Claudia Blair

Born in Chicago on a fine spring day, Claudia Blair is the daughter of a housewife and a shoe salesman. She has a younger brother and sister. The quality of teachers and schools in the Midwest, during the Fifties, combined with Claudia's intelligence, curiosity, and energy, enabled her move far beyond her roots. In addition to scholastic activities, Claudia was active in dance, violin, viola, piano, acting, horseback riding, and the visual arts. Claudia left high school to earn money for college, assembling printed circuit boards for a small, electronic components manufacturing plant. As a National Merit Finalist, she went to New College of Florida on scholarship, where she gained a strong liberal arts background, and continued to practice music, painting, and performance. However, things happened, and she graduated with a major in experimental psychology. To pursue this interest, Claudia was awarded a fellowship from the National Institutes of Health to attend the University of Washington in Seattle, obtaining a Ph.D. degree from the Department of Psychology and the Department of Physiology and Biophysics. Her academic career of research and teaching took her to St. Thomas' Hospital Medical School and the TUC Institute of Occupational Health in London, The Physiology Institute of the University of Munich, and the University of Wisconsin/Madison. In 1988, Claudia's growing interest in science policy led her to a variety of senior positions at the National Institutes of Health, from which she retired in 2002, a disability retirement due to a chronic pain and spasticity disorder. After moving from Bethesda, Maryland to Los Angeles, and while still trying to recover from the pain disorder, Claudia was able to spend more time pursuing her artistic interests. She regained essentially normal mobility in 2007, and thus has been able to pursue all of her interests with more energy. In addition to acting, Claudia volunteers as a BookPal, through the SAG Foundation's literacy programs. She works in fiber arts, mostly designing and knitting garments for children and adults, under the name "Not Forgotten Knits." She attends ballet classes at Westside Ballet. Claudia is still interested in neuroscience, neurology, and behavior, although now, it is only by reading. As an actor, she is particularly interested in the portrayal of persons with neurological disorders. Claudia has two married daughters, one living in San Antonio and one in London. Each daughter has a daughter, so Claudia is learning the joys of grand-parenting, and the difficulty of grand-parenting long distance.