Sharlene Newman facts for kids

Sharlene D. Newman is an American scientist who studies the brain. She is a cognitive neuroscientist, which means she looks at how our brains think and learn. She works at the University of Alabama (UA). There, she is a professor and helps lead a research group called the Alabama Life Research Institute. She also teaches at Indiana University.

Dr. Newman's main research uses special tools like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to see inside the brain. This helps her understand how the brain works. She was one of the first scientists to use these tools to study how our brains handle language. Her work helped show which parts of the brain are used for different language tasks. She also studies other brain functions, like how we make decisions, solve math problems, understand space, and how certain brain conditions affect people.

Early life and education

Sharlene Newman was born in Abbeville, Alabama. She went to Vanderbilt University and earned a degree in electrical engineering in 1993. Later, she studied biomedical engineering at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She received her master's degree in 1996 and her Ph.D. in 1999.

Research and career

After finishing her studies, Dr. Newman started working at Carnegie Mellon University in 1999. She began researching how our brains process language using fMRI. This was new and exciting because it helped scientists see how complex language tasks happen in the human brain. She studied which brain areas are involved when we understand sentences and other language processes. She also explored using machine learning with fMRI data. This helped identify different ways the brain thinks from brain images.

In 2004, Dr. Newman joined Indiana University. She became a full professor there in 2017. For a few years, she also helped lead undergraduate education at the university. At Indiana, she kept studying how the brain handles language. She used fMRI to understand how our brains understand sentences. She also looked at how people learn two languages or sign language. Her research also included how adults and children understand math and space.

Dr. Newman helped create the Imaging Research Facility at Indiana University. She later became its director. Here, her research focused on brain health issues like schizophrenia, epilepsy, and concussions.

In 2019, Dr. Newman became the executive director of the Alabama Life Research Institute at the University of Alabama. This institute brings together different types of research to improve healthcare.

Awards and honours

In 2018, Dr. Newman received the Woman of the Year Award from the City of Bloomington, Indiana. She earned this award for her work helping young Black girls and women get better educational chances.

Publications

Dr. Newman has written over 100 research papers about how the brain thinks and how we can see brain activity. She also wrote a chapter in a book about gifted education. Her work helps us understand more about the amazing human brain.