Awards
The International Society for Virtual Rehabilitation is proud to support and recognize our members through various award programs. We are excited to, once again, offer our Society and Congress Awards at our 2024 Congress: The World Congress on Virtual Rehabilitation which will be presented by ISVR and XR4REHAB.
Key Dates
Society Awards Timeline
Call for Nominations Opens: December 11, 2023
Call for Nominations Closes: February 2, 2024
Award Winners Notified: End of February 2024
Conference Awards Timeline
Judging Begins: June 26, 2024
Judging Ends: June 28, 2024
*Winners Announced at Closing Remarks
Distinguished Service Award
We are pleased to announce the call for the 2024 ISVR Distinguished Service Award. The purpose of this award is to recognize and acknowledge “exceptional leadership, dedication and service”. Award will consist of a certificate, a complimentary registration, and an opportunity to present a Keynote address at the World Congress of ISVR to be held in June 2024 as a joint congress with XR4REHAB.
Nominations are encouraged from both ISVR & XR4REHAB members. However, there must be a secondary nomination or vote of support from an ISVR board member. You can find the list of ISVR board members here.
2025 Winner
Alma Marians
Rutgers University
Dr. Merians has been active in the field of virtual rehabilitation for 25 years, authoring or co-authoring dozens of peer-reviewed papers on virtual rehabilitation, eighteen with more than 100 citations and 3 with over 500 citations. Between 2000 and 2006, she collaborated with some of the founders of the International Society for Virtual Rehabilitation on seminal papers in the field virtual rehabilitation for persons with stroke. Later, Dr. Merians co-founded RAVR Lab, a collaboration between the Rehabilitation and Movement Sciences Department at The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and the Biomedical Engineering Department at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Dr. Merians has been an active member of the ISVR, making contributions as early as the Third International Workshop on Virtual Rehabilitation and serving as a reviewer, session chair, awards chair and program committee member at numerous ISVR Conferences over the years. She also was a keynote speaker at the ICDVRAT meeting in September 2012 and gave the welcome address at the ICVR meeting in 2013. Dr. Merians has been instrumental in the careers of numerous scholars in the field of virtual rehabilitation through the lab she has cofounded and in her role as the Chair of the Rehabilitation and Movement Sciences Department at Rutgers and The State University of New Jersey.
Previous Winners
2024: Judith E. Deutsch, Rutgers University
2023: Mindy Levin, McGill University
2021: Skip Rizzo, University of Southern California
2019: Patrice L. (Tamar) Weiss, University of Haifa
2017: Emily Kesner, Temple University
2013: Grigore Burdea, Rutgers University
Early Career Investigator Award
We are pleased to announce the call for the 2024 ISVR Early Career Investigator Award. The purpose of this award is to recognize and acknowledge outstanding contributions by early career scientists whose research relates to virtual rehabilitation. The recipient will be awarded a certificate, a complimentary registration, and the chance to present a talk at the World Congress of the ISVR in June 2024 as a joint congress with XR4REHAB.
2025 Winner
Bruno Bonnechère
University of Hasselt
Bruno presently holding the position of assistant professor at the Faculty of Rehabilitation at the University of Hasselt in Belgium. He holds a chair devoted to the utilization of new technologies in rehabilitation. He created and is the director of the TechnoRehabLab (www.technorehablab.net), a lab dedicated to the development and implementation of new technologies in the rehabilitation. At the core of Bruno’s research lies the development, validation, and implementation of cutting-edge technologies in the rehabilitation domain. His primary interest revolves around leveraging the data generated during rehabilitation, termed as rehabilomics, to construct predictive models utilizing machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Previous Winners
2024: Maxime Robert, Université Laval
2023:
Winner: Naomi Gefen, ALYN Hospital
Runner Up: Sebastian Rutkowski, Opole University of Technology
2022: Athanasios Vourvopoulos, Instituto Superior Tecnico (IST) & University of Lisbon
2021: Marika Demers, University of Montreal
2020: Tal Krasovsky, University of Haifa
2019: Danielle Levac, University of Montreal
2018: Sandeep Subramaniam, UT Health San Antonio
2017: Roberto Llorens, Technical University of Valencia
2016: Monica da Silva Cameirão, University of Madeira
Best Talk Award
The ISVR Best Talk Awards are awarded to the most innovative and exciting conference platform presentation as identified by a panel of junior and senior ISVR members led by the Awards Co-Chairs. Each award is given to a junior (student, postdoc) and a senior (3 years from terminal degree) recipient. Recognition includes a cash prize (for junior awardees only), recognition on the website and in an ISVR Newsletter/eblast,
and a certificate.
2025 Winners
Previous Winners
2024: No award
2023 (Senior): Tal Krasovsky, University of Haifa
2023 (Student): Daniela Chan Viquez, University of Toronto
2022: Sandeep Subramanian, UT Health San Antonio & Elizabeth Wilson, Temple University
2021: No award
2020: No award
2019: Grigore Burdea, Bright Cloud International Corp & Oran Ben-Gal, National Instuments
2018: No Award Given
2017: Danielle Levac, University of Montreal & Desiderio Cano Porras, Tilburg University
2016: No Award Given
Best Poster Award
The ISVR Best Poster Awards are awarded to the most innovative and exciting conference poster presentation as identified by a panel of junior and senior ISVR members led by the Awards Co-Chairs. Each award is given to a junior (student, postdoc) and a senior (3 years from terminal degree) recipient. Recognition includes a cash prize (for junior awardees only), recognition on the website and in an ISVR Newsletter/eblast,
and a certificate.
2025 Winners
Best Product Demonstration Award
The ISVR Best Product Demonstration Award will be presented to the demo that best represents innovative and exciting clinical applications of virtual reality for assessment or intervention purposes. Recognition includes a cash prize, placement on the website and in an ISVR Newsletter/eblast, and a certificate. Award decision is determined by a panel of junior and senior ISVR members led by the Awards Co-Chairs.
Sponsored By:
2023 Winner
Iveta Fajnerova
National Institute of Mental Health
Presentation: OCD House – Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy for ObsessiveCompulsive Disorder
Iveta Fajnerova studied psychology and neurobiology, and obtained her PhD in neuroscience at the 3rd Medical Faculty of the Charles University in Prague. She is a head of the VR Research centre at the National Institute of Mental Health in Czech Republic. Her work focuses on the use of VR in research, diagnosis and therapy of psychiatric disorders, with emphasis on anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder and cognitive impairments.