Awards Banquet Gives Members a Chance to Recognize Individual Achievements
ISTSS
January 1, 2000
Shaking off the academic nature of the meeting for a moment, Lucy Berliner described receiving her award as "ultra cool" at the annual awards banquet.
Past President Matthew Friedman, MD, PhD, received the Lifetime Achievement Award, formerly known as the Pioneer Award. He is executive director of the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Dartmouth Medical School. Listed in The Best Doctors in America, Friedman also is a member of the Veteran Administration's Persian Gulf Expert Scientific Committee and the National Institute of Mental Health's Violence and Traumatic Stress Study Section.
"After I get beyond my delight, I must state categorically that I am much too young to receive such an award," Friedman said upon accepting the award. "Aren't lifetime awards for people who have run their course and now have little else to do but write their memoirs? I certainly hope not since I continue to look forward, not backward."
The Chaim Danieli Young Professional Award went to Michael D. De Bellis, MD, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and director of the Developmental Traumatology Laboratory at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic in Pittsburgh. De Bellis was unable to attend the conference.
Yael Danieli, PhD, established the award in memory of her father. It recognizes excellence in service or research in the field of traumatic stress by an individual who has completed training within the last five years.
Berliner received the Sarah Haley Memorial Award for Clinical Excellence, which is presented to a clinician in direct service to traumatized individuals whose written and verbal communications to the field exemplify the work of Sarah Haley. Berliner is a social work clinician and researcher at Harborview Center for Sexual Assault and Traumatic Stress and is a clinical associate professor in the school of social work and in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington, Seattle.
"We put such a premium on advancing knowledge and being scientific, but the thing that I like so much and value so much is that the heart of it for everyone is trying to do right by the people to whom something terrible has happened," Berliner said. "And that's always the thing that matters to every person [in ISTSS]."
The Robert S. Laufer Memorial Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement, established by Ellen Frey-Wouters, PhD, in memory of her late husband, was presented to John Briere, PhD. This year held special meaning for the award because it marked the 10th anniversary of Robert Laufer's death.
"ISTSS is very important to me. To receive an award from this group is a quite cool thing," Briere said.
Briere is associate professor of psychiatry and psychology at the Kack School of Medicine at the University of Southern California and director of the Psychological Trauma Clinic at LAC-USC Medical Center. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, a past ISTSS board member and on the advisory board of American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children.
The Dart Award for Excellence in Reporting on Victims of Violence, established by the Dart Foundation, was given to Barbara Walsh, a reporter for the Portland Press Herald in Portland, Maine (For more information about the Dart Award, see Mediawatch.).