June was National Aphasia Awareness Month, and our scientists and staff members had opportunities throughout the month to share their important aphasia research and help increase awareness of this language impairment that may occur after a stroke or other brain injury. The MossRehab Aphasia Center is well-known worldwide for exceptional research and treatment of aphasia, and we were excited to highlight some of the outstanding work being done there. We published blog posts on the history of aphasia research at MRRI and important contributions to the field by MRRI Co-Founder Myrna Schwartz, PhD, the Constance Sheerr-Kittner Conversation Cafés, and the Musical Mondays Program.  

Throughout the month of June, members of the Aphasia Center were involved in various presentations and outreach events. In case you missed any of these, we’ve included links below. 

• Sharon Antonucci, PhD, Director of the MossRehab Aphasia Center recently participated in an Aphasia Access Virtual Town Hall. 
• The Aphasia Center presented a virtual education program titled “Aphasia and the brain 101: What what’s difficult… is difficult.”
• Dr. Antonucci and Speech Language Pathologist Roberta Brooks presented sessions as part of the Aphasia Access 24-hour Teach-In.
• The Aphasia Center hosted a virtual watch party of WHYY’s You Oughta Know segment on the Musical Mondays Program.  

In addition to shining a spotlight on our work on aphasia, we were excited to publish a blog post sharing the story of one of our research participants with traumatic brain injury and a post highlighting research on the role of sustained attention and effort in arm non-use in people with stroke conducted by Laurel Buxbaum, PsyD, MRRI Associate Director and Director of the Cognition and Action Laboratory. Further, MRRI Scientists were authors on three new research papers that were recently published or accepted for publication in peer-reviewed scientific journals.  

We are also pleased to congratulate Shailesh Katak, PT, PhD, on being awarded the Michael L. Berger Faculty Scholars and Artists Prize from Arcadia University. In addition to his appointments as MRRI Institute Scientist and Director of the Neuroplasticity and Motor Behavior Laboratory, Dr. Kantak is Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at Arcadia University. This recent award recognizes his groundbreaking scholarly work in the area of motor control and skill learning.  

As we enter the second half of 2020, we look forward to continuing to make progress on research and sharing our innovative rehabilitation research with the scientific community and the public.