Safe Living Space Announces 2023 Women Making History Award Winners

San Francisco, California Mar 16, 2023 (Issuewire.com) – Safe Living Space, an educational non-profit focused on raising awareness about the importance of concussion screening for all people who have experienced domestic and intimate partner violence (DV/IPV), today announced the winners of their 2023 Women Making History Award (WMH). Created last year in celebration of Women’s History Month, the WMH award acknowledges remarkable women who have contributed to research, medicine, and advocacy for the evaluation and care of those who have experienced brain injury resulting from DV and/or IPV. Safe Living Space is pleased to announce that this year’s Women Making History awardees are Dr. Carrie Esopenko and Rachel Ramirez.

Safe Living Space CEO and Executive Director, Trauma Neurosurgeon Dr. Edie Zusman endorse this year’s winners: “Research Scientist, Carrie Esopenko, Ph.D., has produced some of the most important work in this field in addition to coordinating research internationally through ENIGMA. Licensed Social Worker, Rachel Ramirez, is recognized for innovative education initiatives and clinical research collaborations to support concussion awareness for all advocates and survivors of DV/IPV.”

Dr. Carrie Esopenko is a prominent researcher and educator in the field of IPV-related brain injury. As the principal investigator of an R01-funded study for the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), Dr. Esopenko investigates the sub-acute and chronic effects of repetitive head impacts on the psychological, cognitive, and neural health of women with IPV-related head trauma, military sexual trauma, and blast-related injury. She is also developing sex-specific prevention and assessment strategies for sports-related head injuries. She represents Rutgers University as the Co-Principal Investigator of the Ivy League/Big Ten Epidemiology of Concussion Study and the Big Ten Cardiac Registry. In addition to her research, Dr. Esopenko is the Lead Investigator of the ENIGMA Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) Working Group, a global collaborative effort to explore the effects of IPV-related brain injury, and the ENIGMA Sports-Related Brian Injury, Military, and TBI Working Group. She pays this knowledge forward to future doctors and researchers as an Associate Professor at the Brain Injury Research Center at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine in New York City.

Rachel Ramirez, LISW-S, RA, is the Founder and Director of the Center on Partner-Inflicted Brain Injury within the Ohio Domestic Violence Network (ODVN). The Center provides statewide, national, and international leadership expertise to increase system-level collaboration and raise awareness for the unaddressed public health crisis of brain injury caused by violence. Under Rachel’s leadership, the Center has developed numerous resources, virtual training, and an in-person training and technical assistance series that has helped DV professionals in over 25 states, 4 countries, and at multiple national and international conferences. In her 14 years at ODVN, Rachel has also spearheaded initiatives on mental health and substance abuse and helped DV programs implement trauma-informed approaches in their work. She co-authored the ODVN’s publication “Trauma-Informed Approaches: Promising Practices and Protocols for Ohio’s Domestic Violence Programs” in 2010, with revisions published in 2019, as well as multiple journal articles on the experience of brain injury among survivors and the perceptions of this experience among DV service providers. As a bilingual licensed independent social worker and a registered advocate in Ohio, Rachel has been able to provide comprehensive services at the individual and organizational levels throughout her career.

Safe Living Space congratulates Rachel Ramirez and Dr. Carrie Esopenko for their outstanding impact and dedicated service to the field of partner-inflicted brain injury, joining last year’s winners, Dr. Eve Valera and Katherine Snedaker, LMSW, in receiving the Safe Living Space Women Making History Award.

About Safe Living Space

Safe Living Space is a dynamic, diverse group of individuals bringing together our expertise and experience in medicine, nursing, emergency response, law, social work, public health, media, and more. Safe Living Space coordinates the expertise of healthcare, safety, and subject matter experts to integrate cutting-edge education and research to identify, prevent, and treat traumatic brain injury and concussion secondary to the experience of domestic, intimate partner, and family violence. To follow us on social media, find us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram (@SafeLivingSpace), and Twitter (@SLS_MediaTeam).