The BI-ISIG Executive Committee is pleased to recognize the recipient of the 2020 Joshua B. Cantor Award is Dawn Neumann, PhD, FACRM. This award was established in honor of Joshua Cantor, former ACRM and BI-ISIG member. Award recipients are recognized as a professional, whose work embodies the spirit of Dr. Cantor’s endeavors and achievements. Dr. Neumann’s work and career have lived up to the standard set by Dr. Cantor’s research, which is driven by his passion for developing and evaluating interventions which give solace and meaning to persons experiencing the impact of traumatic brain injury.

Dr. Neumann received her BA with Honours in Psychology from the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, MA in Cognitive Psychology from Rutgers University, and PhD in Rehabilitation Sciences from the University at Buffalo (SUNY). She then completed her postdoctoral research training at Carolinas Rehabilitation in the PM&R department. She started her career as an Assistant Research Faculty in the School of Medicine, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Indiana University (IU) and then transitioned to Assistant Professor.  In addition, she served as a Clinical Research Associate at the Rehabilitation Hospital of Indiana (RHI). During this time, she was the managing member and founder of EmotEd, LLC. Currently, Dr. Neumann is Director of the IU Interactive and Functional Assessment of Communication and Emotion Center (InterFACE). In 2017, she was promoted to an Associate Professor with tenure in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at IU School of Medicine, and also to Research Director at RHI.

Dr. Neumann has received a number of federal grants to support her research as PI or as a collaborator, including funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) STTR, R21, and R61/R33 mechanisms; National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR)  Switzer Fellowship and Field Initiated Project grants; and funding from the US Department of Justice/National Institute of Justice.  She is also Co-Investigator for the Indiana University / RHI Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems grant funded by NIDILRR.  Other grants have been funded by the Indiana State Traumatic Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Fund, Indiana University Funding Opportunities for Commercialization and Economic Success, and the Indianapolis University Collaborative Research Grant. Her research has filled a void in our understanding of emotional challenges, which persons with acquired brain injury commonly experience. She has investigated the process of emotional regulation and emotional perception and how the two processes are related through the development of interventions. She has nearly 40 peer-reviewed publications, which have been the first of their kind and had a significant impact on the field.

Over the years, she has received a number of prestigious awards. In 2011, she was the Mary E. Switzer Merit Fellow supported by NIDILRR, followed by ACRM’s Deborah L. Wilkerson Early Career Award in 2013. She was recognized by her colleagues and was named as a 2017 Fellow of ACRM, 2018 Mitchell Rosenthal Mid-Career Award, and the 2019 David Strauss Award presented by the BI-ISIG. She has been an active member of ACRM since 2010. She was the first chair of the Early Career Networking Group (ECNG) and the ECNG Communications Task Force, and also served as a member of the ECNG Early Career Development Course Task Force Planning Committee. She has served several terms as an elected member of the BI-ISIG executive committee and as Member-at-Large of the ACRM Board of Governors. Currently, she serves as a member of the ACRM Program Committee and the Awards Officer for the BI-ISIG Executive Committee.

Dr. Neumann will be honored virtually during the BI-ISIG Summit, on Thursday, 22 October 2020 from 12:30-1:45 PM ET.

“I cannot express how extremely honored and grateful I am to receive this recognition. Joshua’s work has always resonated with me, and so it is tremendously meaningful to receive this award in his honor. Special acknowledgement to mentors and colleagues who have supported my research endeavors and to the patients who graciously gave their time to participate in our research studies.​” – Dawn Neumann, PhD, FACRM