Course Name: Therapeutic Yoga: Body Awareness, Posture and Movement

Sarah Bates, MA, OTR/L, ERYT

Professional Highlights

Registered Occupational Therapist

Registered Yoga Teacher

Certified Reiki II Practitioner

Private Practice in Integrative Occupational Therapy in Venice, California

Sarah Bates is a graduate of the Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco, and has been living with fibromyalgia since 1986. Sarah teaches therapeutic yoga to people with fibromyalgia and other chronic pain conditions in Santa Monica, Calif. For the past five years, she has given presentations at the annual American Academy of Pain Management conference. She has produced a guided meditation CD, “To Light a Candle: Meditations for Difficult Times,” and a DVD, “Yoga for Healing.” Ms. Bates has been an adjunct instructor at Yo San University of Oriental Medicine.

Course Name: Pharmacological Management

Robert M. Bennett, MD, FRCP, FACP, MACR

Professional Highlights

Professor of Medicine and Nursing Research

Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Oregon

Dr. Bennett’s research interests are fibromyalgia and other pain disorders, along with DNA receptor issues, biomarkers, and pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic treatment for pain. He was Chairman of the Division of Arthritis and Rheumatic Diseases at OHSU for 24 years (1976-2000). In addition to his research work and appointments at OHSU, he has been an invited speaker at numerous international conferences and expert panels, and was a visiting professor at the University of Copenhagen. Dr. Bennett is a past president of the International Myopain Society and the American College of Rheumatology Western Region. He is a member of the American Association of Immunologists, the American College of Physicians (Fellow), the Royal College of Physicians of London (Fellow), the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP). He has published over 400 articles and book chapters. In 2007, in recognition of his contributions to rheumatology research and education, he was made a Master of the American College of Rheumatology.

Born and educated in England, Dr. Bennett did his basic rheumatology training with Professor Eric Bywaters at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School in London. He has lived in the USA since 1972 and did additional training with Professor Daniel McCarty at the University of Chicago.

Course Name: Overview of Fibromyalgia

Daniel J. Clauw, MD

Professional Highlights

Associate Dean for Clinical and Translational Research,

Professor of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology

Director, Michigan Institute for Health and Clinical Research

Director, Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Dr. Clauw’s research interests are in fibromyalgia and central pain syndromes, stress, mechanisms of pain processing, and the treatment of chronic pain. He has research support in the form of grants from institutions including the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. In addition to his research work and appointments at the University of Michigan, Dr. Clauw has served as a Visiting Professor at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. In 2006, he was awarded the Nana Svartz Lecture of the Swedish Rheumatological Society at the Swedish Society of Medicine Congress in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Dr. Clauw received his MD with honors from the University of Michigan Medical School. He completed a residency in Internal Medicine and a fellowship in Rheumatology at Georgetown University Medical Center, where he was later appointed an Assistant Professor of Medicine and an Instructor of Medicine. He is a member of the American Medical Association, the American College of Rheumatology, the American College of Physicians, the American Federation for Medical Research, and the International Association for the Study of Pain.

Dr. Clauw is a co-editor of Arthritis and Rheumatism, and he is on the editorial boards of Arthritis Care and Research, Journal of Musculoskeletal Pain, and Current Rheumatology Reviews.

Course Name: Biofeedback Training

Afton L. Hassett, PsyD

Professional Highlights

Professor of Medicine and Nursing Research

Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Oregon

Until recently, Dr. Hassett was a licensed clinical psychologist and an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the

Division of Rheumatology at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. In 2000 she received her doctorate in clinical psychology from San Diego’s Alliant International University, where she received the F. Joseph McGuigan Research Award. Currently she conducts research related to psychological risk and protective factors in rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, and Lyme disease, as well as testing innovative adjunctive interventions including heart rate variability biofeedback and Group Positive Psychotherapy. Her work also includes developing positive outcome measures for constructs such as ”independence” and ”observer-reported well-being” for use in clinical trials. Dr. Hassett has conducted Grand Rounds and Meet the Professors sessions for the American College of Rheumatology, teaching physicians more effective approaches to the treatment of some of the most challenging patients. The National Institute of Mental Health, the Arthritis Foundation, and Bristol-Myers Squibb all fund her current research.

Course Name: Nutrition

Archana J. McEligot, PhD

Professional Highlights

Assistant Adjunct Professor (voluntary), University of California, Irvine

Associate Professor, Department of Health Science, California State University, Fullerton

Dr. McEligot’s research interests include nutritional epidemiology and breast cancer risk factors. A current NIH-funded study is for Diet, DNA Repair Genes, and Breast Cancer Risk; she is assessing the influence of the interaction between dietary intakes and genetic polymorphisms in DNA repair genes on breast cancer risk. Her dissertation at the University of California, San Diego and San Diego State University (joint doctorate in Public Health and Epidemiology) received the Tobacco-Related Dissertation Project Dissertation Grant. Dr. McEligot has been a Member of the Epidemiology Research Unit, California Cancer Registry, and the Executive Committee of the Cancer Genetics Network Center at UC Irvine. She currently is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and the American Society for Nutritional Sciences (ASN).

Course Name: Exercise Training

Daniel S. Rooks, ScD

Professional Highlights

Translational Medicine, Musculoskeletal Diseases

Novartis Institutes of BioMedical Research, Inc.

Until recently, Dr. Rooks has been a clinical investigator in the Division of Rheumatology and the Center for the Study of Nutrition Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Rooks recently joined the Translational Medicine group in the Novartis Institute for BioMedical Research. He is a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine. In the past, Dr. Rooks has served as an advisor for the Special Olympics’ Healthy Athletes, and an external grant reviewer for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

For the past 15 years, his research has centered on the application of exercise, patient education, and behavior change interventions in chronic disease self-management as adjuvant treatment to standard health care. Since 1998, Dr. Rooks has studied the effects of different types of exercise, including strength training, and education interventions for people with fibromyalgia with the aim of establishing a generalized exercise program.

Dr. Rooks received his master’s degree in Exercise Physiology from the University of Michigan and a Doctor of Science degree in Applied Anatomy and Physiology from Boston University. He was an NIH postdoctoral fellow in the Orthopedic Biomechanics Laboratory at Beth Israel Hospital and Harvard Medical School where he looked at the effect of exercise on the health and function of older adults. He was the recipient of an Arthritis Investigator Award from the Arthritis Foundation and a Patient-Centered Research Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health, where his research focused on developing and evaluating exercise programs to maximize function and improve health in people with arthritis and fibromyalgia.

Course Name: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

David A. Williams, PhD

Professional Highlights

Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology

Director, Research Development, Michigan Institute for Health and Clinical Research

Associate Director, Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center

University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan

Dr. Williams is an Associate Professor of Medicine/Psychiatry/and Psychology at the University of Michigan. He serves as the Associate Director of the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center and as Director of Research Development within the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research (MICHR), also at the University of Michigan. Dr. Williams received his Ph.D. from the Ohio State University and completed a 2-year post-doctoral fellowship in Behavioral Medicine and Pain Management at Duke University Medical Center. He has held faculty appointments at both Duke and at Georgetown University Medical Center where he served as the Division Chief of Behavioral Medicine for 10 years.

In addition to being an experienced clinician, he has over 70 scholarly publications in the areas of chronic illness management, outcomes measurement and instrument development, mechanisms in chronic pain, and research methodologies. He has worked both as a collaborator and as the principal investigator on NIH, Veteran's Administration, and Dept. of Defense-sponsored clinical treatment trials, mechanistic research, and data coordination centers.

Dr. Williams is currently on the Board of Directors of the American Pain Society, and on the Executive Committee of the Health Psychology division of the American Psychological Association. He serves on the editorial boards of The Journal of Pain, The Clinical Journal of Pain, and the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Course Name: Comprehensive Assessment of FM & Overlapping Conditions

Patrick B. Wood, MD

Professional Highlights

Chief Medical Officer, Angler Biomedical Technologies, LLC

Angler Biomedical Technologies, LLC, is a private company whose primary focus is improving the understanding and treatment of fibromyalgia. Dr. Wood’s current research activities involve brain metabolite abnormalities in fibromyalgia. Dr. Wood formerly directed the Fibromyalgia Research Program and Fibromyalgia Care Clinic at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, where he served as assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine with adjunct appointments in the Departments of Anesthesiology and Psychiatry. Dr. Wood served as a Visiting Scholar at the world-renowned Centre for Research on Pain at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. He is a member of the American Academy of Family Practice, the American Pain Society, the Angelman Syndrome Foundation, the International Association for the Study of Pain, the International Myopain Society, the Organization of Human Brain Mapping, and the Society for Neuroscience.

Dr. Wood attended medical school and completed residency training in Family Medicine at LSU Health Science Center in Shreveport, Louisiana. Following his residency, he undertook an additional research fellowship in Psychopharmacology and Neuroimaging within the LSU Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Wood has also served as Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Research on Pain at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where he evaluated the reactivity mesolimbic dopamine in response to noxious stimulation in patients with fibromyalgia. As a result of his innovative research, he has been recognized twice by the National Institutes of Health.