Nicholas LaRocca

Dr. Nicholas LaRocca is a clinical psychologist who has worked in the field of MS for over 30 years. He was an associate professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and New York Medical College before joining the Society in 1997. He currently serves as Vice President of Health Care Delivery and Policy Research in the Advocacy, Services, and Research Department of the Society. In this role he has responsibility for Society funding of research to address the symptoms of MS, rehabilitation, epidemiology, psychosocial aspects of MS as well as health policy studies. He has a longstanding interest in cognition and rehabilitation and co-authored a book on cognitive changes in MS that was published in 2006. During the last several years he has worked with the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the establishment of a national registry for MS, Parkinson’s Disease, and other neurological conditions. In 2011 he was appointed to the National Advisory Board on Medical Rehabilitation Research at the National Institutes of Health and was chairperson of that advisory board in 2013-2014. Dr. LaRocca is also co-director of the Multiple Sclerosis Outcome Assessments Consortium, a Society initiative to develop and qualify a new measure of disability for use in clinical trials of MS therapies.