Susan R. Barry is a professor of neurobiology at Mount Holyoke College

Mount Holyoke College

Mount Holyoke College is a liberal arts college for women in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It was the first member of the Seven Sisters colleges, and served as a model for some of the others...

 and the author of Fixing My Gaze: A Scientist's Journey into Seeing in Three Dimensions. Barry was dubbed "Stereo Sue" by neurologist and author Oliver Sacks

Oliver Sacks

Oliver Wolf Sacks, CBE , is a British neurologist and psychologist residing in New York City. He is a professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University, where he also holds the position of Columbia Artist...

 in a 2006 New Yorker article with that name. Barry's book greatly expands on Sacks' article and discusses the experience of gaining stereovision, through optometric vision therapy

Vision therapy

Vision therapy, also known as visual training, vision training, or visual therapy, is a broad group of techniques aimed at correcting and improving binocular, oculomotor, visual processing, and perceptual disorders."-Historical development:...

, after a lifetime of being stereoblind

Stereoblindness

Stereoblindness is the inability to see in 3D using stereo vision, resulting in inability to perceive stereoscopic depth by combining and comparing images from the two eyes...

. It challenges the conventional wisdom that the brain is wired for perceptual skills during a critical period in early childhood and provides evidence instead for neuronal plasticity

Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity is a non-specific neuroscience term referring to the ability of the brain and nervous system in all species to change structurally and functionally as a result of input from the environment. Plasticity occurs on a variety of levels, ranging from cellular changes involved in...

 throughout life. Barry's achievement of stereo vision, with the help of a developmental optometrist Dr. Theresa Ruggiero, was reported in BBC's Imagine

Imagine (TV series)

Imagine is a wide ranging arts series first broadcast on BBC One in 2003, hosted and executive produced by Alan Yentob. Each series usually consists of 4 to 7 episodes, each on a different topic...

 documentary broadcast on June 28, 2011

She graduated from Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...

 with B.A. in biology in 1976. Barry then did her graduate work at Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 where she earned an M.A. in biology in 1979 and a Ph.D. in biology in 1981. Barry maintains a blog in the magazine Psychology Today

Psychology Today

Psychology Today is a bi-monthly magazine published in the United States. It is a psychology-based magazine about relationships, health, and related topics written for a mass audience of non-psychologists. Psychology Today was founded in 1967 and features articles on such topics as love,...

, entitled Eyes on the Brain, which explores the practical applications of the theory of neuronal plasticity. She is married to astronaut

Astronaut

An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....

 Daniel T. Barry

Daniel T. Barry

Daniel Thomas Barry is an American engineer, scientist, and a retired NASA astronaut. He was a contestant on the CBS reality television program Survivor: Panama-Exile Island...

.