Upcoming Recce

Val Jones, MD

Dr. Jones received her medical degree at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and completed her residency in physical medicine and rehabilitation in 2006. She has been a medical director and traveling physician for the past 17 years, with licenses in 21 states, an academic appointment at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine, and extensive experience with stroke, brain injury, and spinal cord injury recovery. She most recently was the founding medical director at HCA Florida JFK Hospital. She plans to join the faculty of the University of Missouri Rusk PM&R Department in September, 2024.

She is an amateur athlete, whose childhood love of downhill skiing led her to attend Swiss Challenge (organized by the American School in Switzerland) where she had her first exposure to the alps in 1985. She much later planned to join the Canadian Ski Patrol, but suffered a severe knee injury during a race in Austria and switched her focus to hiking and strength training. As a “Master’s athlete” she now enjoys low-risk outdoor activities, culinary delicacies, and helping others achieve their physical and health goals. Dr. Jones believes that this recce will be the first step in unifying her rehab career with her passion for alpine activities.

Margaret Jones, MD

Margaret Jones, MD, MPH, joined Craig Hospital CNS Medical Group in January 2022 after practicing as an attending physician at Vanderbilt Stallworth Rehabilitation Hospital in Nashville, TN. She was also an assistant professor for the Department of PM&R at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Jones is boarded in physical medicine and rehabilitation, spinal cord injury medicine and brain injury medicine.

Dr. Jones attended medical school at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, and then completed her residency at the University of Washington, serving as Chief Resident during her final year. She pursued a fellowship at the Kessler Institute/New Jersey Medical School. She then returned to Seattle to provide care for patients with SCI at Harborview Medical Center. Dr. Jones moved to Tennessee to help in the building of the relatively new department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R) at Vanderbilt in 2019.

When not at work, she enjoys a number of outside activities including hiking and camping through road trips to the beach and mountains. Many of her outside activities include her two labradoodles, Penny and Copper.

Robert Bereolos

Robert James Bereolos was born in Hammond, Indiana on the 29th of August, 1966.  Rob has been paralyzed from a motorcycle accident for over 32 years.  Because he feels he has been given a “second chance” at life, he lives life to the fullest and has become an advocate for others with disabilities.  He has been a peer mentor for newly injured spinal cord-injured individuals and is a founding member of the Spinal Cord Injury Support Group of South Florida.   He has been serving as the Broward Chapter Treasurer for two years and also served as the President and Vice President prior to that.  Rob volunteered at Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale for 6 years working with children with special needs and has served on the leadership team for the South Florida Fishing with Friends program, which allows individuals with disabilities of all types to “catch their first fish.”  He has been a volunteer with Joni and Friends Disabilities Ministries as a Youth Leader at the yearly Family Retreats.

He loves to lead worship while playing the guitar, fellowship with friends, read and study the Bible, play chess, Scuba dive, water ski, sail, and attend concerts and sporting events.  He is also an active hand-cycling enthusiast with Achilles International and Shifting Gears United where he competes in Marathons and Half-marathons throughout the nation.  He has competed in the ING New York Marathon as well as the Marine Corps Marathon, Miami, Ft Lauderdale and Palm Beach Marathon which qualified him for the Boston Marathon in 2015.

Phil Hashem

Phil Hashem was born in Minsk, Belarus and is half Belarusian, half Lebanese. After the eruption of Chernobyl a year after his birth his family moved to Toledo, Ohio where he spent 19 years of his life. At age 16 he was paralyzed in an auto accident from the neck down C5-C7 but managed to recover enough function as a walking quadriplegic.

After his injury as a young boy his curiosity led him to Philosophy. Learning the skills of critical thinking, as an autodidact he was able to teach himself music, stock trading and sales. Each of these areas had a significant impact and set the foundation for what was to come.

In 2020 after the covid pandemic forced the world outdoors, Phil found himself in love with nature and adventure. Having moved from Ohio to Phoenix, Arizona in 2005, he finally began to explore his new home state during the pandemic. Going out weekly up north near the Mogollon Rim, one day he found himself stuck in the woods, 1 mile from a main road. He had to use his wheelchair as a walker to slowly walk out 6 hours to find reception. That day forever changed his life.

Rather than being overcome, he conquered fear and equipped himself with better tools. This is when he discovered the adaptive mountain bike and found his mission in life. His first year with the bike Phil traveled to 20 states and 6 countries on sheer passion and the renewed access to extraordinary experiences. Phil now is the Director of sales, strategy and community engagement at Lasher Sport, the leading manufacturer of adaptive mountain bikes and the company that built the bike that changed his life. He is also known as QuadOnAbike in the adaptive community. He is in the process of incorporating this identity into an organization that provides valuable services to grow the sport of adaptive mountain biking. Phil now travels the United States, speaking, putting on events, races, consulting for adaptive sports programs, running bike clinics and building the adaptive mountain biking community.

Alexandra Van Horn

Alexandra Van Horn was born and raised in Minnesota. At 22 years old she was involved in an auto accident and was paralyzed from the T9 vertebrae. At the time she was living in Los Angeles with a burgeoning career as a make up artist for the Hollywood stars.

After her spinal cord injury Alex had to take some time to find herself again. She moved back home to Minnesota. With the caring and loving support of her family and being the auntie to three beautiful girls, she was able to find inspiration and adventure in the beautiful outdoors.

She rekindled her strength by participating in adaptive sports with her local adaptive sports programs. She fell in love with adaptive scuba diving and found a passion for deep-sea adventures. This spark led her to cross paths with an amazing adaptive scuba diving group, Free-daptive divers, where she currently serves as a board member and marketing director.

Furthermore, Alex found her passion in adaptive mountain biking. In 2021 she became the recipient of a Kelly Brush Foundation grant and was able to purchase her own adaptive mountain bike, which gave her access to a whole new world of adventures and experiences.

Today Alex combines her two passions of diving and adaptive mountain biking with helping others find their passions and embark on newfound adventures. She is enthusiastic about building the adaptive mountain biking community in Minnesota while finding time for new adventures, living life to the fullest.

Sarah is a physical therapist and assistive technology professional (ATP) who spent the majority of her career working at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, GA. During her tenure, she served as a primary therapist within the spinal cord injury program, provided mentorship across the spinal cord injury and complex rehabilitation programs, and worked within the seating and mobility clinic. As a physical therapist, Sarah has trained under industry-leading professionals, and as an ATP, Sarah has experience working for a national complex rehabilitation technology supplier. Most recently, Sarah brought her clinical experience, knowledge of wheelchairs and seating, and passion for education to the Sunrise Medical Clinical Education Team. Outside of work, Sarah has been an active participant in adaptive sports and recreation throughout her career; she presently serves as the coach of the Northeast Passage Wheelchair Rugby Team, assistant coach for the United States Wheelchair Rugby Association (USWRA) Low Point Team, and treasurer of the USWRA.

Jennifer Tucker is an occupational therapist currently working at Atrium Health Navicent Rehabilitation Center in Macon, GA. She is passionate about quality of life (QOL) research related to post traumatic injury with permanent loss of physical function.  She is an endurance athlete and mother of 2 boys.“I am extremely passionate about learning what makes a positive QOL, and what we can do as therapists to ensure our treatments are specifically tailored to ensure we promote the highest possibility of achieving high-rated QOL upon discharge home from rehab.”

Julia Stern is a Speech-Language Pathologist with a Master’s Degree from Florida Atlantic University and a Bachelor’s Degree from Florida State University. She currently works at HCA Florida JFK Hospital, conducting therapy focused on dysphagia, speech, language, and cognitive-linguistic rehabilitation. Julia believes that the best treatment sessions combine functional tasks with evidence-based practice. In addition to her career, Julia focuses heavily on her other two passions – community service and hiking! While completing her undergraduate degree, Julia went on a service trip to Guatemala where she was able to administer ~100 hearing aids to under-served individuals over the course of four days. In Julia’s free time, you can find her outdoors hiking with her fiancé who happens to be her high school sweetheart.

For twenty-seven years I’ve guided small groups of hikers in the Alps on hundreds of trails through alpine meadows and glacier carved valleys and high up where there is almost no vegetation. Through the years there has been one constant with the groups something that must happen for me to consider it a successful trip – our guests have a fun time! I enjoy hiking with those who are just getting into hiking and enjoy doing 15 mile hikes with 4000 feet up and down. I enjoy helping people get to places that takes effort but is amazingly rewarding. I enjoy seeing the friendships made during the trip and the look on faces when they see the views. Each group is unique as is each hiker something that keeps us having fun year after year. I’m also thankful for all the people i’ve met over two decades. Hiking and traveling are what I enjoy and sharing it with others makes it even better!

Cristiano grew up in a family of mountain guides with a long tradition of mountaineering. He comes from a little mountain town nestled somewhere in the Italian Alps close to the French border. The Alps are his natural environment, having hiked, mountaineered, skied and climbed since a tender age, and whenever he spends a few weeks away from the familiarity of his peaks, he begins to long for them. He is convinced that mountains are more than just elevations of the earth’s surface, and that hiking is more than a sport. He firmly believes that the combination of majestic mountain scenery and the act of hiking bring a sense of uplifting and self-awareness, contributing to personal growth.He is very knowledgeable about the Western Alps, particularly about the lesser known regions of Piedmont and the Aosta Valley. In recent years he has started exploring new mountain ranges across Europe, namely the High Tatras in Poland and the Transylvanian Alps in Romania, where he went through some memorable experiences, such as encountering brown bears or being caught in a snowstorm in the middle of the summer.He enjoys the company of others, and is always happy to share some of his personal stories and knowledge of the Alps.