Dear Colleagues: 17 Oct. 2014
Jan Scheuermann is a cybernetics pioneer, a gifted storyteller, a mystery writer, a woman of faith, and a dedicated mother. Due to a rare degenerative condition, she has quadriplegia. Until she volunteered to have a computer interfaced with the surface of her brain, she had not directed a movement below her neck for ten years. Now she is one of the most accomplished trainers of this type of cybernetic system, a pioneer in an ongoing study at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center that promises to help others with spinal injuries or loss of limbs.
Jan came to Saint Francis last November to speak to a standing room only audience of 250 people in our student center lounge: athletes, professors, health care professionals, graduate students, and members of the community. Her slide-illustrated narrative kept us spellbound, alternately laughing and tearing up as she told what she had lost and regained as a research subject. Following the ovation, Jan asked me and event co-organizer Dr. Nathan Scott (a chemist who was then teaching a first-year seminar on the future) to write her a reference in case her research schedule allowed further speaking engagements. This letter makes good that promise.
I first heard of Jan from a nursing student in an introductory Medicine and Literature class. We had read the Brian Clark play Whose Life is It Anyway? and watched the film starring Richard Dreyfuss about a paralyzed sculptor who wished to end his life. My student was writing about how assistive technology for people with quadriplegia had improved since the play was written. She mentioned that she had met an SFU mom at a volleyball game who had quadriplegia, but who seemed to have every reason to live. I scribbled on Lauren’s draft, “Wow—what a speaker she would be!” Lauren transferred to another university, and I became busy with other duties, until I learned of Nathan Scott’s class on the future. We found Jan’s appearances on 60 Minutes and several TV news segments. Nathan and I vowed to bring her to campus before her son, a senior in our chemistry program and a volleyball player, graduated.
On the night of Jan’s talk, November 6, 2013, Nathan, I, and Provost Wayne Powel dined in the campus café with Jan, Karina, Jan’s mom, and her son and his girlfriend. When Karina warned me that Jan could be hard to keep up with, I assumed she meant her wit. But when Jan launched her chair up the sloping sidewalk to the student center lounge, I realized Karina meant that she had to sprint to keep up with Jan on the sidewalks of Pittsburgh. Nathan and I had advertised faithfully, but even we were surprised by the size of the crowd. I hustled to find more chairs, but some of the latecomers were left standing. I don’t think they noticed.
With her presentation, titled “The Lighter Side of Being a Lab Rat,” Jan emphasized the roles of faith, humor, and family as she decided to have her brain implanted with electrodes that detect her neural activity, which then is amplified to control a robotic arm she named Hector. Mastering complex movements of a robotic arm with her thoughts alone gave her a renewed sense of purpose: she knows her work will eventually help other quadriplegics and amputees, many of whom are veterans. We understood why the scientists found her such a resilient, upbeat, inventive partner. Tiring of conventional photo ops with famous scientists, she began posing Hector socking visitors on the jaw or giving them bunny ears. Hector assumed different costumes for national holidays. Some of the more sober scientists, Jan admitted, took a while to adjust to her zaniness, but they put up with her because she worked so tirelessly to train the computer-assisted Hector to reach her goals: seven degrees of movement in manipulating cones and eventually feeding herself chocolate.
The forty-five minute presentation ended on a high note; the applause was thundering. Afterward, Jan invited students to bring their questions forward, and she invited them to examine the pedestals in her scalp if they wished (a few of our braver physician assistant students took up the offer). If you are looking for a compelling witness to the redemptive promise of medical research, you cannot find a better speaker than Jan Scheuermann. Book her before she is discovered by TED Talks!
Sincerely,
Timothy Bintrim Nathan Scott Wayne Powel
Literature & Languages Department of Chemistry University Provost
TBintrim@francis.edu
.
Jan Scheuermann is a cybernetics pioneer, a gifted storyteller, a mystery writer, a woman of faith, and a dedicated mother. Due to a rare degenerative condition, she has quadriplegia. Until she volunteered to have a computer interfaced with the surface of her brain, she had not directed a movement below her neck for ten years. Now she is one of the most accomplished trainers of this type of cybernetic system, a pioneer in an ongoing study at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center that promises to help others with spinal injuries or loss of limbs.
Jan came to Saint Francis last November to speak to a standing room only audience of 250 people in our student center lounge: athletes, professors, health care professionals, graduate students, and members of the community. Her slide-illustrated narrative kept us spellbound, alternately laughing and tearing up as she told what she had lost and regained as a research subject. Following the ovation, Jan asked me and event co-organizer Dr. Nathan Scott (a chemist who was then teaching a first-year seminar on the future) to write her a reference in case her research schedule allowed further speaking engagements. This letter makes good that promise.
I first heard of Jan from a nursing student in an introductory Medicine and Literature class. We had read the Brian Clark play Whose Life is It Anyway? and watched the film starring Richard Dreyfuss about a paralyzed sculptor who wished to end his life. My student was writing about how assistive technology for people with quadriplegia had improved since the play was written. She mentioned that she had met an SFU mom at a volleyball game who had quadriplegia, but who seemed to have every reason to live. I scribbled on Lauren’s draft, “Wow—what a speaker she would be!” Lauren transferred to another university, and I became busy with other duties, until I learned of Nathan Scott’s class on the future. We found Jan’s appearances on 60 Minutes and several TV news segments. Nathan and I vowed to bring her to campus before her son, a senior in our chemistry program and a volleyball player, graduated.
On the night of Jan’s talk, November 6, 2013, Nathan, I, and Provost Wayne Powel dined in the campus café with Jan, Karina, Jan’s mom, and her son and his girlfriend. When Karina warned me that Jan could be hard to keep up with, I assumed she meant her wit. But when Jan launched her chair up the sloping sidewalk to the student center lounge, I realized Karina meant that she had to sprint to keep up with Jan on the sidewalks of Pittsburgh. Nathan and I had advertised faithfully, but even we were surprised by the size of the crowd. I hustled to find more chairs, but some of the latecomers were left standing. I don’t think they noticed.
With her presentation, titled “The Lighter Side of Being a Lab Rat,” Jan emphasized the roles of faith, humor, and family as she decided to have her brain implanted with electrodes that detect her neural activity, which then is amplified to control a robotic arm she named Hector. Mastering complex movements of a robotic arm with her thoughts alone gave her a renewed sense of purpose: she knows her work will eventually help other quadriplegics and amputees, many of whom are veterans. We understood why the scientists found her such a resilient, upbeat, inventive partner. Tiring of conventional photo ops with famous scientists, she began posing Hector socking visitors on the jaw or giving them bunny ears. Hector assumed different costumes for national holidays. Some of the more sober scientists, Jan admitted, took a while to adjust to her zaniness, but they put up with her because she worked so tirelessly to train the computer-assisted Hector to reach her goals: seven degrees of movement in manipulating cones and eventually feeding herself chocolate.
The forty-five minute presentation ended on a high note; the applause was thundering. Afterward, Jan invited students to bring their questions forward, and she invited them to examine the pedestals in her scalp if they wished (a few of our braver physician assistant students took up the offer). If you are looking for a compelling witness to the redemptive promise of medical research, you cannot find a better speaker than Jan Scheuermann. Book her before she is discovered by TED Talks!
Sincerely,
Timothy Bintrim Nathan Scott Wayne Powel
Literature & Languages Department of Chemistry University Provost
TBintrim@francis.edu
.
