Diana D. Cardenas, M.D., M.H.A., is the new chair of the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine. Cardenas joined the Miller School from the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle, where she served as chief of service in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine. Cardenas attended the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and completed her internship and residency in physical medicine and rehabilitation at the University of Washington Affiliated Hospitals in 1976. Cardenas is one of only a handful of members in her field elected to the prestigious Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences.

Cardenas’s primary areas of clinical research include the treatment of neuropathic pain and management of the neurogenic bladder in patients with spinal cord injury. She will be the coordinating investigator for a multi-center study in the United States and Canada on the use of hydrophilic-coated catheters in patients with spinal cord injury. Cardenas will also focus on building the school’s three-year-old residency program.