Dr. Kathleen Sluka has been named Scholar of the Year! 

The award celebrates nationally recognized recent achievement in outstanding research and scholarly and/or creative activities.  In 2019, Dr. Sluka acquired funding with four external grants totaling 3 million dollars where she served as the Principal Investigator/Project Director.  In 2020, Dr. Sluka successfully transitioned a UG3 to a UH3 and received another R01 resulting in a total of 8.6 million dollars.  Dr. Sluka's research is translational in nature examining basic mechanisms of musculoskeletal pain and analgesia in animal models, biomarkers of chronic pain, and performing a clinical trials for implementation of non-drug treatments for chronic pain. The receipt of major external funding in the past two years is built on her established history of being at the forefront of pain research nationally and internationally.  She has nearly 250 peer reviewed publications that have a high impact in the field of pain science.  In this past year alone, Dr. Sluka has published 18 manuscripts in high quality and diverse journals.  Dr. Sluka has contributed significantly to the advancement of physical therapy and pain research in multiple ways through service as an editor and as a professor guiding the field of pain science education. She is currently a Section Editor for Pain and has served on the editorial board for The Journal of Pain. She has also served as an elected board member for the International Association for the Study of Pain and the American Pain Society. She has served on numerous committees and task forces for all these organization including research, education, and publication committees, journal boards, financial aid committees, and clinical guideline groups. She has also served on numerous national committees.  

Congratulations Dr. Sluka on this well-deserved award!