The American Stroke Association has named Louise McCullough, MD, PhD, professor and Roy M. and Phyllis Gough Huffington Distinguished Chair in the Department of Neurology, as the 2024 Thomas Willis Lecture Award winner.

The Thomas Willis Lecture Award recognizes contributions to the investigation and management of stroke-basic science. The award is open to fellows of the Stroke Council who are actively engaged in and have made significant contributions to basic science research on stroke.

The award carries a $2,000 honorarium and complimentary registration to the American Stroke Association International Stroke Conference, where McCullough presented her research in a lecture titled “Aging, Sex, and Stroke: The Three Amigos of Brain Misadventures.”

The award is one of 11 granted at the International Stroke Conference 2024 for exceptional professional achievements. The entire group of awardees include four groundbreaking scientists who have devoted their careers to stroke research and six scientists who were recognized for their notable new research.

A renowned investigator, McCullough is well recognized for her work in cerebral vascular disease and is known for her research identifying sex differences in cell death pathways during stroke, which have been shown to be a major factor in the response to ischemic insult. Her clinical expertise is in sex/gender disparities, the microbiome, stroke and aging, and acute stroke treatments.

McCullough, the co-director and associate vice president for research of UTHealth Houston Neurosciences, who is also affiliated with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, said that she felt “incredibly honored to have been selected for the Thomas Willis Lecture Award.”

The American Stroke Association is a division of the American Heart Association that is devoted to saving people from stroke – the second cause of death in the world and a leading cause of serious disability. The organization teams with millions of volunteers to fund innovative research, fight for stronger public health policies, and provide lifesaving tools and information to prevent and treat stroke.