Newswise — At the age of 30, a working single mother of three children decided to study psychology at Central Michigan University. Fifteen years later she is working on ways to treat and prevent traumatic brain injury with an emphasis on brain injuries sustained in combat situations.
Deborah Shear, now 46-years-old with four grandchildren, completed her bachelor's and master's degrees in experimental psychology at CMU, and continued on to earn a Ph.D. in the same field.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, 50,000 people die each year in the United States from a traumatic brain injury. Brain injuries occur mostly as a result of automobile accidents, falls, violence and more recently, as the result of injuries sustained in war.
At Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Shear will be researching brain injury using a model that mimics a bullet or piece of shrapnel twisting into the brain at different angles. She is studying ways of protecting the brain from injury, as well as treatment strategies aimed at repairing the injured brain.
"It's been a long haul and a lot of work . . . but I just got the job of my dreams," Shear said. "To do this kind of research at this time in our country is a tremendous honor and a privilege. And to do it at Walter Reed in our nation's capital is just off the charts."
"It's one of the most serious injuries on the battlefield. There has been an increase in the attention given to these types of injuries due to the war in Iraq."
As a student at CMU, Shear had extraordinary success. During her first year as a graduate student, she co-authored two scientific papers and a book chapter with CMU psychology professor Gary Dunbar. She received a three-year National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship — the first one ever awarded at CMU. She also worked full time during her doctoral studies as a research scientist at the Field Neuroscience Institute in Saginaw, MI.
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