Dr. Brashear is the Vice President for Health Sciences and Dean of the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. As dean, she oversees more than 913 faculty and staff, 2,079 students, 845 trainees in graduate medical education, and 27 departments and 25 centers within the Jacobs School. As vice president for health sciences, she has administrative responsibility for the other four schools within UB’s Academic Health Center: dental medicine, nursing, pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences, and public health and health professions.
Brashear is an internationally known neurologist and researcher in movement disorders. She is an expert in ATP1A3-related diseases with continuous National Institutes of Health (2008) as the PI of “Clinical Genetic and Cellular Consequences of Mutations in ATP1A3” and she was principal investigator 40 clinical trials in cervical dystonia and spasticity, leading to 3 FDA-approved medications. Before joining UB, Brashear was dean of the UC Davis School of Medicine (2019-2021) and for 14 years was the chair of neurology at Wake Forest School of Medicine (2005-2019).
She earned her medical degree (1987) and completed her neurology residency at Indiana University School of Medicine (1991), and MBA at Fuqua School of Business at Duke University (2012). She completed the Association of American Medical Colleges Council of Deans fellowship (2014), ELAM (2007).
Brashear is a trustee to the McKnight Brain Research Foundation and is a director on the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, the organization responsible for board accreditation for psychiatrist and neurologists. While at UC Davis. and she served on the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine’s Independent Citizens’ Oversight Committee. Additionally, she has served on the boards of the American Neurological Association and the American Academy of Neurology, where she was instrumental in crafting a leadership program for women.