This seminar will be held in the Neurological Institute of New York's Auditorium (1st floor). Columbia University's Intercampus Shuttle Service is the best way to travel between campuses.

Beth Stevens is an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School in the FM Kirby Neurobiology Center at Boston Children’s Hospital, an Institute Member of the Broad Institute and Stanley Center for Neuropsychiatric Research, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. Her research seeks to understand the mechanisms that regulate the disappearance of synapses by focusing on how immune-related molecules mediate this process. Her most recent work seeks to uncover how microglial cells, the immune cells of the central nervous system, signal with neurons and other glial cells in health and disease. She and her team recently identified how microglia affect synaptic pruning, the critical developmental process of cutting back on synapses that occurs between early childhood and puberty. In addition, her work is providing novel insight into the mechanisms by which microglia contribute to synaptic and cognitive dysfunction in neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s, that could lead to new therapies and biomarkers. Stevens received her BS at Northeastern University and an honorary doctorate degree in 2019. She carried out her graduate research at the National Institutes of Health and received her PhD from University of Maryland, College Park. She completed her postdoctoral research at Stanford University with Ben Barres.

Those who wish to meet the speaker during their visit should contact Sana Chintamen (Kernie lab). For general inquiries please contact [email protected].

The Columbia Neuroscience Seminar series is a collaborative effort of Columbia's Zuckerman Institute, the Department of Neuroscience, the Doctoral Program in Neurobiology and Behavior and the Columbia Translational Neuroscience Initiative, and with support from the Kavli Institute for Brain Science.