AWARDS & GRANTS

This award was the second named award established by the National Neurotrauma Society.

Walter J. Koroshetz, MD, served as Director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke from 2015 to 2026, after joining NINDS as Deputy Director in 2007. During his NIH tenure, he helped lead one of the world’s largest neuroscience research enterprises, overseeing intramural laboratories, clinical programs, extramural funding portfolios, and an annual budget that reached approximately $2.9 billion. His leadership advanced the NINDS mission across basic discovery, translational science, clinical trials, public-private partnerships, and national efforts to reduce the burden of neurological disease.

At NIH, Dr. Koroshetz held major leadership roles in the NIH BRAIN Initiative, NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience, HEAL Initiative, RECOVER Initiative for Long COVID, and Accelerated Medicines Partnerships in Parkinson’s disease and ALS. He also helped lead or establish Common Fund programs including the Undiagnosed Diseases Network, Acute to Chronic Pain Transition program, Somatic Cell Genome Editing, and Somatic Mutations in Human Tissues, and was instrumental in founding the NIH Office of Emergency Care Research. He played a central role in national traumatic brain injury efforts, including NIH–Department of Defense collaborations, Federal Interagency Traumatic Brain Injury Research, concussion research, comparative effectiveness studies, and NeuroNEXT. Before NIH, Dr. Koroshetz was Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and Vice Chair of Neurology, Director of Stroke and Neurointensive Care Services, and Director of neurology resident training at Massachusetts General Hospital. His research helped shape modern acute stroke care, neurocritical care, Huntington’s disease research, neuroimaging, and translational neuroscience. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the Association of American Physicians.