2019 Award Winners

Congratulations to the 2019 Award Winners! Click here to view more information about each award and past recipients.

Distinguished Lifetime Contribution to Neuropsychology Award

Kenneth M. Heilman MD

NAN’s most prestigious award is given to a senior scholar who has made significant scientific, intellectual, and training-related contributions to the field of neuropsychology. Recipients give an invited address at the Annual Conference, which is subsequently published in Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology.

Kenneth M. Heilman received his M.D. from the University of Virginia in 1963, was a Medicine PGY 1&2 at Cornell-Bellevue Hospital (1963-65), and an Air Force Captain and Chief of Medicine at NATO Hospital, Izmir, Turkey (1965-1967).  He took a Neurology residency and fellowship at the Harvard Neurological Unit of Boston City (1967-1970), mentored by Drs. Denny Brown and Geschwind.  He joined the faculty at the University of Florida (1970) as an Assistant Professor, promoted to Associate Professor in 1973 and Professor in 1975.  He is now the James E Rooks, Jr Distinguished Professor. Between 1996 and 2009 he was Chief of the Neurology Service at the Gainesville VA. 


He is listed in multiple editions of the Best Doctors in America, America’s Top Doctors and Who’s Who. As Director of the Behavioral Neurology-Dementia Post-Doctoral program which has trained more than 70 post-doctoral fellows, the majority of who hold academic positions and several of whom are now leaders in academic neurology, neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience.

 Heilman’s research has been supported by the VAMC and/or NIH for more than 40 years.  He is the author or co-author or editor or co-editor of 14 books and more than 500 peer reviewed publications.  He and his coworkers have described several new diseases/disorders and their treatment (e.g., orthostatic tremor), and helped to better understand many neurobehavioral disorders (e.g., emotional communication, sensory-motor neglect, anosognosia, and apraxia). 

Distinguished Service Award

Donna K. Broshek, PhD, ABPP-CN

This award is designed to recognize NAN’s most dedicated leaders who have a longstanding career of exemplary and distinguished service to NAN and neuropsychology in general.

Dr. Broshek is the John Edward Fowler Professor at the University of Virginia (UVA) School of Medicine, and she is board certified in clinical neuropsychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology and the American Board of Clinical Neuropsychology.  Her primary appointment is in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences where she is Director of the Neurocognitive Assessment Lab and Chief of Psychological Services.  She is also Director of the Brain Injury and Sports Concussion Center within the UVA Brain Institute.  Clinically, Dr. Broshek sees a large volume of patients with sports concussion, mild to moderate traumatic brain injury and persisting post-concussion symptom, as well as patients with intractable epilepsy and a variety of other neurologic and medical conditions. She is a member of the Concussion Committee for the National Basketball Association and WNBA.  She is a Fellow of the National Academy of Neuropsychology and the Sports Neuropsychology Society, Immediate Past President of the Sports Neuropsychology Society, and a member of the Professional Advisory Board for the Epilepsy Foundation.   She has been active in research on sports concussion and mTBI, andnational clinical trials for the treatment of intractable epilepsy. Dr. Broshek has been active at the local, regional, and national levels in promoting concussion education and safety.  

Early Career Award

Adam Gerstenecker,Ph.D.

This award is given to someone who has made substantial scholarly contributions to the field of neuropsychology within 10 years of receiving their doctoral degree.

Dr. Gerstenecker earned his PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Louisville in 2014, where he was awarded the John Richard Binford Memorial Award for excellence in scholarship and leadership, one of only two awards given to doctoral-level graduates, regardless of discipline. After graduating from UofL, Dr. Gerstenecker was awarded a fellowship in the Division of Neuropsychology, Department of Neurology, at UAB. He has since served as a faculty member in the Department of Neurology. Clinically, Dr. Gerstenecker specializes in the assessment of cognitive and functional ability in patients with suspected neurological compromise from a range of etiologies (e.g., neurodegenerative disorders, cancer, traumatic brain injury, cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease).

Early Career Service Award

Robert Fallows, PsyD, ABPP

This award is designed for someone who is within 10 years of receiving their doctoral degree and who has made substantial early career service contributions to NAN and the field of neuropsychology in general.

Dr. Fallows works with people experiencing neurological, medical and psychiatric difficulties. He has a special interest in the cognitive and psychological difficulties associated with dementia, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, stroke and tumors.

Ralph M. Reitan Award for Clinical Excellence

Jacobus Donders, PhD, ABPP 

NAN's newest award is given to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the clinical practice of neuropsychology. The recipients of this award have significantly influenced the methods, settings, and/or persons involved in clinical practice, resulting in noteworthy benefit to the profession and its clients; and/or demonstrated significant leadership as a teacher, clinician, and/or theorist in public and/or professional arenas of clinical neuropsychology; and/or had a notable effect on clinical practice or training in the field of clinical neuropsychology.

Jacobus Donders, Ph.D. is the Chief Psychologist at Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital in Grand Rapids, MI.  He is board-certified in Clinical Neuropsychology as well as Rehabilitation Psychology through the American Board of Professional Neuropsychology.  In addition to being an active clinical practitioner, he has served on multiple editorial and executive boards, has authored or co-authored more than 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals, and has edited or co-edited five textbooks.  Dr. Donders is a current associate editor of the journals Child Neuropsychology and Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology.  He is also a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and of the National Academy of Neuropsychology.

Nelson Butters Award

Hannah Wadsworth, Ph.D. 

This award is given for the best research paper published in the Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology over the preceding year.

Hannah Wadsworth, PhD, is honored to accept the Nelson Butter’s Award during the early stages of her career as a neuropsychologist. Currently, she is completing her second year of postdoctoral fellowship at the Benton Laboratory at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics under the mentorship of Daniel Tranel, PhD ABPP-CN. Historically, she has had a wide range of research interests, especially while under the mentorship of C. Munro Cullum, PhD ABPP-CN at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Her research has included topics such as teleneuropsychology, aging and dementia, traumatic brain injury and sports related concussions, epilepsy, and diversity issues in neuropsychology. As a second-year graduate student, her posters on teleneuropsychological assessment of rural American Indian populations earned her the NAN Cultural Diversity Student Poster Award. This research later evolved into two papers that were published in Archives of Neuropsychology, one of which is being recognized by NAN through this award. As Dr. Wadsworth grew up in the rural state of Montana, she is well aware of the importance and applicability of this research for many communities throughout America. She hopes that this research will have far reaching affects by encouraging and supporting the opening of satellite clinics with teleneuropsychological capabilities. These types of clinics would provide access for rural, underserved, and/or impoverished populations who would not otherwise have the resources to obtain specialized evaluations. 

Outstanding Dissertation Award

Jaspreet Rai, PhD

This award is given to recognize an excellent neuropsychology-related dissertation or dissertation project. The winner is invited to present his/her study at a poster session during the Annual Conference and submit the study for publication to Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology.

Dissertation entitled “Base rates of failure and classification accuracy of various performance validity tests administered in a medical-legal setting”.

Dr. Jaspreet Rai graduated with her Ph.D. in Clinical Neuropsychology from the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada in 2018 after completing a pre-doctoral internship at the Edmonton Consortium. She subsequently worked as a neuropsychologist on the inpatient stroke service at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital, the largest free-standing tertiary rehabilitation hospital in Canada. Currently, she is working full time in her own private practice, where she specializes in neuropsychological assessment in a forensic civil disability context.