The Bloorview Research Institute Trainee Executive (BRITE) would like to formally congratulate Karolina Urban! Karolina is a second year PhD student working under the supervision of Dr. Tom Chau and Dr. Nick Reed at Holland Bloorview's research institute. She has just been awarded the 2017 Trainee Travel Award from the Canadian Traumatic Brain Injury Research Consortium (CTRC). Karolina was one of five students chosen nationally for the award by the CTRC. With this award, Karolina had the opportunity to attend the CTRC team meeting in Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada.

The vision of the CTRC is to “create an open, collegial and innovative Canadian TBI Research Consortium to lead world-class research, harmonize data collection and knowledge translate best practices for people with TBI in hospitals and in their communities”. The CTRC conference held in Lake Louise helped facilitate collaborations across institutions and provide cross-country support to researchers.

Both Dr. Reed and Karolina are members of the CTRC. During the past meeting in Lake Louise, Karolina spent two full days networking, discussing research, and helping to refine studies prior to REB submission or grant submission. As a trainee, Karolina feels very lucky to have had the opportunity to build collaborations between her lab and others, learn about study conceptualization and expand her research networks.