UBMD Psychiatry Funds Endowed Chair to Honor Concussion Research Legacy

This position is being funded by a $1.5 million gift from UBMD Psychiatry, the department’s clinical practice plan. Comprised of over 50 faculty members, the group used several years of significant clinical revenue to fund this investment.

Beth A. Smith, MD, chair of the Department of Psychiatry and president of UBMD Psychiatry, said that gains from clinical operations are often invested back into the clinical practice. This year, the group felt it was imperative to invest longitudinally to aid in the expansion of the department's commitment to academic research.

"We looked at our strategic plan and considered our strengths and areas for growth,” Smith said. “We have a substantial clinical footprint, robust community engagement, and an excellent teaching component with some of the highest rates of medical students entering the field of psychiatry nationwide.”

“Through this investment, we saw an opportunity to strengthen our research mission and invest in recruiting and retaining top-tier researchers. This fundraising effort speaks to our faculty's commitment to cutting-edge research, to the culture of the department and how highly we value mentorship and collaboration.”

Allison Brashear, MD, MBA, UB’s vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School, said, “Barry Willer’s collaborative and innovative approach to research has redefined how we understand and treat traumatic brain injury, leading to global policy changes and improved outcomes for countless individuals.”

“This endowed chair position honors his extraordinary legacy while advancing UB’s commitment to transformative research that changes lives. It also strengthens our ability to recruit world-class faculty, secures competitive funding, and provides our students and trainees with the tools they need to solve the most pressing health challenges. With this appointment, UB Psychiatry affirms its role as a national and international leader in mental health research and care.”

Willer, a trailblazing brain injury expert and longtime member of the psychiatry department, is internationally recognized for making significant contributions to treating sports-related concussions and traumatic brain injuries. His prolific 40-year career has led to the development of tools that remain gold standards in the field, including the community integration questionnaire and the “whatever it takes” model. Through a longtime collaboration with UBMD Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine members John J. Leddy, MD, and M. Nadir Haider, MD, PhD, Willer is also credited with developing the current recommended treatment model for sports-related concussions.

“Our research moved the field from a very passive wait and see, ‘rest is best’ approach, which had no scientific support and did not facilitate recovery, to an early, individualized, active controlled aerobic exercise therapeutic approach,” said Leddy, clinical professor in the Department of Orthopaedics and medical director of the UB’s Concussion Management Clinic. “It’s used all over the world to help athletes and non-athletes recover from concussion.”

The group’s development of the Buffalo Protocol has improved recovery outcomes for thousands of patients, influenced the return-to-play guidelines for the National Football League, National Hockey Leage and the International Consensus Conference on Concussion in Sport, and provided instrumental guidance on return-to-duty protocols adopted by the U.S. military. “Dr. Willer brought a brilliant research mind to bear upon, and systematically investigate, a vexing clinical problem, and this approach literally changed the field forever,” Leddy said.

Willer served as the director of research for UB’s Concussion Management Clinic, where he led studies that shaped the future of brain injury care. His seminal work with a team of researchers and students explored how exercise accelerates recovery from concussion by improving brain efficiency, as demonstrated through fMRI studies. He has also led investigations into emotion regulation in individuals with moderate to severe traumatic brain injury, developing a computer-based treatment protocol now being tested in a multi-site, multi-national randomized controlled trial.

“Without Dr. Willer, Buffalo would not have a world renown concussion clinical and research program,” Leddy said, noting that his career also would have taken a very different arc without Willer’s mentorship. “Buffalo and I are forever indebted to Dr. Willer for his decision to investigate ways to help patients recover from a common and potentially devastating brain injury.”

While Willer’s research and leadership has touched nearly every major brain injury organization in the world, and influenced best practices still in use today, his legacy is also deeply personal.

Lauded as a “master educator” by Leddy, Willer taught countless undergraduate, graduate and medical students how the brain works and how to organize and conduct well-designed research studies.

“He always teaches students to begin by developing a well-reasoned and answerable research question and to design a scientific study specifically to answer that question. Everything that follows depends upon that foundational piece,” Leddy said.

Haider, who was previously Willer’s PhD student, and is now an assistant professor of orthopaedics and the director of research of the Concussion Management Clinic, said, “Barry was an inspiring mentor to me as well as to a hundred other researchers and clinicians. He took incredible time and effort to make everyone feel like they were part of the team and had something to contribute. He made sure everyone was meeting their personal goals in whatever field of study.  The impact of his career goes beyond just the field of psychiatry.”

Willer is the author of three books and over 150 publications. Alongside Haider and Leddy, he conducted the most widely cited research on the effects of concussion on the autonomic nervous system, and overall, his work has been cited over 3,000 times. In addition to scholarship contributions, Willer was the first director of the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Community Integration, which led the development of the TBI Model Systems Data Base. He was a founding member of the North American Brain Injury Society, ensuring a cross-border vision for brain injury advocacy and collaboration. He has held leadership positions at the International Brain Injury Association, New York Brain Injury Society and in the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine.

By leading efforts to expand interdisciplinary research, foster institutional partnerships and secure competitive grant funding, the endowment will honor Willer’s global and local legacy and prepare the next generation of doctors and scientists in psychiatric advancements.

The Barry S. Willer, PhD, Endowed Chair for Psychiatric Research will build on Willer’s extraordinary legacy of research, teaching and service. The search for the inaugural chair is underway, with appointment anticipated by July 2026. Interested donors can support the endowed chair by contacting the Jacobs School Office of Advancement at 716-823-2403 or jeffryco@buffalo.edu.