This year’s recipient is Dr. Maheen Mausoof Adamson ’22 Sc.M., a graduate of the master’s in healthcare leadership program at the School of Professional Studies at Brown University. This award recognizes Adamson’s notable accomplishments during the master’s in healthcare leadership program, including her work on the Critical Challenge Project.

For her Critical Challenge Project, Adamson detailed the concept of the start-up venture, Soof Solutions, Inc., a neuro-communication company that gives voice to the speechless. During this process, she convened members from the School of Professional Studies, School of Public Health and The Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship at Brown University to develop a solid path for transformative innovation in healthcare, notably brain health and quality of life. This cross-disciplinary approach enabled Adamson to bring together highly interconnected, comprehensive, crosscutting and diverse research, and ultimately, develop the idea for Soof Solutions, Inc.

Another key partnership for Adamson was with Linda Carpenter, Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior and a member of the Carney Institute for Brain Science Executive Committee. This work, which was presented at Carpenter’s laboratory located at Butler hospital, investigated the change in various biomarkers in response to magnetic stimulation in brain injury. Adamson also collaborated with Ben Greenberg, Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior; Jennifer Nazareno, Assistant Professor of Public Health and Entrepreneurship; and her mentor, Judith Bentkover, Professor of the Practice in Health Services Policy and Practice.

Professor Bentkover remarks, “The MHL program was founded with the hope that the transformation of healthcare would occur as a result of transformative leadership.  Maheen Adamson, the winner of the graduate award for professional excellence, embodies this ideal when she founded Soof Solutions, a company with a product which gives a voice to the speechless.” 

Adamson shares, “I came to Brown MHL program with a medical technology idea and a personal story behind it. The efficiency with which my voice was heard and the tailored mentoring I received nurtured it into a healthcare company devoted to providing a happier life to older adults, like my father, by giving them a voice. The MHL program is really the next frontier in understanding how to master leadership in healthcare with innovation, empathy and integrity”. 

Adamson is currently the Clinical Research Senior Scientific Director (FTE) for the Rehabilitation Service, VA Palo Alto and a clinical associate professor (affiliated) in Neurosurgery at Stanford School of Medicine. In addition, she serves as the Director of the VA’s Polytrauma Fellowship as well as chairs the organization’s Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Access Committee. She performs translational neuroscience research in both academia and government. Her main research focus has been on brain injury and Alzheimer’s disease.

Adamson continues to develop her company and is successfully fundraising so that older adults who cannot communicate will be able to have a greater quality of life. Soof

Solutions, Inc., will be creating an AI tool that will improve communications to speech impacted patients beyond the capabilities of existing products in the marketplace. She has assembled a team, and developed a critical pathway to create an MVP product.

Further, as a result of her Brown experience and people she contacted, she is currently planning a joint DOD Grant submission with VA Providence/Brown University as a site for a brain stimulation study focused on brain injury in women.