Kimberly Sibille, Ph.D., M.A.

Employment and Training

Dr. Sibille is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation and Anesthesiology, Division of Pain Medicine in the College of Medicine at the University of Florida. She is the Director of the Pain TRAIL, Translational Research in Assessment and Intervention Lab and an affiliate faculty member in the University of Florida Pain Research & Intervention Center of Excellence, Institute on Aging, and School of Advanced Dental Sciences (SADS). She is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and a Certified Exercise Specialist by the American College of Sports Medicine.

The first twenty years of Dr. Sibille’s professional career began as a health and fitness educator and then as a licensed mental health counselor focused on promoting improved health outcomes across a wide range of settings and a broad range of populations from children to older adults. As a supervisor of an outreach program for homeless adults and families, a manager of a psycho-oncology program in a large healthcare system, and a behavioral health faculty member in a family medicine residency program, Dr. Sibille was continually observing healthcare gaps resulting from the psychosocial and biomedical research chasm and limited availability of non-pharmacological evidence-based treatments. Inspired by her clinical experiences, she pursued and obtained a doctoral degree in Psychology/Clinical Psychology with concentrations in Neuropsychology and Health Psychology from Fielding Graduate University in 2008. In 2010, Dr. Sibille completed two years of post-doctoral training in Clinical/Translational Pain Research through the University of Florida Comprehensive Center for Pain Research.

Passionate about educating the next generation of clinical researchers and healthcare professionals, Dr. Sibille has worked with a broad range of mentees including undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral trainees, medical and dental students, medical and dental residents and fellows, and early-stage investigators. Many of the undergraduate students have successfully pursued professional training in dentistry, physical therapy, medicine, neuroscience, physician assistance, optometry, and nursing.

Honors and Awards

2023 University of Florida College of Medicine Exemplary Teacher Award

2017-2020 College of Medicine’s University of Florida Term Professorship

2017 University of Florida’s Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi Faculty Member

2017 Excellence Award for Assistant Professors, University of Florida

2011-2017 National Institutes of Health Loan Repayment Award

2011-2013 University of Florida, Claude D. Pepper Junior Scholar

2011-2013 University of Florida, Clinical/Translational Science Institute KL2 Scholar

Inspired by experiences working in healthcare, research from my lab focuses on bridging the biomedical, behavioral, and psychosocial chasm in chronic pain. Chronic pain is a major public health issue with significant functional and financial consequences affecting individuals, the community, and the healthcare system. Even more concerning, the consequences of chronic pain extend beyond disability and decreased quality of life to include an increased incidence of morbidity and mortality. Research investigation and clinical management of chronic pain are difficult due to significant individual variability and the lack of biological indices with which to evaluate risk and buffering factors, progression, and treatment response.

Chronic pain is a whole person experience. For the past 15 years, we have been investigating allostatic load, an indicator of whole person individual health status. Allostatic load can be assessed by measures such as brain function and structure including structural brain age, a stress system clinical biomarker composite, and telomere length. We have shown a consistent pattern of findings across measures of allostatic load and chronic pain stage, a measure of chronic pain severity. Importantly, we have also demonstrated that socioenvironmental and modifiable behavioral risk and buffering factors can further burden or bolster those relationships respectively.

Our scientific pursuits are specific to investigating the biological interface of chronic pain, factors contributing to individual differences and health disparities, and resilience. Our overarching goals are to:

1) Improve the characterization of chronic pain to enhance understanding and quantify the biological interface.

2) Identify risk and buffering factors that either exacerbate or help bolster against the health-related burdens of chronic pain.

3) Disentangle and elucidate the factors contributing to individual differences and health disparities in chronic pain.

4) Identify biological measures with clinical utility to assess individual health status and monitor response to pain treatments.

5) Investigate non-invasive strategies to prevent, reduce, or ameliorate chronic pain and enhance functioning.

6) Involve, integrate, and mentor future researchers and healthcare providers, promoting an improved translation of research to patient care.

Long-term research intentions are to increase understanding of the biological interface of chronic pain and associated factors; identify factors contributing to individual differences and health disparities; discern biological measures with clinical applicability for assessment and treatment monitoring; and to distinguish strategies and interventions with broad applicability to prevent, reduce or ameliorate chronic pain and enhance functioning for all.

Please visit our website: https://paintrail.pmr.med.ufl.edu/

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