Monica A. Perez, PT, PhD, is an internationally recognized leader in spinal cord injury (SCI) research. Dr. Perez is a Professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and the Scientific Chair of the Arms and Hands Lab at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. Dr. Perez received a BS in physical therapy from Catholic University in Chile and a Ph.D. in physical therapy from the University of Miami. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, where she studied transmission in human spinal cord pathways during different motor behaviors. She then completed a second postdoctoral fellowship in the Human Cortical Physiology and Stroke Neurorehabilitation Section at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Perez is leading the Evaluating the Utility of Spasticity and Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) in Predicting Neurologic and Motor Functional Recovery after SCI collaborative module.