Gary A. Walco, PhD is a Professor of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine (adjunct Pediatrics and Psychiatry) at the University of Washington School of Medicine and the Director of Pain Medicine at Seattle Children’s Hospital. He has conducted multiple studies on pain treatment and assessment in children. Dr. Walco was the founder of the American Pain Society’s first special interest group, focusing on Pain in Infants, Children, and Adolescents, and was the 2003 recipient of the Jeffrey Lawson Award for Advocacy in Children’s Pain Relief as well as the 2019 Distinguished Service Award.
Dr. Walco is a past chair of the Pain Committee for the Children’s Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance and served on the core committee for Palliative Care in the Children’s Oncology Group. He was elected president of the American Pain Society in 2018 and is a past president of the special interest group on Pain in Childhood of the International Association for the Study of Pain. Dr. Walco currently sits on editorial boards for the Journal of Pain and the Clinical Journal of Pain (past associate editor), and did so formerly for Pain, the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, and the Journal of Pediatric Psychology. Dr. Walco has consulted on analgesic trials for children and served on the FDA’s Analgesic and Anesthetic Drug Products Advisory Committee. Dr. Walco is the founder and chair of the Pediatric Research Network for Pain, an international collaborative to conduct pain research in children.