Congratulations to Dr. Lewis Crawford of The Brain and Mind Center, The University of Sydney, recipient of the inaugural Andrea Evers Award, IASP Pain and Placebo SIG, who presented at the IASP Pain and Placebo SIG on October 26, 2026, in Bangkok.
This IASP biennial award recognizes an outstanding early-career researcher whose work reflects the values exemplified by Professor Andrea Evers: scientific excellence, innovation, collaboration, integrity, and commitment to advancing pain and placebo research.
The committee received six applications from early-career researchers in Australia, India, Israel, and the United States. Following a rigorous review of the candidates’ research publication quality, originality, significance, independence, and overall contribution to the field, Lewis was selected for his PhD research on the neural mechanisms of placebo analgesia.
Using advanced 7-T functional brain imaging, his research identified the lateral column of the periaqueductal gray (PAG) as particularly important to behavioral placebo responses and characterized a broader cortical and brainstem network involved in placebo analgesia.
In Conversation with Lewis Crawford
What does receiving the inaugural Andrea Evers Award mean to you?
“I remember walking into the Pain and Placebo SIG meeting at the 2022 IASP World Congress in Toronto, a nervous second-year PhD student at his first international conference, and seeing the smiling face of Professor Andrea Evers.I remember being welcomed to contribute, not as a student, but as a valued member of the academic community. It was the opportunity to meet mentors like Professor Evers that has kept me in academia, and the qualities I experienced through interacting with her are those I continue to strive towards: welcoming the ideas of all and fostering a collaborative approach to research. Receiving this award is both an honor and a reminder to me to continue the legacy left behind by Professor Andrea Evers, both in my own work and in the research community.”
What is next for your research?
“Currently, I am interested in better understanding the somatotopy of brainstem systems in placebo and, more broadly, how these systems are compromised or preserved in chronic pain. I have two avenues of research I am actively pursuing: which neural systems are involved in a systemic model of placebo analgesia, and the site selectivity of expressing placebo analgesia in a chronic pain state.”
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