Category: Newsletter

Community Updates Our warmest congratulations to our doctoral candidates who successfully defended their dissertations during the Winter and Spring Quarters of 2025: We’re proud to share that between September 2024 and June 2025, 6 students successfully defended their dissertations and 18 students advanced to doctoral candidacy. Graduates were honored at the Interdisciplinary Biomedical PhD Hooding Ceremony last month. Below are photos from the celebration: Program Updates During Winter Quarter, the DEI Committee launched an internal student survey to assess the…

Community Updates We are excited to celebrate the successful dissertation defense of Scott Sterrett (Labs of David Gire & Adrienne Fairhall), whose dissertation is titled, “Follow Your Nose: the computational role of olfaction in spatial memory and navigation”. Congratulations, Scott, on this incredible achievement! Program Updates The Curriculum Committee has restructured their Course Liaison process to continue supporting students during their first two years of coursework. This change ensures the full committee is available to answer questions and gather feedback. Students may choose to reach out to course instructors…

Community Updates We’re thrilled to celebrate Todd Appleby, PhD, who has worked in the labs of Michael B. Manookin and Fred Rieke, on his successful dissertation defense during the summer quarter. His work, titled “Motion Sensitivity in Center-Surround Receptive Fields of Primate Retinal Ganglion Cells,” brings exciting new insights into visual processing. Program Updates Orientation and Jump Start In our ongoing efforts to foster an inclusive culture within our program, we have introduced two key initiatives to orientation. The first is the Empowering Prevention &…

Welcome to summer! Congratulations on making it to the end of the academic year. As we transition into the new season, let’s take a moment to reflect on the past quarter in the Graduate Program in Neuroscience. Community Updates A heartfelt congratulations to several of our doctoral candidates who successfully defended their dissertations during the Spring Quarter: This year, we are proud to report that 12 students successfully achieved PhD candidacy and 13 students successfully defended their PhD dissertations. It…

Community Updates We begin by celebrating the successful dissertation defenses of several outstanding doctoral candidates: These dissertations exemplify the caliber of scholarship and innovation fostered within our program, and we extend our heartfelt congratulations to Logan, Jordan, Lila, and Sierra on their remarkable achievements. Remembering Dr. Bill Catterall Neuroscience faculty, William “Bill” Catterall, a leading figure in studies of electrical signals in living cells, died on February 28th at the age of 77. In memory of Dr. Bill Catterall, a…

Community Updates The Graduate Program in Neuroscience takes great pride in acknowledging the remarkable academic achievements of Dr. Asad Beck and Dr. Tomek Fraczek, who successfully defended their dissertations during the fall quarter. A glimpse into their diligent work is provided below: We also extend a heartfelt congratulation to Kristen Drummey, MS, for earning her Master’s degree during the fall quarter. Kristen’s noteworthy achievement is highlighted by her research in the lab of Dr. Steve Perlmutter: “Examination of targeted, activity-dependent…