2018 Frederick W.L. Kerr Basic Science Research Award
Robert C. Coghill, PhD
Dr. Coghill is Director of Research and Senior Scientist in the Department of Anesthesiology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. His research is focused on delineating the distributed neural mechanisms supporting the construction of the subjective experience of pain.
Dr. Coghill earned his Ph.D. from Virginia Commonwealth University and completed post-doctoral fellowships at the Universitè de Montrèal and the National Institutes of Health. He was a tenured Professor at Wake Forest School of Medicine before joining Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in 2015. He also serves as Section Editor for Imaging and Measurement for PAIN and on the Board of Directors of the American Pain Society.
Research in Dr. Coghill’s laboratory seeks to provide a better understanding of the functional organization of central nervous system mechanisms involved in the conscious experience of pain and its implications for clinical pain states. This research encompasses studies of individual differences in pain, effects of expectations on pain, brain mechanisms supporting attention to sensory features of pain, and processes associated with cognitive modulation of pain.
This award and lectureship were established in 1987 in honor of Frederick W. L. Kerr, a founder of the American Pain Society, to recognize individual excellence and achievement in pain scholarship. Since then, the Kerr medallion has been presented to 25 outstanding pain professionals—researchers and clinicians—whose career achievements have made important contributions to the field of pain.
