About the Author
Susan C. Hultberg is a well-educated lady who had an accident in 1985 that transformed her life. She suffered a polytrauma which included a head injury. She lost her "center of balance" both literally and figuratively. Thereafter, she endured long years of recovery from the physical, intellectual, and emotional injuries brought on by the traumatic brain injury (TBI). During this time she changed her life path. Like some others, she made it her life's mission to educate survivors and others about brain injury and also about the brain injury survivor community.
Pre-TBI she attended the University of the Pacific (BA), and the Santa Clara School of Law (JD) and worked both in the fields of education and law. Ten years after the TBI, she attended Saint Mary's College and achieved an MA in special education. All of her postgraduate research in that program involved research involving the brain injury survivor community. Her thesis, entitled Traumatic Brain Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation: Survivors' Perspectives, is online at Brain Injury Survivors, Research from Our Point of View.
The author is the founder and president of the Brain Injury Network, a national and international nonprofit organization for people with acquired brain injuries. In that capacity in one way or another she has encountered or interacted with thousands of brain injury survivors over the years.
The author is a leading proponent of survivor-initiated advocacy by and for the brain injury survivor collective community. She turned away from advocacy controlled by others to champion the concept that brain injury survivors are able to speak for ourselves, and that we are able to work, not just singularly, but collectively, to voice our concerns. She has written extensively on numerous Internet venues regarding the brain injury survivor movement, human rights for brain injury survivors, and brain injury survivor activism and free choice.