World Physiotherapy awards recipients 2023
Margot SkinnerMildred Elson award
Margot Skinner
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Margot’s career as a physiotherapist, clinician, educator, and researcher spans more than 50 years.
She was World Physiotherapy vice president, 2015-2019, regional executive board member for the Asia Western Pacific (AWP) region, 2007-2015, and was chair of AWP region, 2003-2007. She has also served two terms as president of Physiotherapy New Zealand.
Margot has always been a strong advocate for the physiotherapy profession to be in a position to control its own body of research. This requires opportunities to develop degree-based entry level education and postgraduate programmes. In the early 1990s, Margot led the drive for degree-based education to become a reality at the University of Otago in her home city of Dunedin, New Zealand. She has since worked with colleagues in many other countries/territories, particularly in the AWP region, to support the development of entry level physiotherapy education and for the education to meet international guidelines. The concept of an accreditation process was developed while Margot was on the World Physiotherapy board and she was the inaugural chair of the accreditation committee.
Margot’s own professional career path has consistently had a link to the management of people with non-communicable diseases and has included her work as a clinician in intensive care, a researcher in the area of sleep health, an educator of physiotherapy students about the importance of activity for health, a promoter of interprofessional practice. At the end of 2021 Margot stepped down from her position at the University of Otago school of Physiotherapy, where she had been deputy dean for many years.
She continues to take an active role in the physiotherapy profession both nationally and globally.
Valerie TaylorHumanitarian Service award
Valerie Taylor
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Valerie is the founder and coordinator at the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed (CRP), Savar, Bangladesh and a fellow of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy.
She studied at the physiotherapy school at St Thomas’ Hospital, London, before travelling to a hospital in Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh, to work as a volunteer physiotherapist. In 1969 Valerie was given the opportunity to start a physiotherapy department and to train an assistant.
At the time, the main cause of spinal cord injury (SCI) was caused by falls from a height, most commonly from fruit trees, and the plan was to create a small centre for the treatment and rehabilitation of people with SCI.
CRP now has 100 beds for people with SCI, many of whom require subsidised care, and has established 10 small treatment centres across Bangladesh. The centres offer follow-up at home for people with SCI and outpatient clinics for people affected by strokes, amputees, orthopaedic, and neurological conditions. Day centres offer treatment for people affected by mental health and treatment and rehabilitation for children with cerebral palsy and other neuro developmental disorders.
CRP also offers education and training through the Bangladesh Health Professions Institute, which runs bachelor and master courses, diploma courses in medical technology, and has recently established a school of orthotics and prosthetics.
CRP’s workshop staff make low cost, appropriate wheelchairs using locally available materials and bicycle and rickshaw parts, which enables repair work to be carried out in a local village.
Yoshifumi KobayashiLeadership in Rehabilitation award
Yoshifumi Kobayashi
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Yoshifumi is a physiotherapist specialising in the treatment of people who are highly dependent on medical care, eg those requiring ventilators, and he also specialises in the dissemination of community rehabilitation in developing countries.
For more than 40 years, while working at the Children’s Rehabilitation Center and the Rehabilitation Department of the General Hospital, he has continued to support the independent living movement for people with disabilities in the community, and volunteer activities to help people with intractable diseases become self-reliant. After returning to Japan, he established a local non government organisation (NGO) for international cooperation and has been engaged in research and promotion of community based rehabilitation (CBR) activities in Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, and Malaysia.
He has been involved with the Japanese Physical Therapists Association’s international division for more than 20 years, particularly with the postgraduate education of young physiotherapists who wish to volunteer in developing countries and exchange activities with the Asian Physical Therapy Federation Society.
From 1999 to 2019, he contributed to consultation on intractable diseases at the Fukui Prefecture Intractable Disease Support Center and, since retiring in 2019, he has been working there as a consultant, most recently overseeing rehabilitation theory and Japanese language education for overseas students at a training school for care workers.
Ajediran Idowu BelloInternational Service award - education
Ajediran Idowu Bello
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Ajediran is an associate professor of musculoskeletal physiotherapy and a coordinator of the postgraduate physiotherapy programme at the University of Ghana. He holds a PhD from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Through his experience in academic life and clinical practice he has developed a range of skills: mentor, workshop tutor, public speaker, curriculum reviewer, consultant physiotherapist, external examiner and moderator.
Ajediran has served as editor-in-chief for Ghana Physio News Magazine and Ghana Journal of Physiotherapy, co-edited the WCPT Africa newsletter, and been an abstract reviewer/mentor for World Physiotherapy.
He chaired the scientific committee for Accra 2010, the 8th biennial WCPT Africa Congress, and led a panel to develop physiotherapy practice guidelines for COVID-19 in Ghana in 2020. He participated as WHO peer reviewer in June 2021. He won the Elsevier outstanding poster presentation award (Africa) at the WCPT Congress in 2017 and received citations of recognition from the Ghana Physiotherapy Association and the University of Ghana in 2021.
Feroz KabirInternational Service award - education
Feroz Kabir
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Feroz is a physiotherapy specialist and public university teacher.
He graduated in physiotherapy and rehabilitation and holds a master’s in physiotherapy from the medicine faculty, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, a master’s in public health from Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), Bangladesh, and a bachelor and master’s in physical education from Uttara University, Bangladesh.
Feroz is studying for a PhD at Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS), Malaysia. His main interest of work is teaching, research, policy making, and critical case management. He is an assistant professor of the department of physiotherapy and rehabilitation, Jashore University of Science and Technology (JUST), adjunct faculty of Bangladesh Open University, and the joint secretary of Bangladesh Physiotherapy Association. Before joining JUST, he was a senior clinical physiotherapist of Dhaka University Medical Center. He is a part time consultant clinician with BRB Hospitals, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Hans HobbelenInternational Service award - education
Hans Hobbelen
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Hans started his career as a physiotherapist in a nursing home in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and continued to work there for 22 years. He is passionate about physiotherapy for older people and finds the challenges, complexity, and puzzles in the diagnostic process and the best strategies to provide physiotherapeutic interventions make this a rewarding form of physiotherapy.
Hans is a professor in ageing and allied health care at the Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen, The Netherlands. He is a member of the Royal Dutch Association of Physical Therapists (KNGF) science committee. Hans was a board member of the Dutch association of geriatric physiotherapists, 2010-2018. Since 2010, he has been actively involved in the International association of Physiotherapists working with Older People (IPTOP) and IPTOP president since May 2019. He has been involved in the development of curricula for bachelor and master degrees in geriatric physiotherapy and he is the author/co-author of over 50 scientific articles, five book chapters and co-editor of the Dutch standard work on physiotherapy in older people.
Claire F O’ReillyInternational Service award - management and administration
Claire F O’Reilly
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Claire is a physiotherapist, specialising in humanitarian action. She is passionate about access to rehabilitation for people in emergency settings and strengthening health systems to increase the availability of physiotherapy. Her humanitarian career started in response to the Syrian civil war in 2013 and she has served with INGOs and UN agencies in the Middle East, south Asia, and east Africa. She has contributed to or coordinated guidance frameworks and technical tools to support physiotherapists in under-resourced settings.
Claire is a research fellow at Trinity College Dublin, focused on how humanitarian action can be more accessible and responsive to the needs of persons with disabilities, and has a keen research interest in conflict injuries. Claire holds a BSc from University College Dublin, an MPH from the University of Liverpool, and is completing her PhD on inclusive humanitarian action at Trinity College Dublin. Claire sits on two Irish Society of the Chartered Physiotherapists committees: international affairs, and chartered physiotherapists and healthcare professionals in international health and development.
Genhee LeeInternational Service award - management and administration
Genhee Lee
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Genhee is the Korean Physical Therapy Association president and the head of the Pediatric Movement Development Institute, where he has advanced the field of physiotherapy through clinical and administrative efforts. He holds a PhD from Daegu University, Korea, and has been involved in clinical, academia, and administration for more than 30 years.
Throughout his career, he has made significant contributions to the development and advancement of physiotherapy, nationally and internationally. In central Asia he successfully advocated for the Mongolian government to issue the country’s first physiotherapist license. He has also advocated to improve the rights of physiotherapists and expand the practice scope of physiotherapy in Korea by proposing and securing legislation related to home-based physiotherapy.
His unwavering dedication and contribution to the administrative and developmental aspects of physiotherapy have had significant impact.
Kazuto HandaInternational Service award - management and administration
Kazuto Handa
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Kazuto graduated from Kyushu University of Rehabilitation, the second oldest physiotherapy school in Japan. He then trained in the Netherlands in industrial physiotherapy. Over the past 50 years, he has devoted his life to the development of physiotherapy in Japan.
In 2007, he became president of the Japanese Physical Therapy Association (JPTA) and led JPTA for 14 years, playing an important role in the development of JPTA, nationally and internationally. When the Great East Japan Earthquake struck, he responded swiftly with strong leadership. He has served as president of the Home-Visit Rehabilitation Promotion Foundation, established in 2012. During JPTAʼs 50th anniversary, he invited representatives of member organisations in the AWP region and initiated memorandum of understandings (MoUs) to collaborate on projects. In 2015, he received the Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare Award and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon in 2019 for his longstanding contributions to the development of physiotherapy in Japan.
Nicola PhillipsInternational Service award - management and administration
Nicola Phillips
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Nicola is a former president of the International Federation of Sports Physical Therapy (IFSPT) and a life member of the Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Sports Medicine. She is a professor of physiotherapy at Cardiff University, Wales.
Nicola is a fellow of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, awarded in 2011, and received an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) award for services to physiotherapy in the 2019 New Year Honours List. Her career has included working with academic, clinical, and professional bodies. She has worked with elite athletes at many Commonwealth and Olympic Games over the last 36 years, including head physiotherapist with the GB and Wales teams, and chef de mission for team Wales.
As IFSPT president, Nicola led a committed team in developing a system for international recognition of specialist sports physiotherapy competencies. Nicola also sits on a number of boards and advisory panels, including UK Anti-Doping, where she chairs the athlete commission.
Darren BrownInternational Service award - practice
Darren Brown
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Darren Brown is a cis-gendered (pronouns he/him/his), gay, white, man, with lived experience of episodic disability, of English and Irish heritage, and living in London UK. Darren is a clinical academic Physiotherapist and Fellow of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, awarded for global impact in disability and rehabilitation achieved through clinical, academic, and strategic leadership. Darren has led the HIV rehabilitation service at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust for 11 years, which is globally recognised as an exemplar in HIV rehabilitation. Darren has served as the Vice-Chair of the UK Rehabilitation in HIV Association (RHIVA), HIV/AIDS coordinator of World Physiotherapy subgroup IPT-HOPE, steering committee member of Canada International HIV Rehabilitation Research Collaborative (CIHRRC), and inaugural Chair and co-founder of Long COVID Physio. In 2022 Darren was awarded the Elisse Zack Award for Excellence in HIV and Rehabilitation and was the first European recipient. Darren has published both quantitative and qualitative research, contributed to national and international standards, policies and guidelines including with the World Health Organization, and has been a spokesperson for disability inclusion across the continuum of HIV responses and safe Long COVID rehabilitation.
Vincent Babatunde NwugaInternational Service award - practice
Vincent Babatunde Nwuga
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Vincent completed his school education in Nigeria, before travelling to London where he became a member of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy. He held a degree in physiotherapy from the University of Manitoba, Canada, a master’s degree in physical medicine from the University of Minnesota, US, and a doctorate from the University of Ife, Nigeria.
Vincent became a professor in 1983 and consultant/head, department medical rehabilitation, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) and OAU teaching hospitals, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. He was the pioneer dean, faculty of basic medical sciences, a member of several associations, travelled widely, and published several books and articles. He was well known and respected for his selfless services and the use of his Nwugarian technique for people with back pain.
He retired in 1998, was appointed the fifth Emeritus professor in 2007. He died in 2015.
Brona FullenInternational Service award - research
Brona Fullen
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Brona is an associate professor in the school of public health, physiotherapy and sports science, University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland. She holds a BSc and a PhD and specialised in chronic pain management, working in pain services in the US and in Ireland. Her research areas of interest include multidisciplinary rehabilitation of people with chronic pain and pain science education in physiotherapy programmes for which she has been awarded national and European Union funding. She has supervised MSc and PhD students and has presented her research at national and international meetings. Brona is a co-founder and director of the UCD centre for translational pain research.
In 2020 Brona was elected as president of the European Pain Federation (EFIC) – the first woman and the first physiotherapist to hold this role. She advocates strongly for multidisciplinary pain research and management. Under her leadership EFIC developed its first research strategy.
César Fernández de las PeñasInternational Service award - research
César Fernández de las Peñas
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César is a Spanish physiotherapist who has made outstanding contributions to the physiotherapy profession by combining clinical practice with research and teaching. He holds a master’s degree in public health and two PhDs. He is a professor of the department of physical therapy at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain, where he created the first chronic pain clinic. He has received more than €3,500,000 funds from different grants and has published more than 650 publications in peer-reviewed journals.
His research is mainly focused on underlying mechanisms, prevalence, and treatment of persistent chronic pain in the general population and in vulnerable groups. His most published articles focus on chronic pain, manual therapy, exercise, and rehabilitation. He has published more than 10 textbooks and is one of the editors of the Trigger Point Manual, Third Edition. He continues working on clinical practice and research, integrating manual therapy with exercise and has opened the first multidisciplinary Long COVID clinic in the public system in Madrid, Spain.
Marco PangInternational Service award - research
Marco Pang
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Marco is a professor of the department of rehabilitation sciences and the director of the university research facility in behavioural and systems neuroscience, Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
His research interest is in neurological and geriatric rehabilitation. He has published 150 refereed journal papers and five book chapters. In 2022, he was ranked among the world’s top 1% most-cited scientists in the field of rehabilitation, according to citation indicators compiled by Stanford University. He and his students have won over 40 national and international awards for their research. Marco has advocated for evidence-based practice and worked with rehabilitation practitioners to translate research into clinical practice. Many of his PhD students now hold leadership positions in institutions in China and are creating work environments conducive to research and evidence-based practice.
Marco has served as Hong Kong Physiotherapy Association president since 2017 and was a World Physiotherapy executive board member, 2017-19.
Mario BizziniInternational Service award - research
Mario Bizzini
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Mario is a research associate at the Human Performance Lab, Schulthess Clinic, Zürich, Switzerland. He has worked at the lab for more than 30 years.
He holds an MSc from the University of Pittsburgh, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, in 2001 and completed his PhD at the Oslo Sports Trauma and Research Center, Norwegian School of Sports Sciences, in 2010. Mario was also involved, 2002-2016, with the FIFA Medical Research and Assessment Center.
His research interests focus on prevention and rehabilitation of sports injuries. Mario has published 120 peer-reviewed publications, six books, and 19 book chapters on these topics. He is deputy editor of the British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM), on the editorial board of the International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy (IJSPT), and is the vice-president of the Swiss Sport Physiotherapy Association (SSPA). He is a rehabilitation consultant for professional ice hockey and football/soccer teams, and has worked at three Olympic Games (2008, 2012, 2016), three FIFA World Cups (2006, 2010, 2014).
