Jill Bolte Taylor

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Jill Bolte Taylor
Jill Bolte Taylor speaking at TED on February 27, 2008
Born	1959 Terre Haute, Indiana
Residence	Bloomington, Indiana
Alma mater	Terre Haute South Vigo High School, Indiana University, Indiana State University
Known for	Work in neuroanatomy

Jill Bolte Taylor (born 1959 in Terre Haute, Indiana) is a neuroanatomist who specializes in the postmortem investigation of the human brain. She is affiliated with the Indiana University School of Medicine, is the national spokesperson for the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center, and is the consulting neuroanatomist for the Midwest Proton Radiotherapy Institute. Her own personal experience with a massive stroke, experienced in 1996 at age 37, and her subsequent eight-year recovery, has informed her work as a scientist and speaker. For this work, in May 2008 she was named to Time Magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world.^[1] "My Stroke of Insight" received the top "Books for a Better Life" Book Award in the Science category from the New York City Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society on February 23, 2009 in New York City. ^[2]

[edit] Stroke of Insight

On December 10, 1996, Taylor woke up to discover that she was experiencing a rare form of stroke, an arteriovenous malformation (AVM). Three weeks later, on December 27, 1996, she underwent major brain surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) to remove a golf ball-sized clot that was placing pressure on the language centers in the left hemisphere of her brain.

Taylor's February 2008 TED Conference talk^[3] about her memory of the stroke^[4] became an Internet sensation, resulting in widespread attention and interest around the world and an interview with Oprah Winfrey.^[5]

Taylor has written a best-selling book, published by Viking in 2008, called My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey,^[6] about her recovery from the stroke and the insights she has gained into the workings of her brain. Viking president Clare Ferraro won rights to publish the memoir in an intense auction conducted by literary agent and intellectual property attorney Ellen Stiefler of the Transmedia Agency, and Viking rushed the previously self-published book into hardcover to capitalize on Taylor’s rapidly rising profile.

Taylor was the first guest featured on Oprah's Soul Series^[7] webcast on Oprah.com and Satellite radio show starting May 12; Winfrey had been discussing Taylor with Eckhart Tolle during webinars for Oprah's Book Club about A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle's bestselling book. Taylor appeared on the Oprah Show on October 21, 2008^[8].

In her commencement address at Duke University on May 10, 2009, Oprah Winfrey quoted Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor in saying: "One of my other favorite guests was a woman named Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, who’s a brain scientist, who had a stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain. She wrote a book called “My Stroke of Insight.” And so only the right hemisphere was working, and when she was in the hospital as a patient, she said she could sense through her right brain when a nurse would come into the room and meant her well, or when the nurse was thinking about what time she was going to be off that day. She could sense the energy that was brought into the room. And after a while, she put up a sign in the room that said to everyone who came in the room, you are responsible for the energy that you bring. I love that moment, because we are responsible for the energy that we bring to everything we do in life."^[9]

About Dr. Taylor, author Daniel Pink said:The right brain is finally being taken seriously. The Dalai Lama is doing joint projects with neuroscientists. People like Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor [the Harvard-trained brain researcher who chronicled her stroke in the book "My Stroke of Insight"], who have incredible street cred in neuroscience, are offering their stories.^[10]

After 17 weeks on the New York Times Hardcover Non-Fiction Bestseller list, "My Stroke of Insight" was published in a paperback edition that debuted at #4 on the paperback New York Times Bestseller list. "My Stroke of Insight" is also available in large print, audio book, and kindle editions.

"My Stroke of Insight" is being translated and published thus far in over 30 countries around the world including Brazil^[11], Bulgaria^[12], China^[13], Croatia^[14], Denmark^[15], Estonia ^[16], Finland^[17], France^[18], Germany^[19], Greece^[20], Indonesia^[21], Israel^[22], Italy^[23], Japan^[24], Korea^[25], Mainland China^[26], India (Marathi)^[27], Netherlands^[28], Norway^[29], Poland^[30], Portugal^[31], Romania^[32], Russia^[33], Slovenia^[34], Spain^[35], Sweden^[36], Taiwan^[37], Thailand^[38], Turkey^[39], United Kingdom^[40] and United States^[41].

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor Homepage
• TED Ideas Worth Spreading February 2008
• Jill Bolte Taylor on Oprah's Soul Series
• NPR radio interview
• In a Single Stroke: The Metamorphosis of Jill Bolte Taylor. O, The Oprah Magazine, October 2002