Professor, student honored by sports medicine organization

A national organization dedicated to research in sports medicine recently honored a faculty member and a student from the University of Georgia College of Education.

The Pediatric Research in Sports Medicine (PRiSM) Society gave the Local Achievement Award for Athletic Trainers to Julianne Schmidt, an assistant professor in the department of kinesiology. Schmidt studies the effects of concussions and head injuries and has received numerous national grants to study the issue both on and off the playing field.

The Local Achievement Award for Athletic Trainers is awarded for "exemplary clinical care" from a professional who has made great contributions in the education of providers in the field of youth sports medicine in the metro Atlanta area.

The organization also gave the Promising Career Award to Landon Lempke, a second-year doctoral student and research assistant in the UGA Concussion Research Lab, which Schmidt co-directs with Rob Lynall. Lempke received the award based on his abstract, "Comparison of Head Impact Biomechanics Between Tackle and Flag Youth Football."

The Pediatric Research in Sports Medicine Society is a national organization representing a range of professional members, doctoral fellows and students from a cross-section of medical disciplines. The awards were given during the organization's recent annual meeting in Atlanta.