The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) and Musculoskeletal Pain SIG is delighted to announce that Dr. Priyanka Rana, Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy and Movement Science at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), has been selected as the recipient of the 2026 Musculoskeletal Pain Special Interest Group (SIG) Exchange Award.
This award is designed to support early-career researchers by providing financial assistance so they can collaborate with a host institute on musculoskeletal pain research. The award helps recipients gain new skills, build independent collaborations and accelerate their professional growth.
Dr. Rana is a physical therapist and researcher whose work asks whether the body’s own pain-inhibiting mechanisms can be trained the way a muscle is trained. Her research expertise spans:
- Conditioned pain modulation and exercise-induced hypoalgesia
- Neuromodulation paradigms, including transcranial magnetic stimulation, paired with repeated pain-inhibitory training
- Precision, mechanism-targeted rehabilitation for chronic musculoskeletal pain
Dr. Rana founded and directs the Pain Modulation and Rehabilitation Research (PMR) Lab at University of Texas at El Paso. Her research is supported by the USASP-MAYDAY Clinical/Translational Research Scholar Award and an AOPT New Investigator Grant. She serves on the IASP Early Career Network Collaboration Committee and is Guest Editor of a Brain Sciences Special Issue on chronic pain mechanisms.
Through the MSK Pain SIG Exchange Award, she will work with Dr. Giovanni Berardi and Dr. Ruth Chimenti at the University of Iowa’s Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science. During the exchange, she will conduct a secondary analysis of the NIH-funded Acute to Chronic Pain Signatures (A2CPS) study to test whether conditioned pain modulation predicts the transition from acute to chronic postsurgical pain, while training in exercise-evoked pain paradigms adapted for clinical populations such as fibromyalgia and in multimodal biomarker assessment, including ultrasound elastography.
IASP congratulates Dr. Priyanka Rana on this achievement and thanks all applicants who applied for the 2026 award. The Association remains committed to supporting early-career researchers and advancing the science and treatment of musculoskeletal pain.