Joan Swearer

Joan Swearer is Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at UMass Chan Medical School, specializing in clinical neuropsychology. She currently works part-time conducting comprehensive neuropsychological evaluations focused on dementia, movement disorders, and multiple sclerosis.

Education includes a BA in Psychology and Visual Arts from Macalester College, MA in Psychology, and PhD in Experimental Psychology from The New School for Social Research, with pre- and post-doctoral training at UMass Medical School.

Her research centers on three primary areas: aging and dementia (particularly Alzheimer's disease), visual function in clinical populations, and neuropsychological aspects of neurological diseases. She contributed significantly to studies of sporadic and familial AD, developed assessment instruments, and conducted clinical trials of pharmacological treatments during her tenure with the UMass Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (1985-2004).

Swearer's work on visual perception spans psychophysics of form perception, age-related visual changes, and visual processing in schizophrenia. She continues to investigate brain-behavior relationships in neurological conditions while supervising trainees in neuropsychology.