August 21, 2024
HJF was selected to receive a charitable gift of $500,000 from retired Admiral William McRaven. McRaven’s gift was part of the 2024 Bezos Courage and Civility Award that he received last March, which recognizes leaders who aim high and pursue solutions to intractable problems with courage and civility.
McRaven, who was given the award for his leadership in special operations and his dedication to educating the children of the fallen and veterans’ mental health issues, specified that his donation to HJF be used for research “towards understanding the effects of blast exposure to our military service men and women.”
“HJF’s goal is to make use of this generous gift to conduct the most impactful research possible, in keeping with Admiral McRaven’s trust and confidence in HJF and our federally mandated mission to advance military medicine for the benefit of those who defend our great nation,” said HJF President and CEO Joseph Caravalho, M.D. “To accomplish this, HJF has chosen to fund Dr. Michael Roy’s pilot research on blast exposure among female warfighters at greatest operational risk. I believe it is prudent to compare this important cohort to the male warfighters already studied, and then to see if mitigation strategies and other countermeasures already in place have similarly protective effect among men and women.”
Michael Roy, M.D., MPH, Professor of Medicine, Director of the Division of Military Internal Medicine, and Deputy Director of the Military Traumatic Brain Injury Initiative at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU), will initiate a pilot study on the impact of blast exposure on military members in all branches of the military serving in select military occupational specialties, to include the Explosive Ordnance Disposal. The study seeks to determine whether blast exposures impact female service members in unique ways, such as whether neuroendocrine or other differences may put women at a different level of risk than men in the face of exposure to subconcussive blast. This new research extends Dr. Roy’s and USU’s extensive work on blast research in the armed services.
“As Dr. Roy noted in his research abstract, this work will ultimately protect the most important weapons we have on the battlefield—our service members,” said Dr. Caravalho. “We are very thankful for the grant from ADM (Ret.) McRaven and for the opportunity to fund Dr. Roy in this critical work.”
The Bezos Courage and Civility Award was established in 2021 by Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez. Recipients are selected based on their work in philanthropic areas of societal importance.