Lex Frieden: Biographical Sketch
Lex Frieden is Senior Vice President at TIRR (The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research) in Houston, Texas. TIRR is a comprehensive medical rehabilitation center which provides clinical, educational, and research programs pertaining to spinal cord and brain injuries and other disabling conditions. He is also Director of TIRR's Independent Living Research Utilization Program and Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Baylor College of Medicine.
Mr. Frieden recently served as President of Rehabilitation International, a federation of 200 national and international organizations and agencies in 90 countries working for the equalization of opportunities for persons with disabilities and their families within society, and for the rehabilitation of people with disabilities. Mr. Frieden also serves as a member of the United Nations Panel of Experts on the Standard Rules for Disability.
From 1984 to 1988, Mr. Frieden served as Executive Director of the National Council on the Handicapped (now the National Council on Disability), an independent federal agency located in Washington, D.C. In this capacity, he was instrumental in conceiving and drafting the recently enacted Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
A graduate of Tulsa University, Mr. Frieden has been honored as a Distinguished Alumnus. He also holds a master's degree in social psychology from the University of Houston. He has done additional graduate work in rehabilitation psychology at the University of Houston with support from an SRS doctoral fellowship, and he has been awarded a World Rehabilitation Fund Fellowship to study programs for disabled people in Europe.
Mr. Frieden, a quadriplegic due to spinal cord injury, has been involved in the organization of several groups of disabled individuals including the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities, the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities, and the Houston Coalition for Barrier Free Living. He is presently Chairman of the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD).
Working in the independent living movement by severely disabled people since the early 1970s, Mr. Frieden has published several books and papers on independent living. He served as a consultant panel member for the United States House of Representatives' Committee on Science and Technology from 1976 through 1978, and he prepared the background paper on Community and Residential Based Housing for the White House Conference on Handicapped Individuals in 1977. From 1989 to 1990, he represented the United States on a disability and employment panel at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris, France.
He has received two Presidential Citations for his work in the field of disability, and he was honored by the U.S. Jaycees in 1983 as one of America's Ten Outstanding Young Men. In 1998, he received the Henry B. Betts Award for "efforts that significantly improve the quality of life for people with disabilities." He was also awarded an honorary
doctorate in laws (LL.D.) by the National University of Ireland (NUI) on
June 25, 2004.
e-mail: lfrieden@bcm.tmc.edu
www: http://home.houston.rr.com/frieden/