The American Stroke Association will honor 11 scientists for their exceptional achievements in stroke and brain health research during the International Stroke Conference 2026, held Feb. 3-6 in New Orleans. The awards recognize both groundbreaking career contributions and new research findings presented at the meeting, underscoring the ongoing efforts to reduce the burden of stroke—now the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S., according to the American Heart Association’s 2026 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics.
Among the career honorees, Bruce Ovbiagele, M.D., M.Sc., M.A.S., M.B.A., M.L.S., FAHA, of the University of California, San Francisco, will receive the Edgar J. Kenton III Lecture Award for his lifetime work on racial and ethnic stroke disparities. Ovbiagele, who also serves as editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Heart Association and president of the Society for Equity Neuroscience, will present his lecture at the HEADS-UP symposium on Feb. 3. Pooja Khatri, M.D., M.Sc., FAHA, from Yale University, will accept the William M. Feinberg Award for Excellence in Clinical Stroke, honoring her international expertise in stroke care and research. She will deliver a lecture titled “Clinical Trial Innovations: The Future is Now” on Feb. 4. Raghu Vemuganti, Ph.D., of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, receives the Thomas Willis Lecture Award for his basic science work on ischemic stroke mechanisms; his lecture on “Role of RNAs in Ischemic Brain Damage” is scheduled for Feb. 5. Kazunori Toyoda, M.D., Ph.D., FAHA, from Japan’s National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center, will be recognized with the Ralph L. Sacco Outstanding Stroke Research Mentor Award, presenting “One Only Half Dies” on Feb. 6. Seemant Chaturvedi, M.D., of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, will receive the David G. Sherman Lecture Award and speak on “The Eternal Quest for Optimal Stroke Prevention” on Feb. 6.
Six additional awards highlight new research from early-career and established investigators. Amar Dhand, M.D., D.Phil., of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, earns the Stroke Rehabilitation Award for his study “SocialBit: Validation of a Lightweight Machine Learning Algorithm for Measuring Social Interactions in Real-Time in Stroke Survivors with Diverse Neurological Abilities,” to be presented Feb. 4. Soomin Jeong, Ph.D., from the University of Pennsylvania, receives the Stroke Basic Science Award for research on “Restoring the Blood-Brain Barrier after Stroke: VCAM-Targeted MFSD2A mRNA Nanoparticle Therapy with Functional Recovery,” also on Feb. 4. Zhe Cheng, M.D., Ph.D., of Beijing Luhe Hospital, Capital Medical University, wins the Robert G. Siekert New Investigator Award in Stroke for his study “A Novel Adjuvant Strategy after Endovascular Therapy for Acute Posterior Circulation Stroke: Vertebrobasilar Artery Cooling Infusion (VACI) for Neuroprotection,” on Feb. 5. Daniela Renedo, M.D., from Yale School of Medicine, receives the Mordecai Y.T. Globus New Investigator Award for “Decoding the Etiology of Embolic Ischemic Stroke through Integrated Genomic, Proteomic and Single-cell Transcriptomic Analyses,” on Feb. 5. Zhiyu (Roman) Yan, M.S., a Ph.D. student at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, earns the Vascular Cognitive Impairment Award for “Plasma Proteomic Signatures Shared Across Cerebrovascular Diseases and Cognitive Decline,” on Feb. 5. Sheng Zhang, Ph.D., from Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital, receives the Stroke Care in Emergency Medicine Award for “Prehospital Blood Pressure Lowering in Likely Intracerebral Hemorrhage Patients Is a Cost-Effective Treatment Strategy in Both U.S. and China,” on Feb. 6.
The American Stroke Association emphasizes that all abstracts presented at the meeting are considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal. For more information on the conference and awardees, visit the International Stroke Conference 2026 Online Program Planner and the full release.
