Sandra Bond Chapman, Ph.D., founder and chief director of the Center for BrainHealth, is the Dee Wyly Distinguished Professor in Brain Health[1], and a Professor in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at The University of Texas at Dallas. Dr. Chapman’s research elucidates novel approaches to prevent mental decline and to maximize frontal lobe function after brain injuries and diseases, and how to strengthen healthy brain development across the lifespan. Her research documents that brain health and maximizing brain function is a cause that touches every person. As Chief Director of the Center for BrainHealth, her vision is for the Center to become an international focal point for brain health discovery by applying the latest in brain research to faster treatments than those that came before. With more than 120 publications and 40 funded research grants, Dr. Chapman is a cognitive neuroscientist dedicated to translating leading-edge research to serve as a national public health road map both in discovery of ways to maintain cognitive health into late life and build critical thinking and reasoning skills in today’s youth. On the new frontier of brain research, Dr. Chapman is collaborating with brain scientists across the country and around the world to solve some of the most important issues concerning the brain and its health. She was one of 20 core scientists nationwide invited to participate in a National Science Foundation Think Tank Workshop to solve Higher Order Cognitive Decline in Teens in the United States. Dr. Chapman’s research record and brain health breakthroughs have led to nationwide recognition and selection of the Center for BrainHealth as the single Virtual Center for the National Pediatric Acquired Brain Injury Plan to link all states with the most current assessment and training for brain injury. She is a core member for the National Institutes of Health for selecting the central data elements for nationwide clinical trials in acquired brain injury and has garnered major federal, state, and private research support to advance treatment for America's veterans, sports concussions, healthy brain aging, adolescent reasoning and brain development, Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, autism, schizophrenia, ADHD, social cognition disorders, and many others.
The University of Texas at Dallas.
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Chapman began her career in the 1970s as a speech pathologist, where she often worked with children diagnosed with severe autism. During this time, Chapman encountered several children able to solve complex puzzles despite their hindering diagnosis. This contradiction sparked Chapman's interest in the brain’s potential[2]. Chapman's fascination the brain's modifiability later evolved into the idea of a multidisciplinary center housing brain researchers and therapists working collectively to prevent, arrest, and reverse brain traumas.[3] Only 20 years after it was first conceptualized, Chapman opened the Center for BrainHealth in Dallas, Texas.[4] Chapman continues to serve as the Center for BrainHealth's chief director.
Chapman’s cognitive research has laid the theoretical framework and empirical foundation for the development of measurements of higher order reasoning [Test of Strategic Learning] and the development of brain training programs for children and adults[5]. Her research elucidates novel approaches in order to maximize cognitive function in people with healthy brains[6] as well as those with brain injury[7], stroke, ADHD[8], autism[9], schizophrenia, substance abuse, and progressive brain diseases like Alzheimer’s disease[10].
Chapman's research has resulted in more than 120 publications[11], nearly 60 funded research grants, and has served as a national public health road for maintaining cognitive fitness and building critical thinking and reasoning skills in adolescents.[2] Chapman was the principal member writing the first state plan for BrainHealth fitness for adults[12]. Her research record and brain health breakthroughs led to selection of the Center for BrainHealth as the single Virtual Center for the National Pediatric Acquired Brain Injury Plan,[13] which links states with the most current assessment and training for brain injury. She is a core member for NIH’s selection process of central data elements for nationwide clinical trials on acquired brain injury. Throughout her career, Chapman has received major federal, state, and private research support to advance the treatment of veterans, sports-related brain injuries, concussions, autism, schizophrenia, adolescent reasoning, and brain development, among others.
Ph.D. from University of Texas at Dallas
M.A. from University of North Texas
B.A. from University of North Texas
Chapman is a member of the following organizations:[14]