Gregory J. O’Shanick, MD, will be the 2026 Luminary of the Year Honoree

The Brain Injury Association of America (BIAA) is pleased to announce that the 2026 Luminary of the Year honoree will be Gregory J. O’Shanick, MD. Dr. O’Shanick is the co-founder and Medical Director of the Center for Neurorehabilitation Services in Richmond, Va., and is the Medical Director-Emeritus of BIAA.

For nearly five decades, Dr. O’Shanick has served the brain injury community through medical care and academic research. A thoughtful leader, Dr. O’Shanick is driven by his desire to not only improve medical outcomes, but the patient’s quality of life.

Following positions at the Hauser Clinic in Houston and the Medical College of Virginia, Dr. O’Shanick and his wife, Alison, a speech language pathologist, established the Center for Neurorehabilitation Services in 1991, providing outpatient brain injury medicine evaluations and neurorehabilitation to more than 7,500 individuals globally.

Dr. O’Shanick has not only served the brain injury community through medical care and academic research but has volunteered with numerous professional organizations. For 16 years, he was BIAA’s inaugural National Medical Director and currently holds the title of Medical Director-Emeritus. A founding Board Governor of the Academy for Certified Brain Injury Specialists, he sat on the inaugural examination committee for the sub-specialty of brain injury medicine overseen by the American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.

In addition to publishing three books, 15 academic textbook chapters, and more than 90 peer-reviewed publications, Dr. O’Shanick has been featured as a subject matter expert on PBS, NPR, CNN, ESPN, and in the New York Times. Additionally, his work with the CDC established the first federal diagnostic criteria for mild TBI in 2003.

The 2026 National Luminary of the Year event will take place on Friday, November 13, in the Schuyler Ballroom at the Hamilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. For more information, contact Kelly Garman at kgarman@biausa.org or Paula Eichholz at peichholz@biausa.org, or visit our National Luminary of the Year webpage.