Award Winners Recognized for Contributions to Clinical Care and Research

The Brain Injury Association of America (BIAA) has announced that Lance Trexler, Ph.D., FACRM, has been named as the recipient of the 2020 Sheldon Berrol, M.D., Clinical Service Award and Angela Colantonio, Ph.D., OT Reg. (Ont.), FCAHS, FACRM, will receive the William Fields Caveness Award.

The Sheldon Berrol, M.D., Clinical Service Award is presented each year to an individual who, through a long service career, has made outstanding contributions to improving the quality of care, professional training, and education in the field of brain injury. This year’s winner is Lance Trexler, Ph.D., FACRM. Dr. Trexler is the executive director, Brain Injury Rehabilitation Research and Program Development at the Rehabilitation Hospital of Indiana, adjunct clinical assistant professor of PM&R at the Indiana University School of Medicine, adjunct assistant professor of speech and hearing sciences at Indiana University, and adjunct assistant professor of psychological sciences at Purdue University.

“I am most grateful for this award. It is easy to feel like one never does enough to help those with brain injury, but this recognition does help me feel like the teams with which I have had the pleasure to work have done something,” shared Dr. Trexler. “I have had the pleasure of working with so many cleaver and committed professionals – way too many to name, but I trust that all of you know that I am thinking of you. I have also learned so much from the tens of thousands of people with brain injury and their families that I have treated over the last forty years. And to you, please know that I have tried to develop and research or disseminate new rehabilitation strategies based on what you have taught me that you needed. My sincere appreciation to all of you as well. I am also profoundly grateful for the love and support my wife Laura has shared over the years, as well from my four children, Christina, Elliot, Andrea, and Samuel.”

Dr. Trexler was designated as a Fellow of the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine (ACRM) in 2013, and he received the Distinguished Member Award in 2015 and the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019 from ACRM. In addition to serving as a clinician in rehabilitation neuropsychology since 1979, his overriding commitment as a neuropsychologist has been to develop, implement, and disseminate rehabilitation and social interventions for individuals with acquired brain injury. Dr. Trexler is an author on more than fifty peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. 

The William Fields Caveness Award is presented in recognition of an individual who, through research on both a national and international level, has made outstanding contributions to bettering the lives of people with brain injury. This year’s award winner, Angela Colantonio, Ph.D., OT Reg. (Ont.), FCAHS, FACRM, is the director of the University of Toronto’s Rehabilitation Sciences Institute and a professor in the department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. She is a senior research scientist at the KITE/Toronto Rehabilitation Institute-University Health Network, is affiliated with the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, and is an adjunct scientist at ICES.

Dr. Colantonio leads an internationally recognized research program on acquired brain injury, which focuses on women, sex and gender, return-to-work, violence, and underserved populations such as persons experiencing homelessness, intimate partner violence, and involvement with the justice system. Dr. Colantonio has led numerous cohort studies examining long-term outcomes after TBI by sex, including large, population-based studies documenting both traumatic and non-traumatic brain injury across the continuum of care. 

Dr. Colantonio has written more than 270 publications and has presented to more than 500 audiences. She is a former board member of Brain Injury Canada and ACRM.  She currently serves as research chair on the Pink Concussions Professional Advisory Board. She is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, ACRM, Ontario Brain Injury Association, and the American College of Epidemiology. She received the 2015 Robert L. Moody Prize for Distinguished Initiatives in Brain Injury Research and Rehabilitation and has received awards from Brain Injury Canada and ACRM. She is most grateful for the contributions of so many dedicated trainees, colleagues, staff, clinicians, funders, and other stakeholders that made this work possible. In particular, she is thankful for the generous mentorship and support provided by persons affected by brain injury throughout her research program.

The awards will be presented virtually at the ACRM annual conference in October.