Dr. Briggs is an assistant professor of population and quantitative health sciences in the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University. He has undergraduate degrees in biology and chemistry, a master’s degree in biostatistics and doctoral training in genetic epidemiology. Dr. Briggs is a former National Multiple Sclerosis Society postdoctoral fellow. His research has focused on multiple sclerosis (MS), another complex neurodegenerative disease, for which he investigated genetic and environmental aspects of disease risk and progression, interactions between genes and environmental factors, the impact of modifiable factors on health outcomes and ways to improve how the trajectory of the disease can be characterized. Dr. Briggs has experience applying various algorithms to complex datasets and conducting large-scale, genome-wide analyses of complex phenotypes. These experiences are directly transferrable to research in Parkinson’s disease — a disorder with which Dr. Briggs has a personal connection.