Dr. Thrasher received a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Alberta in 1994, and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Alberta in 2002. He then received a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Toronto funded by the Canadian Paraplegic Association. In 2006, he joined the faculty at the University of Houston as an Assistant Professor. He was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2012. He became the Associate Chair of the Department of Health and Human Performance in 2013.
Dr. Thrasher is an expert on rehabilitation engineering and technologies for treating severe neurological disorders such as Parkinson's Disease, spinal cord injury, and stroke. He has published 35 articles in a broad range of peer-reviewed medical and engineering journals. Dr. Thrasher is a recognized leader in the field of Functional Electrical Stimulation technologies for rehabilitation of Spinal Cord Injury and other neurological disorders. He has designed and implemented several novel devices for neurorehabilitation. He has applied these devices to over 200 patients in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies.
In recent years, Dr. Thrasher has conducted several studies on the automaticity of gait and balance in Parkinson's Disease, revealing that standard pharmaceutical approaches to treating the disease are insufficient in improving dual-tasking. He has studied the use of transcranial direct current stimulation as a potential treatment for the gait symptoms of Parkinson's Disease. His future work will look at the potential use of transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation, which is a non-invasive treatment approach that has shown promise in recent pilot studies.
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