Devoted Service Appreciated

Tania Jope

It is with very mixed emotions that we said au revoir and happy retirement to Tania Jope earlier this year. As all regular readers of the RIRC newsletter know, Tania moved with Os from the University of Virginia to help found theRIRC in 1999. She began as the Chief Administrator of theRIRC, but quickly took on the more critical role of Director of Community Development, coordinating all of the fundraising activities of the RIRC. It was in this role that so many of you came to know and appreciate Tania. Tania and her husband Nick and their two children Ryan and Sophia moved to Phoenix in July to start the next chapter in their lives, in part to take advantage of very unique school opportunities for the kids. We will all truly miss Tania’s commitment and hard work to fulfill RIRC’s vision of abetter world for people living with spinal cord injury.

We are fortunate that Krista Barajas who currently serves as Chief Administrator for the RIRC will takeover Tania’s responsibilities as the principal contact for donations and volunteer support for the RIRC. Krista’s contact information is: Krista Barajas – e-mail: k.barajas@uci.edu – phone: 949-824-0210

Karla Banos McHale

With mixed emotions, RIRC bids adieu to Karla Banos McHale. Karla and her husband, Dr. PeterThomas McHale, and family have moved to the University of Utah, where Peter has been appointed asSenior Analyst/Programmer in the Department of Human Genetics.

Karla was one of the first employees when RIRC was founded in 1999. Karla received her undergraduate degree at UCI in 1999, and before Os even arrived, wrote him and asked to work in the lab. This was a long-standing goal: she wrote in her high school yearbook that she wanted to do research on spinal cord injury.

Karla helped launch the research in the RIRC, initially working with Denise Inman, who had moved withOs to UCI and was completing her dissertation for a PhD in Neuroscience from UVA. Karla initially assisted with tissue dissection and histology, and then with spinal cord injury surgeries.

Karla continued at RIRC for several years, but then took a position at Cal. State University LA where she worked with Ray DeLeon on spinal cord surgeries in young rats. Then, in 2008, she took a position atUCSD with Mark Tuszynski and Paul Lu, where she learned embryonic surgery to isolate tissue to prepare neural stem cells. While at UCSD, Karla met and married her husband.

Peter accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at UCI in 2009 in the Department of Cell andDevelopmental Biology in the Center of ComplexBiological Systems. Karla had full time responsibilities as a mom with 3 children, but returned to RIRC part time to work evenings and weekends. From 2015-2018, Karla continued to make major contributions to the research activity of the center.Best of luck Karla and family!