IConstance Miller, completed her undergraduate work in social psychology at the University of Washington (UW). Her Master’s Degree in social psychology was undertaken in a program for social change activists known as Goddard-Cambridge Graduate School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “
Following graduate school she pursued a brief career as an associate professor of women’s studies at the UW. Subsequently, she took a job as a program analysis in an executive department of Seattle City Government.
She became a traumatic brain injury (TBI) Advocate more than thirty years ago following a motor vehicle collision that left her with permanent impairments from a moderate TBI.
Back then there was very little information of any type on concussion, and the existing literature typically blamed the patient for the appearance of the symptoms of what is now known as post-concussion syndrome. Fortunately, her academic training in research methodology enabled her to spot the flaws in such reasoning. She took what she learned and put it into a self-advocacy guide on brain injury.
She titled the book, FROM THE ASHES, because she felt that it reflected the destructive effects of brain injury in her life. Shortly after its publication she was recruited by the American Academy of Neurology to help them redesigned their guidelines for diagnosing and treating concussion in sports.
Realizing the vastness of the problem of brain injury and the lack of resources and awareness she decided to found a non-profit organization to address brain injury from the survivor’s perspective. Known as Brain Injury Resource Center it was established in 1985 and has evolved into the first national resource center for persons with traumatic brain injuries.
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