VCU news

By Eric Peters and Lena Rivera

David X. Cifu, M.D., has been selected as one of 12 faculty members from Virginia’s public and private colleges and universities to receive the 2014 Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) and Dominion Resources.

“The scholarship and dedication of these honorees is a testament to the strength of Virginia’s public and private, two-year and four-year institutions,” said Peter Blake, SCHEV director.

A VCU faculty member since 1991, Cifu is chairman and Herman J. Flax, M.D., Professor in the VCU School of Medicine’s Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and executive director of VCU’s Center of Researcher Sciences and Engineering (CERSE). He is also national director of the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Program Office, Veterans Health Administration.

Cifu is the principal investigator on a $62 million federal grant awarded in 2013 to oversee a national research consortium of universities, hospitals and clinics that will study what happens to service members and veterans who suffer mild traumatic brain injuries or concussions.

SCHEV notes that Cifu is an internationally renowned researcher in the area of neurologic rehabilitation, and, as an academic physiatrist, “he has delivered more than 500 regional, national and international lectures, published more than 200 articles and 65 abstracts, and co-authored 27 books and book chapters.”

Cifu told SCHEV that “I am continuing to work to provide cutting-edge, evidence-based, and compassionate care, to excite and educate the next generation of healers and researchers and to provide inspired and meaningful leadership for the nation and the world so that we have a society that can be judged as having cared for and done the right thing for its most important members – those who remind us what it means to love your fellow man."

Recipients of the Outstanding Faculty Award will be recognized during a Feb. 20 ceremony at the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond.

SCHEV is the commonwealth’s coordinating body for Virginia’s system of higher education. The agency provides policy guidance and budget recommendations to the governor and General Assembly, and is a resource for information on higher education issues for Virginia colleges and universities.  SCHEV has administered the Outstanding Faculty Awards since its inception in 1986.

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