Holly Dunn is an Acute Care Nurse Practitioner in the Department of Neurology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Her practice specializes in outpatient Stroke and General Neurology. She is an active member of the American Society of Nurse Practitioners, American Association of Nurse Practitioners, Association for Psychological Science, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

Prior to her current position, Holly worked as a nurse practitioner in outpatient pain management, and has nursing experience in several other clinical areas. She earned her Master of Science in Nursing from Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, completing the Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Accelerated Program, and fulfilling preceptorships in Neurosurgery ICU, Surgical ICU, the Neurosurgery Spinal Team, and the Neurosurgery Brain Tumor Team. She received her BS in Psychology from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Blacksburg, VA). 

Dr. Logan Dumitrescu is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, a faculty member of the Vanderbilt Memory & Alzheimer’s Center and the Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, and the co-leader of the Computational Neurogenomics Team with Dr. Timothy Hohman. As a computational geneticist focused on the characterization of common genetic variants that influence common diseases and phenotypes, Dr. Dumitrescu also serves as a collaborator with the Vanderbilt Memory and Aging Project and an investigator in the Vanderbilt Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. Dr. Dumitrescu earned a B.S. in Biological Sciences from Vanderbilt University and continued her training at Vanderbilt, where she earned an M.S. in Applied Statistics and a Ph.D. in Human Genetics. Dr. Dumitrescu joined the VUMC faculty in 2018.

Faculty Spotlight

Dr. Joy Derwenskus is an Associate Professor of Neurology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and head of the General Neurology Division since joining the faculty in 2019. Her primary clinical interests are in general neurology and headache, and she regularly administers botox for the treatment of migraines. She manages patients at both the One Hundred Oaks Clinic and The Vanderbilt Clinic, while also managing patients with Multiple Sclerosis and other related conditions at the Vanderbilt MS Center at Green Hills. Dr. Derwenskus has a strong interest in women’s neurology, especially as it relates to headaches and MS.

Dr. Derwenskus is a member of the American Academy of Neurology. She also works closely with the National MS Society and served as the chairperson of the Healthcare Provider Council for the society’s Mid-South chapter. She regularly engages in clinical trials, both grant- and industry-sponsored. Her publications include peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and invited review articles. Throughout her career, Dr. Derwenskus has presented and lectured on MS regionally and nationally. She engages in teaching activities for medical students, residents, and fellows in both clinical and classroom environments. She is certified in neurology by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.

Prior to her appointment at Vanderbilt, Dr. Derwenskus worked as a private practice neurologist in Tennessee before transitioning back to academic medicine. She was on faculty at Northwestern University for ten years as part of the comprehensive MS program. In that time, she served as the Multiple Sclerosis Fellowship Director and Acting Director of the Women’s Neurology Center.

Dr. Derwenskus received her fellowship training in Multiple Sclerosis at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Corinne Goldsmith Dickinson Center for Multiple Sclerosis in New York. In 2005, she earned a Master of Science in clinical research, also from Mount Sinai. Prior to her fellowship, she completed her Neurology residency at Case Western Reserve University following a preliminary internship year at Northwestern University. She earned her DO from the University of Osteopathic Medicine and Health Sciences (Des Moines University). She completed her undergraduate degree at Hope College (Holland, MI), and earned a Master of Arts in physiology from Ball State University (Muncie, IN).

A Midwestern native, Dr. Derwenskus stays busy with her twins and enjoys traveling and experiencing the world.

Dr. Davis specializes in the treatment of movement disorders and has been a member of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology since 1990. In addition to maintaining his clinical research activities and teaching responsibilities, he is currently director of the Division of Movement Disorders, Medical Director of the Vanderbilt Parkinson’s Foundation Center of Excellence, an attending physician at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and a staff neurologist at the Nashville Veterans Administration Hospital.

He has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including Phi Beta Kappa, the Sandoz award, and the Vanderbilt Neurology Resident Teaching Award in 2004 and 2011. He is a frequently invited speaker and has served on numerous review boards and NIH study sections.

Dr. Davis earned a B.A. in Chemistry in 1981 from the College of Wooster. He attended the University of Mississippi School of Medicine in Jackson, Mississippi where he earned a M.D. in 1985. He completed an internship at University of Mississippi followed by residency at Vanderbilt University where he served as chief resident in Neurology in 1981. He then completed a two-year post-doctoral fellowship in Neuropharmacology at the National Institute of Neurological Disease and Stroke in Bethesda, Maryland before returning to Vanderbilt to join the faculty in the Department of Neurology in 1991.

Ryan Darby is an assistant professor of neurology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He currently sees patients as the director of the Frontotemporal Dementia Clinic in the Department of Neurology at VUMC.

He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University in psychology and neuroscience, and his medical degree from Vanderbilt University. He trained in neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital as part of the Partners Neurology/Harvard Medical School program. He then received the Sidney R. Baer, Jr. Research Fellowship in Clinical Neurosciences at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He simultaneously completed a clinical fellowship in behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, and McLean Psychiatric Hospital in Boston. 

Dr. Crudele joined the faculty of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in 2019 as Assistant Professor of Neurology, specializing in epilepsy. In addition to her inpatient and outpatient care of patients with epilepsy, Dr. Crudele is active in the area of fellow education and participates in frequent teaching conferences and bedside teaching with trainees. She is the Associate Program Director for the Epilepsy Fellowship. She has multiple teaching roles throughout the Vanderbilt Medical School.

Dr. Crudele earned a BA in History in 2008 from Williams College in Williamstown, MA. She attended Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals in Philadelphia, PA where she earned MD in 2013. She remained in Philadelphia where she completed an internship followed by Neurology residency at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. She served as chief resident in her final year of residency. She then completed two years of dedicated epilepsy fellowship training at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Cleveland, OH. Her second year of training was focused on the surgical care of medically intractable epilepsy during which time she also served as chief fellow. 

Dr. Cooper is the Chief of Neurology at the Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center. He is an Associate Professor of Neurology in the Neuro-Oncology Division. Dr. Cooper earned his medical degree from the University of Alabama School of Medicine. During medical training, he received a Howard Hughes Medical Student Research Training Fellowship to study molecular genetics in the laboratory of Dr. Jeffrey C. Hall at Brandeis University. Dr. Cooper completed residency and fellowship training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Cooper received a Howard Hughes Postdoctoral Research Fellowship for Physicians to study Hedgehog signaling in the laboratory of Dr. Philip A. Beachy in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Dr. Ciaran Michael Considine, PhD, ABPP-CN is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and a board certified clinical neuropsychologist within the associated Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan and graduate degree from the University of Windsor. Subsequently, he completed internship residency at the Detroit VA Medical Center, and then concurrently finished his training as a postdoctoral resident fellow at the Milwaukee VA Medical center and postdoctoral visiting fellow at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Dr. Patricia Commiskey is a faculty member in the Department of Neurology at Vanderbilt University. Prior to coming to Vanderbilt in 2016, she served as adjunct faculty at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. She attended Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans, Louisiana and earned a DrPH in Community Health Sciences in 2011. She earned a MA in Legal and Ethical Studies from the University of Baltimore in Baltimore, Maryland in 1996, and a BA in Communications from the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama in 1991.

Dr. Charles Clarke is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, a position he has held since 2013. As a general neurologist, he evaluates and treats a wide array of neurological conditions primarily in the outpatient clinical setting in Franklin, TN. Dr. Clarke has presented a number of lectures at local and national conferences, primarily focused on concussions and headaches. He is a member of the American Academy of Neurology, Tennessee Medical Association, Nashville Academy of Medicine, and the Tennessee Academy of Neurology, the latter of which he served as president from 2012-2018.

Dr. Clarke completed his Neurology residency and subsequent Neuromuscular Medicine Fellowship at Vanderbilt. He earned his MD from The Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health, and his BS (summa cum laude) from West Virginia University.