Dr. Frank Pintar Receives Award of Merit for His Work in the Field of Automotive Safety

Frank A. Pintar, Ph.D., professor of neurosurgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW), adjunct professor of biomedical engineering at Marquette University, and director of the Zablocki VA Medical Center Neuroscience Research Laboratories, received the Award of Merit from the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM) at its 55th annual meeting in Seattle, Wash.

Dr. Pintar is the engineering principal investigator of the Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN), a partnership of Froedtert Hospital, Children’s Hospital and the MCW’s department of neurosurgery. With more than 500 publications and reports, researchers at the six CIREN Centers have been helping the NHTSA understand fundamental biomechanics of trauma principles since 1987. Dr Pintar is also director of the Zablocki VA Medical Center Neuroscience Research Laboratories, which include the world’s only full-scale, crashworthiness lab in an academic setting that is certified by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The experimental test facilities include a mechanical component lab, Servo-Sled lab (a simulator that accurately simulates full vehicle collisions) and crash lab to conduct motor vehicle injury biomechanics research.

The AAAM is a professional, multidisciplinary organization dedicated to reducing injuries from motor vehicle crashes around the world. It was founded in 1957 by the medical advisory committee to the Sports Car Club of America.
The AAAM is responsible for the abbreviated injury scale (AIS), an internationally accepted tool for ranking injury severity that is commonly employed in level one trauma centers.

The AAAM Award of Merit is the Association’s highest honor. It was given to Dr. Pintar for his significant contributions to injury biomechanics and to the field of automotive safety.

“I am honored to receive this award from an organization that I have so enjoyed participating in over the last 20 years, “said Dr. Pintar. “The interdisciplinary environment of AAAM fuels my ideas for new areas of research, and the people that I have come to know from all around the world are a continuing inspiration.”

Dr. Pintar is a fellow of the AAAM and a member of the Association’s executive committee.