Dr. Brandy Tiernan
Assistant professor Department of Psychology at the Western Carolina University
Postdoctoral Fellow Western Kentucky University
PhD in Cognitive Psychology Iowa State University
Playtime was science-time for a young, not-yet-Dr. Brandy Tiernan. With only much older siblings and thus lots of time on her own, she would entertain herself with little botany experiments - singing to one stalk of celery in a jar of water, talking to another, and ignoring a third. She was also an enthusiastic at-home research subject for her older sister who was studying psychology. Brandy may not have known it yet, but one day she would be on the other side of those psychology experiments, as an Assistant Professor and Director of the Emotion and Cognitive Control Laboratory at Western Carolina University.
Brandy knew she wanted to go to graduate school in some form ever since she was in high school. Having become interested in studying the mind while acting as her sister’s unofficial psychology subject, she went on to study psychology herself in college, with minors in criminal justice and philosophy. Since Brandy considered getting a law degree in addition to a graduate degree in psychology, her first jobs coming out of college were at law firms. However, one of those jobs in particular turned into a difficult experience - she was so inundated by expectations and workload that she never fully unpacked her apartment - that left her less enthusiastic about pursuing a law career. She thus decided to focus on psychology and cognitive neuroscience instead, working as a clinical research coordinator for a lab studying mood disorders at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas before applying to graduate schools.
Brandy’s first graduate school experience started off tough but ultimately took a positive turn. She did not have much success when she first applied to PhD programs, and she ended up going to Western Kentucky University to do a master’s with a professor she’d worked for during undergrad. Unfortunately, that professor changed institutions after just a year, leaving Brandy without a mentor halfway through her degree. Thankfully, she found a new advisor - Dr. Sharon Mutter - who encouraged her to join her lab to study cognition and aging. Dr. Mutter became an incredibly influential and supportive mentor and advocate, even nominating Brandy for various fellowships along the way that allowed her to pay for the majority of her master's degree.
With that additional research experience under her belt, Brandy had immensely more success in her PhD applications than she had had the first time around. She was accepted to every program she applied to and decided on Iowa State University. She went there to work with Dr. Robert West, a scientist whose research she had encountered regularly while completing her master’s thesis on aging and cognition. For her PhD in Dr. West’s lab, Brandy was excited to gain expertise in electroencephalography (EEG) to be able to study neural signatures of cognition in aging. In particular, Brandy was interested in studying how older populations regulate their emotions. It is well-documented in the psychology field that older adults tend to take on a more “positive outlook on life” as they near the end of their lives, and Brandy was interested in whether this might reflect a particular cognitive process. To investigate this question, she used EEG to look at specific neural signatures of arousal (thought to originate from activity in the frontal cortex) while older adults viewed very sad or gruesome images and were instructed to either ruminate over those images (“attend to”) or reinterpret what was depicted in them (“reappraise”). Brandy found that older compared to younger adults seemed to be better at regulating their emotional reactions, since they showed less difference in those EEG signatures when they “attended to” versus when they “reappraised” the same images.
Today, Brandy runs her own laboratory at Western Carolina University. Her lab broadly studies how emotions interact with cognitive control, especially in the contexts of aging and mental disorders like borderline personality disorder (BPD). Brandy’s particular interest in BPD is personal; after having had a family member with BPD who died by suicide, Brandy committed herself to one day studying the cognitive processes underlying that disorder. As the director of her own research program, she can do exactly that. In a particular line of work, she is trying to understand how cognition is impacted by social stress in people with increased impulsivity and distress intolerance - both of which are characteristics of BPD. But Brandy is a woman of many interests, and she is eager to pursue many research directions, such as how stigma is processed and regulated in people with BPD and other disorders.
Looking back on her scientific journey, Brandy is proud of the grit and resilience she’s shown through many difficult times. A considerable overarching challenge has been navigating predominantly white academic spaces as a Black woman in science. “There are several times I’ve walked into a room and wondered why I’m actually there”, she reflects, noting how imposter syndrome is often exacerbated for Black scientists and other underrepresented minorities. She’s been frustrated by the posturing of liberal institutions, seeming to focus on putting their Black scientists in the spotlight without meaningfully supporting them and even oppressing them. Even as she reflects on how much academic service as well as teaching and research contributions she has done, she regularly feels the pressure to keep doing more. She advises young Black scientists to find a mentor that they trust and to hold onto their principles of community without falling into what can often be the competitive and individualistic culture of academia.
Despite these challenges, Brandy’s early enthusiasm for science has never left her. She’s simply brimming with ideas and questions that have yet to be answered. But everyone needs to unwind somehow, and Brandy is no exception, so she loves watching Raven’s Home with her kids or mindless reality TV on Bravo. Between her various responsibilities in and out of the lab, she no longer has all the time for doing recreational experiments she once had as a kid. Yet experiments are just as fun now as they were then, even if they no longer involve singing to celery.
Find out more about the exciting research in Brandy’s lab here.
Listen to Nancy’s full interview with Brandy on August 16th, 2020 below or wherever you get your podcasts!
