Awards & Recognitions – May 2026

Endowed Chair

The Barrow Neurological Foundation Board of Trustees has named Artak Tovmasyan, PharmD,PhD, the Ben F. Ivy Endowed Chair for Medicinal Chemistry. This honors Dr. Tovmasyan’s outstanding contributions to the Ivy Brain Tumor Center over the last seven years. As the leader of the Center’s Pharmacokinetic Program, principal investigator, and associate professor, Dr. Tovmasyan is involved in the early-phase clinical trials and, with his expertise in pharmaceutical sciences, helps identify the most effective therapies for brain tumor treatment.

AANS Natus Resident/Fellow Award

Sarah Sternbach, MD, a neurosurgery resident at Barrow, received the Natus Resident/Fellow Award for Neurocritical Care at the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas. The award is given to the best neurocritical care abstract submitted by a resident or fellow. Dr. Sternbach collaborated with two of her colleagues at Barrow, whom she credited with conceiving the project: Tyler Haller, PharmD, BCCCP, a pharmacy specialist in the Neuro-Intensive Care Unit, and Diane McLaughlin, DNP, AGACNP-BC, CCRN, FCCM, FNCS, MBA, an acute care nurse practitioner in the Neurocritical Care Program.

The team performed a retrospective cohort study of patients with acute brain injuries. These patients had dangerously high blood pressure despite receiving maximal doses of nicardipine and thus were switched from the first-line medication to another agent, known as clevidipine. Drs. Sternbach, Haller, and McLaughlin found that nearly 85% of these patients achieved blood pressure control within one hour of starting clevidipine and that side effects were rare. Their study suggests that clevidipine is a safe and an effective rescue option for one of the most challenging problems in neurocritically ill patients.

Third Place Poster

A team of researchers at the Barrow Neuro Analytics Center received an award for their poster presentation at the Arizona Medical Association Annual Meeting. The poster, presented by Creighton University School of Medicine – Phoenix student Vishal Harnoor, earned third place in the clinical research category. Vishal and his team performed a nationwide study of United States Medicare beneficiaries that explored the associations between urban and rural residence, drinking water sources, and Parkinson’s disease.