William Reed, DC, Ph.D., director of the UAB PhD in Rehabilitation Sciences program, has received the 2023 Complementary and Integrative Rehabilitation Medicine Research Award from the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine.

The award honors Reed for his recent contributions to rehabilitation science. Since 2023, Reed has co-authored 11 peer-reviewed publications in journals such as Molecular Brain, Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and Frontiers of Integrative Neuroscience.

Most notably, Reed is currently an MPI on a $2.7 million award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) and National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). This U24 award, titled Force-Based Manipulations Research Network, seeks to develop resources to refine and test key concepts that will advance and further support study on the physiological mechanisms and biomechanics of force-based manipulations (FBMs) or better known as manual therapy.

“We just completed a very successful second year,” said Reed. “Our FBM network called FORCENET  has more than 390 members, and in January 2024, ForceNET published 10 peer-review articles – involving collaborations from an astonishing 56 authors across seven countries – in a special issue in the Journal of Manual Manipulative Therapy, and I was fortunate to be a co-author in two of these special issue journal articles, in addition to being a co-author of another 2023 FBM-related paper in the Frontiers Journal of Psychology.”

Reed currently serves as the NIH Steering Meeting co-chair, which includes three FBM initiative U24 awards that total more than $9 million in funding. In addition, he serves as chair of the Pilot Grant Working Group of all three FBM networks. To date, Reed’s U24 related ForceNET network has awarded two pilot grants totaling over $100,000 with an additional two FBM pilot grants (totaling $150,000) in line to be funded in 2024.

Reed received his award at the annual ACRM meeting in Atlanta, Georgia this past year. In association with the award, he delivered a presentation titled “Building an interdisciplinary mechanisms of manual therapy collaborative network.”

Also in 2023, Reed received an ACRM service commendation for serving as the Complementary and Integrative Rehabilitation Medicine Networking Group Information and Education Task Force Co-Chair. He has served in this capacity for several years.