. Nagel is studying how implantable neural devices and variations in surgical techniques influence outcomes. In their practice, they have established a model of care designed to improve and optimize outcomes through comprehensive patient evaluation. For example, adult patients with chronic hydrocephalus see a movement disorder neurologist, a neuropsychologist and frequently an expert in neurocognitive impairment.

This multidisciplinary approach has enabled them to tailor and update the care each patient receives as they age. Nagel also currently serves as the Cleveland Clinic site PI for the Adult Hydrocephalus Clinical Research Network. Nagel oversees the post-market analysis of a directional deep brain stimulation lead at the Cleveland Clinic and will be the PI for the forthcoming Placebo-Controlled Effectiveness in INPH Shunting (PENS) Trial. Nagel is also involved in a collaborative effort to test the effect of intradural spinal cord stimulation in spasticity with the University of Iowa in addition to my role as a co-investigator in several other clinical trials based at the Cleveland Clinic main campus.

Todd Schwarzinger is the Chief Commercialization Officer of the Veale Institute for Entrepreneurship. He is also a healthcare venture partner with Refinery Ventures. He has more than 16 years of investment banking, investing and consulting experience with healthcare and life-sciences companies including as the Managing Director for Life Sciences and Healthcare at Silicon Valley Bank and Executive Director, Healthcare Investment Banking at Morgan Stanley. Schwarzinger holds a BA from Miami University and MBA from Duke University.

Jon Sakai is the director of commercialization at Cionic. Cionic builds wearable solutions that provide comprehensive analysis and precise augmentation to enhance human performance and improve quality of life. Our devices push the limits of integrated hardware, software, and algorithms, emphasizing functional wearability and personalized intelligence. We are a small teams of clinicians, scientists, engineers and designers, committed to making dramatic changes in the treatment of neuromuscular disease.

Dr. Tyler Reimschisel is the Founding Associate Provost for Interprofessional Education, Research and Collaborative Practice at Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic. In this role he coordinates interprofessional and interdisciplinary education and collaborative practice initiatives for graduate and undergraduate students, faculty, and staff at Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic. Many of these initiatives include teams from the university working on community-based projects in order to learn teamwork skills, civic engagement, cultural humility and service to others. He is the co-leader of the Achieving Social Impact Pathway of the Case Western Reserve University’s Think Big strategic plan. He is a certified team coach, and he provides team coaching to teams working in clinical, academic, and community settings.

Dr. Reimschisel is board-certified in Neurology with Special Qualifications in Child Neurology, Clinical Biochemical Genetics, and Clinical Genetics. His primary clinical interests include the evaluation and management of children with inborn metabolic diseases and other genetic conditions that cause neurodevelopmental disabilities, such as global developmental delay, intellectual disability, autism, epilepsy, and cerebral palsy.

Prior to beginning his position as associate provost in September 2019, he was the vice chair for Education and director of the Division of Developmental Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He also held several education leadership roles on interprofessional grants and programs, including director of the Vanderbilt Consortium LEND (Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities) Program through the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, director of the Nashville Interprofessional Collaborative, and director of the Tennessee Interprofessional Practice and Education Consortium. He received a Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation Faculty Scholars Award in 2016 to build an interprofessional working-learning health system in a community-based clinic in Nashville.

He and his wife, Terisa, live in Solon, OH, and they have five children.