A Lifelong Luminary

By Lauren Moore, Marketing and Communications Manager, BIAA

Marilyn Price Spivack has made advocating for brain injury survivors her life’s work.

Her efforts began in 1975, when her teenage daughter, Debby, sustained a severe traumatic brain injury. As Marilyn and her family managed the difficult days following Debby’s injury, she soon realized that her daughter’s needs – and the needs of countless others in a similar situation – could only be met by a nationwide organization dedicated to providing support to people with brain injury, with an ultimate goal of helping these individuals regain their quality of life.

Five years later, Marilyn and her husband Marty invited 17 family members and professionals who treated Debby to their home to discuss how to bring about meaningful change for individuals with brain injury. That pivotal meeting was the seed that blossomed into the National Head Injury Foundation – now the Brain Injury Association of America (BIAA).

Under Marilyn and Marty’s leadership, BIAA spearheaded many important initiatives that advanced the conversation around brain injury, including generating awareness about and sharing the National Head and Spinal Cord Injury Survey, one of the first sets of statistics compiled related to brain injury; co-creation of the first standards of acute care rehabilitation for persons with brain injury; establishment of the Federal Interagency Head Injury Task Force; and countless advocacy efforts at the federal level that resulted in millions of dollars of funding for brain injury research. In the early days of BIAA, the first brain injury phone line (now the National Brain Injury Information Center) was established in the Spivack home to help provide a larger number of people access to the information and resources they had gathered. To this day, NBIIC provides support, information, and resources for individuals and families that experience the lifechanging effects of brain injury.

By the time Marilyn passed the torch in 1990, her efforts had resulted in BIAA’s widespread recognition at a federal level – within the administration, in Congress, and among many federal agencies that have been integral to our mission and vision. In the 44 years since that fateful meeting in Marilyn’s home, thousands of professionals, family members, and brain injury survivors have come together to share resources and advocate for changes that positively influence outcomes for this community.

In honor of the incredible contributions Marilyn has made to the brain injury community, BIAA named her the inaugural Luminary of the Year, celebrating her lifetime of efforts and achievements at the Luminary of the Year celebration on November 15, 2024, in Washington, D.C.