About Us

Project Overview

Every 9 seconds someone in the United States sustains a brain injury. That adds up to 3.5 million people each year. Brain injuries range from mild to moderate to severe. Every injury is different, but when your brain is injured, it can affect everything: your ability to speak, focus, remember, and relate to other people.

Many adults will experience at least one traumatic event in their lifetime. About 6% will have PTSD at some point in their lives. Women and veterans are more likely to develop PTSD. Many people who have PTSD will recover. About 13 million Americans have PTSD in a given year.

BrainLine is a national multimedia project offering authoritative information and support to anyone whose life has been affected by brain injury or PTSD: people with brain injuries, their family and friends, and the professionals who work with them. BrainLine also provides military-specific information and resources on traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to veterans, service members, and their families. Through BrainLine, we seek to provide a sense of community, a place where people who care about brain injury can go 24 hours a day for information, support, and ideas.

BrainLine is a national service of WETA-TV, the flagship PBS station in Washington, D.C.

Contact Us

We want to hear from you. Please send us your feedback and suggestions.

BrainLine, WETA-TV
3939 Campbell Ave
Arlington, VA 22206

Phone: 703.998.2020
E-mail

BrainLine's Experts

BrainLine's experts review the site and make sure we're up to date on the latest and greatest information and resources. BrainLine has produced more than 100 in-depth interviews with national experts on brain injury and PTSD including Julian Bailes, MD, Jeffrey Barth, PhD, Jeffrey Bazarian, MD, Robert Cantu, MD, David Cifu, MD, John Corrigan, PhD, Richard Ellenbogen, MD, Jamshid Ghajar, MD, Wayne Gordon, PhD, Brian Greenwald, MD, COL Dallas Hack, MD, COL Sidney Hinds, MD, David Hovda, PhD, James Kelly, MD, Jeffrey Kreutzer, PhD, COL Geoffrey Ling, MD, Michael McCrea, PhD, Ann McKee, MD, Daniel P. Perl, MD, Joel Scholten, MD, COL Beverly Scott, MD, Nathan Zasler, MD.

View a full list of our subject matter experts.
 

BrainLine's Partners

BrainLine works closely with many outstanding organizations to promote education and awareness about brain injury. Including the Bob Woodruff Foundation, Center on Brain Injury Research and Training, Cohen Veteran Health, Infinite Hero Foundation, the International Brain Injury Association (IBIA), Model System Knowledge Translation Center (MSKTC), Ohio Valley Center for Brain Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation, and the Wounded Warrior Project Warrior Care Network.

View a full list of current partners.
 

Awards

Since 2008, BrainLine.org has received more than two dozen national awards and recognition for outstanding multimedia content development and mobile delivery. See our awards and recognition.

Connect and Share

Stay up to date on brain injury issues! Our Connect and Share page offers simple ways to get the current news, resources, content, and connections that you need — via email, RSS, and widget feeds, and sharing on social networks. Find out how to subscribe to our daily news headlines and weekly series, including Ask the Expert, Research Updates, Blogs, and Personal Stories.

WETA

BrainLine is a service of WETA, the public TV and radio station in Washington, DC. Over the last decade, WETA has created four award-winning national websites: ReadingRockets.org, ColorinColorado.org, LDOnLine.org, and AdLit.org. With funding from The Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, WETA also produced the public TV series Exploring Your Brain with Garrick Utley and co-produced three documentaries for the long-running public radio series Gray Matters. WETA received numerous awards for those programs, including the James and Sarah Brady Recognition Award from the Brain Injury Association of America. Learn more about WETA and Learning Media.

Staff

Noel Gunther, Executive Director
Christian Lindstrom, Director, Learning Media
Stacey Shade-Ware, Director, BrainLine
Lydia Breiseth, Senior Director, Colorín Colorado
Tina Chovanec, Senior Director, Reading Rockets
Victoria Tilney McDonough, Senior Writer/Editor
Ashley Gilleland, Senior Digital Producer
Mandana Tadayon, Video Producer


Noel Gunther, Executive Director

Noel Gunther has broad experience in radio, television, print, and the Internet. He has co-written and co-produced award-winning documentaries for NPR and Public Radio International, including: Good Morning Vietnam with Adrian Cronauer (Gold Award, International Radio Festival of New York); American Voices: Norman Corwin with Charles Kuralt (Grand Award, Best Documentary, International Radio Festival of New York); Gray Matters: Depression with Mike Wallace (Gold Award, International Radio Festival of New York); and Drugs, Alcohol and the Brain with Pat Summerall (Gold Cindy Award, best documentary).

For television, Gunther's work includes the PBS documentary A Tale of Two Schools, narrated by Morgan Freeman (Cine Special Jury Prize), and the five-part public TV series Exploring Your Brain (Gold Cindy Award). For the Internet, Gunther developed and now oversees four national sites: ReadingRockets.org, ColorinColorado.org, AdLit.org, and LD OnLine.org, which since 1996 has been the world's leading website in the field of learning disabilities. Gunther is co-author of Beyond Boardwalk and Park Place (Bantam Books), which was named by the New York Public Library as one of the best young adult books of the year. He has also written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Village Voice, Washingtonian, American Journalism Review, and many other publications. He is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School.


Christian Lindstrom, Director, Learning Media

Christian Lindstrom's work for WETA Learning Media includes producing award-winning television programs, websites, and print materials about reading, learning disabilities, mental health, and brain science. She worked to launch Learning Media's first website, LD OnLine, in 1996; it has since become the world's leading site in the field of learning disabilities. She has been a key player in the production and launch of ReadingRockets.org and ColorinColorado.org, both Webby Award Honorees. She contributed to the Dana Foundation-funded television series Exploring Your Brain with Garrick Utley, which won an International Gold CINDY Award and a Time Inc Health FREDDIE Award. She co-produced, wrote, and directed the PBS show A Tale of Two Schools, narrated by Morgan Freeman, which won the Unity Award in Media, a CINE Golden Eagle Award, and a CINE Special Jury Prize. She also wrote and produced several episodes of the PBS series Launching Young Readers, including Reading Rocks!, a special for children with reading difficulties (Parents' Choice Silver Honor Award); Reading and the Brain, with Henry Winkler (Time Inc Health FREDDIE Award, Silver World Medal at the International Film and Video Competition of New York); Empowering Parents, with Al Roker (CINE Golden Eagle Award, International Reading Association Broadcast Media Award for Television, Telly Awards Bronze Medal Winner); and Becoming Bilingual, with Rita Moreno (CINE Golden Eagle Award, Telly Awards Bronze Medal Winner)


Stacey Shade-Ware, Director, BrainLine

Stacey Shade-Ware has a diverse background in politics and theatre, where she has worked as a director, singer, stage manager, and creative director. She is passionate about military mental health issues and she is also a caregiver to her husband Russ, who served for 25 years in the United States Air Force. One highlight of her career was directing Telling: San Antonio, a military and veteran testimonial play filmed by PBS station KLRN-TV and distributed nationally. She also sings with the American Military Spouses Choir, which has given her a chance to perform at Radio City Music Hall, The Kennedy Center, and at the legendary Capitol Records studio in Los Angeles. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre from the University of Maryland. She is a member in good standing with the Actors' Equity Association and volunteers with The Entertainment Community Fund.


Victoria Tilney McDonough, Senior Writer/Editor

Victoria Tilney McDonough is a big believer in the power of storytelling. She writes and produces stories about what makes people tick—and why—in whatever work or life situation they are in. Over the years, Victoria has worked at two public broadcasting organizations, two cancer hospitals, a school for students like learning differences, and for various publications, websites, and other health care and educational organizations. She is also a contributing freelance writer to many independent schools, universities, foundations, and other organizations and has been published in The New York Times Book Review, Elle, Scholastic, Harvard, TimeOut, and FilmMaker; in many university alumni magazines; and on Salon.com and the AP News Wire, among others.


Reprint Policy

Material from our website may not be sold or used commercially. Permission to publish materials must be granted by the copyright holder.

You are welcome to print copies for personal use, or a limited number for educational purposes, as long as credit is given to BrainLine and the author(s).

If you have questions, please contact us at info@brainline.org.