Presenter
Jenny Burns
Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research
Shirley Ryan AbilityLab
Jenny Burns received her undergraduate degree in psychology from McGill University in Montreal. After college, she worked as an emergency medical technician in preparation for a career as a physician’s assistant or nurse practitioner. Because she missed doing research, Ms. Burns became a research assistant in the Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. She worked to recruit patients into the National Spinal Cord Injury Database through the Midwest Regional Spinal Cord Injury Care System (MRSCICS) at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab—one of 18 such systems in the United States. She also conducted 5-year follow-up interviews with enrollees. To keep in touch with enrollees between their follow-up interviews, Ms. Burns produces MRSCICS Matters, a biannual newsletter that reaches about 1,000 enrollees. Now a project manager in CROR, Ms. Burns works on several NIDILRR-funded projects, including MRSCICS, the Rehabilitation Measures Database, and projects funded by the Craig H. Nielsen Foundation that focus on psychosocial factors affecting spinal cord injury outcomes.