VA Research Wrap Up: VA announces 2026 Research Week Awardees

As part of the 2026 Research Week, May 11 – 15, VA announced the winners of four prestigious research awards.

Under Secretary’s Award for Outstanding Achievement

Dr. Hardeep Singh, a senior research scientist at the Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness and Safety (IQUEST), based out of the Michael E. Debakey VA Medical Center in Houston, Texas, was announced as the winner of the Under Secretary’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Health Services Research.

Singh built a multidisciplinary research team at IQUEST that, since 2005, finds diagnostic errors, such as preventable delays in diagnosis or incorrectly diagnosed conditions, which can occur across all levels of care and lead to delayed or unnecessary treatments that put Veterans at risk.

Paul B. Magnuson Award

Dr. Jennifer Stevens-Lapsley, associate director of research for the Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center (GRECC) at the VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System, was announced as the winner of the Paul B. Magnuson Award for Outstanding Achievement in Rehabilitation Research and Development.

Stevens-Lapsley’s research has significantly contributed to programs that improve health, function and independence for aging and medically complex Veterans, leading to new rehabilitation strategies such as neuromuscular electrical stimulation and progressive resistance training. She is also an advocate for high-intensity rehabilitation regimens that have proven safe and effective at multiple VA community living centers and skilled nursing facilities.

William S. Middleton Award

Dr. Raymond C. Harris, staff physician and researcher at the VA Tennessee Valley Health Care System in Nashville, was announced as the winner of the William S. Middleton award in recognition of his work in biomedical research.

Harris’s work has transformed VA’s understanding of kidney disease and renal injury, a condition 30% of all Veterans suffer from. His lab continues to investigate the role of the innate immune system in acute and chronic kidney injury and has helped develop potential mediators of the progressive fibrosis in chronic kidney disease.

John Blair Barnwell Award

Dr. John H. Krystal, director of the Clinical Neuroscience Division of the National Center for PTSD at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System, was announced as the winner of the John Blair Barnwell award for Outstanding Achievement in Clinical Science Research and Development.

Krystal is an expert on neurobiology and treatment of schizophrenia, depression, PTSD and alcohol use disorder, finding a biological cause for PTSD to classify it as a medical disorder, creating new treatments for schizophrenia, and making the discoveries that led to the approval of esketamine as the first FDA approved anti-depressant in more than 50 years, paving the way for research into a host of new antidepressants, including psychedelics.

For more Office of Research and Development updates, visit ORD online or go to https://www.research.va.gov/news_briefs/.