William Barsan is Professor and former Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School. His academic focus is translational research in stroke and neurological emergencies. He was part of the team that designed the pivotal NINDS tPA trial as well as the NIH Stroke Scale. Since 2006, he has been the Principal Investigator of the Clinical Coordinating Center for the Neurological Emergencies Treatment Trials (NETT) network. This is a large cooperative award from the NIH encompassing 22 academic Hubs and multiple “spoke” sites across the country to conduct clinical trials in neurological emergencies, including stroke, epilepsy, traumatic brain injuries and spinal cord injuries. Dr. Barsan was also co-Principal Investigator on the ADAPT-IT (Accelerating Drug and Device Evaluation through Innovative Clinical Trial Design) cooperative award funded by the NIH Common Fund and FDA for advances in regulatory science. The ADAPT-IT project has been instrumental in promoting the use of adaptive clinical trial designs in confirmatory phase clinical trials and evaluating the advantages and barriers to adaptive design strategies.

Dr. Barsan is the recipient of numerous awards, including Hal Jayne Academic Excellence Award from SAEM, the Peter Rosen Academic Leadership Award from AAEM, the ACEP Award for Outstanding Contributions in Research and the SAEM Leadership Award. Dr. Barsan has served as president for several academic organizations, including the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, the American Board of Emergency Medicine and the Association of Academic Chairs of Emergency Medicine. He was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine in 2003.