The International Center for Responsible Gaming Friday announced that Dr. Kasra Ghaharian, a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas has been awarded the first Christine Reilly Grant Award.

Established in honor of Christine Reilly’s legacy of leadership and innovation in gambling research with ICRG, the award recognizes outstanding scientific excellence and research potential in gambling disorder and responsible gaming.

Ghaharian’s research focuses on machine learning, consumer protection, and payments modernization in the gambling industry.

“I am incredibly honored to receive the 2024 Christine Reilly Grant Award,”  Ghaharian said in a statement. “This funding will allow us to conduct novel research using open banking data from a large sample of UK consumers, giving us a more holistic view of individuals’ gambling activity across operators. It will also allow us to investigate the relationship between gambling involvement and financial vulnerability, an area that has been understudied, particularly using objective measures. We believe this work will be pivotal in understanding how bank transaction data can support harm prevention efforts. I sincerely thank the ICRG for their support in funding this important research.”

The award was established to honor the contributions of Reilly, who helped shape the ICRG. Reilly’s work, including the starting the Scientific Advisory Board and the Gambling Disorder Conference, laid a foundation for excellence in research and education on gambling disorder.