Dr. Thomas has received over $100,000 in grants from MTSU to support her research on brain-based methodologies. Her initial “Special Projects” grant to begin the Summer Language Institute in 2003 was accompanied by other Faculty Research Grants over the next 3 years that allowed her to attend over 90 hours of training on the brain and become a certified presenter with the Jensen Corporation.
 
In 2006 she received a TAF grant for the Honors College to equip the MTSU’s language lab with Rosetta Stone, a highly successful interactive software program for language acquisition software.

She currently supervises the training of the new “Language Development Specialist” and coordinates the administration of the Spanish classes for the Department of Children’s Services. Brian Roberts, the current LDS, travels the state of Tennessee providing 5-day accelerated classes based on TPR/TPRS.

Her most recent grant, MTSU’s new “Synergy Grant” will provide funds over the next two years to begin a collaboration with two other departments, Psychology and Education. Dr. Will Langston, whose specialty is the psychology of language, has done extensive research on embodiment and will conduct lab experiments with TPR and TPRS. Dr. Rebecca Watts, whose specialty is educational research, will conduct experiments made for the classroom, and Dr. Thomas will train colleagues in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures in TPR/TPRS. Classes from Langston, the Foreign Language Department, and the Department of Children’s Services will generate data which will then be analyzed by Langston and Watts.