Page 18 - North State Parent July 2020

this is tehama By Kate Hiller
THIS IS TEHAMA
The ancient word “Tehama” once meant a place where rivers could be crossed. With our county’s rich currents of history, happenings and hope, this is our crossing place today — where we meet to celebrate our beautiful Tehama County.
Christine Hartmann
Her Brain Works in Special Ways
Life is beautiful. Everything is fine. These are slogans painted on the artworks of a woman who was once stuffed in a trash can by high school bullies. Red Bluff local, Christine Hartmann, used to
hide in the art room or music room to avoid those bullies. Now she recog- nizes those hardships as the opportunities she needed to develop both her artistic and musical skills. With a Ph.D. in medical physics from the Uni- versity of Wisconsin-Madison, Christine’s successful academic career is not a surprise. The real surprise is her journey from a childhood outcast to an adult who mentors others in gratitude.
“I have worked for 27 years as a physicist at Lawrence Livermore Na- tional Laboratory (LLNL) doing original work in radiation treatment of can- cer that advanced computer techniques used to save lives,” Christine says. “Now, I lead a team that helps scientists and engineers win government funding to turn their breakthrough ideas into reality for our nation’s secu- rity and scientific and technology competitiveness.”
Christine’s life came full circle when serving as the founding chair of the Abilities Champions Employee Resource Group at LLNL, promoting the inclusion of interns and employees with physical, psychological, develop- mental and neurocognitive differences as valuable contributors to their missions.
“Our first effort was in neurodiversity, the idea that neurological differ- ences such as autism and ADHD are the result of normal, natural variation in the human genome and not so different than other variations that we all have. We organize internships for 10-20 neurodiverse students each year, partnering with neurodiversity leaders such as author John Elder Robison, Stanford University professor Lawrence Fung, and researchers at the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute. We are understanding how neurodiversity not only fits in the world of science and technology, but also powers it. Many of hu- mankind’s great artists, inventors and scientific leaders, such as Michel- angelo, Isaac Newton, Henry Cavendish, Nikola Tesla and Alan Turing, are believed to have been neurodiverse.
“When talking with John Elder Robison, I wondered out loud why I was so interested in neurodiversity. He suggested that I take three University of Cambridge evaluative tests and compare my scores with published re- sults. Two scores placed me squarely in the autism range. This is not a for- mal diagnosis, but it started a journey of discovery for me.”
Christine’s mother was not surprised by her results since after an un- usual birth, the doctor thought Christine may have suffered brain damage. Christine recalls, “my mother devised a variety of one-on-one methods to help me. Instead of developing slowly, I became a little professor. I learned to read when I was two, read the encyclopedia at three, and was assigning myself reports on topics of my choosing when I was in kindergarten. I spent my childhood amusing adults but was often lost when it came to making and keeping friends my age. For one thing, I would talk endlessly 13
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Photos by Amber Murray