Summary

Claire Buddenbaum is a senior at Indiana University, where she will earn her B.S. in Exercise Science in the Spring of 2026. For the past three years, she has worked as an undergraduate research assistant in the Clinical Neurotrauma Laboratory at IU, contributing to studies on the prospective effects of repetitive head impacts in high school football players and the long-term consequences of lifetime exposure to contact sports. She has enjoyed and gained valuable experience being the study coordinator for 2 of Grace Recht’s pilot studies that further investigated the relationship between lifetime exposure to sports related head impacts through contact sports in a middle-aged population! She has also been involved in research examining the neurological effects of consensual sexual strangulation. Claire's primary interests lie in the clinical manifestations of neurotrauma, with a particular focus on mental health outcomes. She is especially passionate about studying female populations, which are often underrepresented in subconcussive brain injury research, and is committed to expanding knowledge on the neurological and psychological implications of emerging behaviors such as sexual strangulation.

Claire plans to pursue graduate studies in Fall 2026, with the goal of continuing her research in neurotrauma and advocating for broader public awareness of often-overlooked public health issues.