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Mulcahey Award for Research in Outcomes Measurement
The 2025 Mulcahey Award has been awarded to Louis Philipp Lukas, a PhD student at ETH Zürich for his paper “Local Motor Score Context Provides Additional Insights into Neurological Recovery after Spinal Cord Injury.”
Lukas’s research is centered on combining state-of-the-art machine learning approaches, including graph neural networks, and multiple data modalities to advance treatment options for rare neurological conditions like spinal cord injury. Louis has a background in Computational Biology (MSc ETH Zurich) and Computer Science (BSc Exeter). He joined the Biomedical Data Science lab in late 2021 as a PhD student to work on benchmarking and predicting recovery following spinal cord injury.
The Mulcahey Award honors MJ Mulcahey, PhD, OTR/L, a recognized world expert in the rehabilitation of and measurement of outcomes specific to children with spinal cord injury and their families. Dr. Mulcahey served as the Director of Clinical Research and Rehabilitation at the Shriners Hospitals for Children in Philadelphia and is currently a Professor in the Department of Occupational Therapy in the College of Health Professions at Thomas Jefferson University. She was also the first non-physician president of ASIA.
The Mulcahey Award is given for the best abstract submitted to the annual ASIA conference, in the field of outcomes measurement (or outcomes research) in spinal cord injury rehabilitation.
How to Apply
Submit your abstract in response to the general call for abstracts for the annual meeting. Submission deadline for the Mulcahey award is the closing date for the General Call for Abstracts.
Rules and Eligibility
Submitters do not have to be members of ASIA. After reviewing all submitted abstracts for the conference, the program committee will determine the top three papers in the area of outcomes measurement and will forward them to the Research and Awards Committee to determine the winner. The Mulcahey award includes a cash prize and an award presented during the annual scientific meeting.
Individuals currently serving as ASIA President, President-Elect, Immediate Past President, Research and Awards Committee Chair and Vice Chair are ineligible for the Mulcahey Award.
Past Mulcahey Award Recipients
2024 – Christian Schuld, Dipl.-Inform. Med.
Imputation of not Testable Motor and Sensory Scores In the International Standards for Neurological Classification of Spinal Cord Injury (ISNCSCI) with Regression Models.
2023 – Salma M. Aly, MD
Utilization of machine learning techniques in prediction of hospital readmission during one year after spinal cord injury
2022 – Alberto Isaac Perez SanPablo, DSc
Reliability and Validity of the Assessment of Trunk Control in Pediatric Subjects with Spinal Cord Injury using Smartphones
2021 – Kyle Deane, PhD
Shriners Hospitals for Children in Chicago
Appraisals of Disability Predictive of Psychosocial/Medical Outcomes in Individuals with Pediatric-Onset Spinal Cord Injury
2020 – Jennifer Coker, PhD
Craig Hospital, Engelwood, Colorado
Evaluation of a self-report method to obtain ASIA Impairment Scale in People with SCI who Reside in the Community
2019 – Dr. Richard-Denis
Universite de Montreal, Canada
The impact of early spasticity on the intensive functional rehabilitation phase and community reintegration following traumatic spinal cord injury
