The National Headache Foundation has announced the recipient of its 2018 Lectureship Award: Dr. Mia T. Minen, M.D., M.P.H. This honor was created to preserve the highest level of neurobiological research and advancement in medicine today. Recipients of the award prove themselves to be up-and- coming physicians and scientists who have impressive research experience and published articles on the management of common and complex headache problems.

Dr. Minen is currently the Chief of Headache Research and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology at New York University Langone Medical Center. Dr. Minen has received numerous honors, as well as published over 30 research papers and conducted various oral presentations on the field of headache.

Originally from Brooklyn Heights, Dr. Minen received her bachelor’s degree in psychology, magna cum laude from Barnard College, Columbia University in New York. She earned a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology from Columbia University and her M.D. at Jefferson Medical College. She completed a residency in neurology at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and both a Neuropsychiatry-Behavioral Neurology Fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital and a Headache Medicine Fellowship at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Dr. Minen’s accomplishments include a visual arts program that educates high school students on the characteristics of headache, specifically migraine and concussion. Students in the program express the knowledge they gained related to headache and associated symptoms through visual art that are later displayed to raise awareness and inform the public. They also develop their own methods for teaching others (friends, family, the general public) to help recognize the signs of migraine and concussion.

Along with this arts program, Dr. Minen has been involved with training and mentoring undergraduate students, medical students and residents to be future headache researchers of tomorrow. Valuing education herself, she has trained over fifteen students in the past four years, most of whom have had their research presented or published.

Dr. Minen has recently received a grant from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health for a study on progressive muscle relaxation for chronic pain in an acute care setting. Within this study, she hopes to improve migraine diagnosis in an emergency setting as well as primary care. She has been working on a mobile health study aimed to help people better manage their headaches.

Minen has expressed her gratitude and honor to be the NHF 2018 lectureship recipient. Her work as a headache researcher has opened doors for chronic sufferers and has expanded the headache research industry to new questions and challenges. Click here to learn more about Dr. Minen and her work on improving headache diagnosis.