Dr. Trevor A. Lentz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Duke University. He also holds positions at the Duke Clinical Research Institute, the Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy, and a secondary faculty appointment in the Duke Department of Population Health Sciences.

Dr. Lentz's research focuses on the psychological and behavioral factors that affect outcomes like pain, disability, healthcare costs, and opioid use in patients with musculoskeletal pain and those undergoing orthopedic surgery. He has developed screening tools such as the OSPRO Yellow Flag and SPARE Assessment Tools to identify psychological distress and resilience in patients.

Dr. Lentz is also involved in integrating psychological assessments into clinical practice to help clinicians address the complex nature of pain. He mentors students and professionals in physical therapy and health services research and has published extensively on outcomes and implementation of non-pharmacologic pain care.

Ericka N. Merriwether, PT, DPT, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Physical Therapy and Medicine at New York University and is the Director of the Inclusive and Translational Research in Pain Laboratory (I-TRIP). Her research focuses on identifying targets for culturally responsive, multimodal interventions for chronic widespread pain in adults with higher BMIs. As steps toward achieving that goal, Dr. Merriwether's current projects examine how biological, psychological, and socioecological drivers of chronic widespread musculoskeletal pain respond to surgical weight loss. This highly interdisciplinary work employs a variety of clinical and translational research methodologies. 

Dr. Merriwether earned her B.S. in Kinesiology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, her D.P.T. from the Mayo Clinic School of Health Sciences, and her Ph.D. in Movement Science from Washington University in St. Louis. She completed postdoctoral training in pain neuroscience at the University of Iowa with the mentorship of Dr. Kathleen Sluka.

Dr. Merriwether’s research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health and the Foundation for Physical Therapy, and she has published extensively. She holds national and international leadership roles, including serving as a member of the Board of Directors for the United States Association for the Study of Pain (USASP) and as the Co-Chair of the Sex, Gender, and Racial Differences in Pain Special Interest Group in the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP). Dr. Merriwether also has editorial roles as a Board member for several pain journals and as an Associate Editor for a joint special issue on pain disparities and inequities. She is an executive board member of the Anti-racism CoaliTION in Pain Research (ACTION-PR). ACTION – PR is a multidisciplinary coalition of scientists, clinicians, and NIH policymakers that advocates for methodologies and scientific narratives that promote global equity, inclusion, belonging, and access in pain research praxis and clinical management. 

Dr. Merriwether currently lives in New York City, is a proud Chicago native from the Austin Community, and is the mother of two amazing children.