Message From the Chair
Kristen Dams-O’Connor, PhD, FACRM
Dear BI-ISIG Colleagues,
It was wonderful to see so many of you at the ACRM annual meeting in Chicago this past fall! We had an impressive turnout of First-Time and Early Career Attendees, many of whom joined us for the BI-ISIG Summit and signed up for Task Forces. All 8 of our Task Forces met in Chicago to advance the collaborative work that has been going on throughout the year. It was truly impressive to hear updates from the Task Force Chairs about the broad range of projects in the works across our community.
The BI-ISIG hosted the first-ever Cross-Cutting Track of brain injury programming, “Changing the narrative to hope: Maximizing Brain Health, function and participation following brain injury.” Together with the Mark Ylvisaker Memorial Symposium and the annual Chautauqua symposium, the BI-ISIG played a central role in contributing excellent content to the 96th Annual Conference of the ACRM.
Our in-person meetings provide an important reminder of how special and unique the BI-ISIG is – we are a vibrant and energetic interdisciplinary group of brain injury researchers, clinicians, students and consumers who collaborate on projects that really make a difference in improving the lives of people living with brain injury. We have heard your requests for more meeting time at the Annual Conference, and the BI-ISIG Executive Committee is proud to announce a new opportunity for our BI-ISIG Task Forces to apply for extended meeting times by submitting a proposal for a “BI-ISIG Task Force Meeting” through the ACRM Submission System. This will allow our Task Forces dedicated time during the core meeting day to engage with one another and make progress on the important work you do.
The BI-ISIG Executive Committee is committed to supporting the career growth, professional development, and contributions of every one of our members. In the coming year, we will continue to work with the ACRM Program Committee to ensure our community and its Task Forces have expanded meeting times, and we will continue important conversations to ensure that our members and speakers experience a welcoming, safe, and inclusive environment. We want to hear from you so we can continue to advocate for the things that make the BI-ISIG your professional home base. I am honored to serve as your Chair for one more year!
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
