Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Seminars by PhD students to Incentivize Research Exchange
INSPIRE is a prestigious seminar series sponsored by the Department of Neuroscience at Washington University School of Medicine, devoted to advancing research excellence in the early stages of a scientist’s career. Senior graduate students are brought to St. Louis to present their thesis work and expand their scientific network at WashU. INSPIRE participants engage with researchers at Washington University over two days in person or virtually, including:
- Presenting their work in an hour-long seminar
- Meeting one-on-one with faculty
- Engaging in informal discussions with the Washington University neuroscience community
- Exploring St. Louis, the Gateway to the West
Being selected as an INSPIRE speaker is an exciting opportunity for graduate students to share their research with the Washington University neuroscience community, to receive feedback, to explore postdoctoral opportunities and to form professional and intellectual relationships with peers, mentors and future collaborators. We at Washington University benefit from learning about inspiring research done by talented young scientists from around the world. The Department of Neuroscience covers the costs of travel and accommodation.
The 2021–2022 seminar schedule for INSPIRE speakers
All talks are held at 12:00 p.m. in Room 928, McDonnell Medical Sciences Building.
Virtual attendees can request the Zoom meeting link by emailing neuroscience-inspireqs@wustl.edu.
| October 19, 2021 Shijia Liu Integrative control of breathing and pain by parabrachial opioidergic circuits Neurobiology, University of California, San Diego Graduate advisor: Sung Han, PhD, Salk Institute Hosted by: Martha Bagnall, PhD |
| November 30, 2021 Bruno Gegenhuber Epigenetic regulation of brain masculinization by estrogen receptor alpha School of Biological Sciences, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Graduate advisor: Jessica Tollkuhn, PhD Hosted by: Harrison Gabel, PhD |
| December 14, 2021 Barbara Peysakhovich Abstract cognitive encoding in the primate superior colliculus Computational Neuroscience, The University of Chicago Graduate advisor: David Freedman, PhD Hosted by: Larry Snyder, MD, PhD |
| Postponed Sheng Gong Cocaine shifts dopamine D2-receptor sensitivity to gate conditioned behaviors Physiology & Biophysics, Case Western Reserve University Graduate advisor: Christopher P. Ford, PhD Hosted by: Thomas Papouin, PhD |
| March 29, 2022 Zuzanna Balewski Fast decision representation in caudate nucleus during value-based choices Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley Graduate advisor: Joni Wallis, PhD Hosted by: Camillo Padoa-Schioppa, PhD |
| April 26, 2022 Christabel (Bel) Tan Autism-linked δ-catenin is required for astrocyte maturation and survival Cell Biology, Duke University Graduate advisor: Cagla Eroglu, PhD Hosted by: Jason Yi, PhD |
| May 31, 2022 Ling-Qi Zhang Sensory representation optimized for visual priors Psychology, University of Pennsylvania Graduate advisors: Alan Stocker, PhD, David Brainard, PhD Hosted by: Gaia Tavoni, PhD |
| June 14, 2022 Chunyang (Jason) Dong Psychedelic-inspired drug discovery using an engineered biosensor Biochemistry, Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, University of California, Davis Graduate advisor: Lin Tian, PhD Hosted by: Yao Chen, PhD |
See the department’s full events calendar>>