Dr. Dornan was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He graduated from Concordia University with an undergraduate degree in psychology. From there, he spent five years in St. John's Newfoundland, Canada, where he completed a master's of science and a PhD in experimental psychology, with a focus on neuroscience. In 1986, Dr. Dornan moved to Los Angeles, California, where he graduated with a postdoctoral degree in reproductive neuroendocrinology from the Department of Anatomy at the UCLA School of Medicine. In 1989, he accepted a position as assistant professor of psychology at Illinois Wesleyan University to develop a neuroscience program. While at Illinois Wesleyan University, he cofounded the Central Illinois Neuroscience Foundation, which is a nonprofit foundation promoting neuro-health care in Central Illinois. From there, Dr. Dornan spent a decade in Tennessee at Middle Tennessee State University as a professor and chair of the aerospace department. In 2012, Dr. Dornan accepted a position as dean of the College of Aviation and Public Services at Utah Valley University. In 2015, Dr. Dornan retired and moved back to Tennessee. During his academic career, Dr. Dornan was a leading researcher on Alzheimer's disease and stroke. He has over fifty scientific research publications and has been awarded numerous research grants, including one at over one million dollars from the National Science Foundation. Dr. Dornan has been on the editorial board of over twelve scientific journals and was an associate editor and eventually editor of a prestigious scientific journal. We provided this information on Dr. Dornan's extensive academic background because as you will soon read, this background had a significant impact on how he dealt with the diagnosis and how he decided from the beginning to fight, which we believe led to the subsequent success after treatment for his breast cancer.
