PCRW General Meeting

Rep. Dan Branch

Rep. Dan Branch serves as a member of the Texas House of Representatives from Dallas (District 108). Elected in 2002, as a Republican, he represents downtown, uptown and near east Dallas, as well as the Town of Highland Park and the City of University Park. Rep. Branch is Chairman of the Higher Education Committee and serves on the Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence Committee, as well as the Legislative Budget Board. Recently, he served three terms as the Chair of Budget & Oversight on House Public Education Committee, and last session, served as Vice Chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Education. Rep. Branch was selected by Texas House members from eleven north Texas counties to serve as the Republican Chair of the Dallas Area Legislative Delegation (DALD), at the delegation's first meeting of the 81st Session. During the 2009 legislative session, Branch authored and passed several key pieces of legislation, including the Tier One universities bill, a bill that reformed the Top 10% college admissions rule, as well as a bill that expanded the use of digital textbooks in public schools. In 2009, Branch was named to Capitol Inside's Best of the Texas Legislature list for the 6th consecutive time and both Capitol Inside and Texas Monthly named him to their listings of best legislators of the 2009 Session. In 2006, Branch was one of the primary authors of the school finance reform, franchise tax reform and property tax reduction legislation signed into law by Governor Perry. In 2007, he was a joint author of HB 2 - the largest property tax cut in the history of Texas. In addition to his service in the Legislature, Branch is a corporate lawyer and shareholder of Winstead PC. He is a former judicial clerk to Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Jack Pope and a former aide to the late U.S. Senator John Tower. Branch is a member of the bars of Texas, New York and the District of Columbia. Beyond his professional service, Branch is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City, a former president of The Dallas Assembly and a former Chairman of the Texas Public Finance Authority, appointed by Governor George W. Bush. He is a Fellow of the Aspen Institute Rodel program, Class of 2008. In addition, he is the chairman of SMU John Tower Center for Political Studies, and serves on numerous boards, including The Fund for American Studies in Washington, D.C., the Boy Scouts of America/Circle Ten Council and the Southwestern Medical Foundation in Dallas. A graduate of the SMU School of Law and the Institute on Comparative Political & Economic Systems at Georgetown University, he holds two undergraduate degrees from Oklahoma Christian University, graduating summa cum laude in 1980. Dan and his wife, Stacey, a longtime PCRW member and live in University Park along with their five children.

Dr. Sandra Bond Chapman

Dr. Sandra Bond Chapman, Ph.D., founder and chief director, Distinguished Professor at Center for BrainHealth, The University of Texas at Dallas Dr. Chapman's research is advancing a better understanding of how to protect and heal cognitive brain function from brain injuries and diseases, and how to strengthen healthy brain development across the lifespan. She believes brain health and maximizing brain function is a cause that touches everybody. As chief director of the Center for BrainHealth, her vision is for Texas to become an international focal point for brain health discovery by applying the latest in brain research to faster treatments than anything that has come before. Dr. Chapman is a cognitive neuroscientist and was awarded one of top 25 Changemakers of 2009 by the Dallas-Fort Worth Business Journal and has been featured on CNN, Forbes Magazine, Texas Monthly as well as national and local news. Dr. Chapman, who also holds the Dee Wyly Distinguished Professor in BrainHealth and is a professor in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at UT Dallas. Dr. Chapman research areas are devoted to developing more sensitive benchmark and diagnostic measures, designing and testing cutting-edge brain training/cognitive training to build stronger brain function, and measuring brain change and real-life improvements in response to new treatments. With more than 100 publications and 30 funded research grants, her research spans the age spectrum from studies that evaluate the brain's capacity to rewire in brain-injured children and adolescents, to research focused on understanding the potential for plasticity in the workplace and throughout adulthood into advanced age. She has developed diagnostic measures and high-level cognitive treatment protocols to maximize cognitive function in both people with healthy brains and those with brain injury, stroke, ADHD, Alzheimers disease and other progressive brain diseases, autism, poverty, schizophrenia, among others. On the new frontier of brain research, Dr. Chapman is collaborating with brain scientists across the country to solve some of the most important issues concerning the brain and its health.