Sharlene Newman facts for kids

Sharlene D. Newman is an American cognitive neuroscientist. She is a leader at the Alabama Life Research Institute at the University of Alabama. She is also a professor in the Psychology Department at UA. Additionally, she teaches at Indiana University.

Her work focuses on understanding how the brain works. She uses special tools like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). She was one of the first to use these tools to study language processing in the human brain. This helped scientists learn which brain parts are used for different language skills. She also studies other brain functions, like how we think, solve math problems, and understand space.

Early Life and Education

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

Research and Career

After her Ph.D., Dr. Newman began research at Carnegie Mellon University in 1999. She studied language processing using fMRI. Her work was among the first to use neuroimaging to study how our brains handle complex language. She looked at which brain areas are active when we understand sentences. She also used machine learning to understand brain images. This helped identify different ways the brain thinks.

In 2004, Dr. Newman joined Indiana University. She became a Professor there in 2017. From 2016 to 2019, she helped lead undergraduate education. She continued her research on language. She used fMRI to study how the brain understands sentences. She also looked at how people learn two languages. Her research also explored math and spatial skills in people of all ages.

Dr. Newman helped create the Imaging Research Facility at Indiana University. She later became its director. Here, her team used neuroimaging to study brain health. They explored how the brain works in different health conditions.

In 2019, Dr. Newman became the executive director of the Alabama Life Research Institute. This institute at the University of Alabama focuses on health research.

Awards and Honors

In 2018, the City of Bloomington, Indiana gave Dr. Newman the Woman of the Year Award. She received this award for her work. She helped create better learning chances for young Black girls and women.

Publications

Dr. Newman has written over 100 articles about brain science. She also wrote a chapter in a book called Critical Issues and Practices in Gifted Education. This chapter was about the "Neural Bases of Giftedness."