Dr. Rusty Gore

Dr. Rusty Gore serves as the Chief Medical Officer of the Avalon Action Alliance where he is responsible for strategic leadership, clinical program development, quality improvement, clinical collaboration and partnerships, and alliance research and innovation initiatives.

Rusty is the Founding Director of the Complex Concussion Clinic at the Shepherd Center and serves as Medical Director for Shepherd's SHARE Military Initiative. Clinically he is a neurologist specialized in traumatic brain injury and the vestibular, oculomotor, and balance systems with specific interest in the assessment and rehabilitation of athletes, service members, and veterans with protracted recovery after mild TBI.

Rusty directs Shepherd Center’s mTBI Brain Health and Recovery Laboratory and he is an adjunct Associate Professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He leads an interdisciplinary research team developing methods to assess, quantify, and treat brain injury for military and sports applications. His research has been supported by numerous foundations, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Defense. He serves as a concussion/TBI consultant and advisor for national athletics organizations, college and professional sports teams, the Veterans Administration, and the Department of Defense.  

Before starting his career in neurology, Rusty served for 8 years as a flight surgeon in the US Air Force. As a military physician, he cared for soldiers at home and overseas, experiencing first-hand the immediate trauma and devastating aftermath of combat injuries. He flew operationally as a flight surgeon including supporting F15E operations and combat air evacuation. He also served as a physician-scientist at the Air Force Research Laboratory where his research focused on brain injury, aviation fatigue, and the development of noninvasive technology to assess pilot performance in advanced aviation systems.

Rusty and his wife, Jane, live in Atlanta and have 2 children and 1 labradoodle.