Message From the Chair

Dear BI-ISIG Colleagues,

I am honored to be writing my first letter to you as Chair of the BI-ISIG. This interdisciplinary group of researchers, clinicians, students and consumers is truly unique in our field, as the BI-ISIG provides a platform from which individuals from diverse professional backgrounds can work together to improve brain injury rehabilitation. It is through this organization that I met some of my closest collaborators and friends, and I am dedicated to preserving the special qualities of this group that have made the BI-ISIG a professional home base for so many of our members.

At the BI-ISIG Business Meeting in Dallas, we were very happy to congratulate and welcome several new members to the BI-ISIG Executive Committee. The Executive Committee for 2018-2020 includes Lillian Flores Stevens (Secretary), Michael Fraas (Treasurer), Monique Pappadis (Communications Officer), Shannon Juengst (Early Career Officer), Juliet Haarbauer-Krupa (Program Officer), Dawn Neumann (Awards Officer), Tom Bergquist (Chair-Elect), and Jenny Bogner (Past Chair). We are already hard at work mapping out our goals for the next two years. Here are just a few of them:

• Recognizing that the Task Forces are the heart of the BI-ISIG, we want to support their work and maximize Task Force involvement for all members. This will include travel scholarships and a new BI-ISIG Task Force funding opportunity in 2019!
• BI-ISIG members include many leaders in the field of brain injury rehabilitation, and we believe we can all learn from each other. We plan to expand professional development opportunities for our members, increasing the value of BI-ISIG membership for all.
• The ACRM Annual Meeting has grown to include an outstanding array of content, and we want to help our BI-ISIG members to maximize their conference experience. At ACRM 2019 in Chicago, we will showcase a full day of top-notch programming on Brain Injury (check out the Call for Proposals!).

Please take a few moments to check out the BI-ISIG section of the ACRM website to learn more about the exciting projects underway across the Task Forces. Don’t hesitate to reach out to your Executive Committee to share your ideas and suggestions – we always love to hear from you!

Kristen Dams-O’Connor, PhD, FACRM
Chair, Brain Injury Interdisciplinary Special Interest Group (BI-ISIG)
Director, Brain Injury Research Center
Associate Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine and Neurology
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai