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SciFest: One Institute, Infinite Curiosity

Two-day science festival brings together Zuckerman researchers working in diverse disciplines at the frontiers of neuroscience

Picture shows a group shot of attendees to this years SciFest research gathering at the Zuckerman Institute.
During SciFest, attendees gathered for a bonding moment on the roof of the Greene Science Center. (Credit: Sirin Samman)

NEW YORK, NY — Curious about how the brain can tell friends from foes? Steve Siegelbaum’s lab has research to share. Want to know exactly how the many hundreds of optical elements making up a fly’s compound eye form, cell by cell? Andrew Tomlinson’s lab has you covered. Mystified by the world-class memory feats of chickadees as they hide and later find thousands of tasty seeds? Dmitriy Aronov’s lab is figuring that out. How might traumatic experiences of parents be inherited by their offspring? Bianca Jones Marlin’s lab is tracking this down.

That’s a sampling of the research cornucopia from the inaugural SciFest gathering on September 18th and 19th, a rave of research presented by the Zuckerman Institute. The event also attracted undergrads from the Morningside campus as well as scientists  from the university’s uptown campus. 

Over two days, attendees heard 32 research talks by faculty, graduate students and postdocs, and visited 23 science posters in the lobby of the Greene Science Center, the Zuckerman Institute’s home. 

Throughout SciFest, speaker after speaker grabbed the attention of audience members. (Credit: Sirin Samman)

 

“I feel like a kid in a candy shop here,” said theoretical neuroscientist Genevera Allen, PhD, a new principal investigator at the institute. In her talk, she outlined plans to devise new mathematical, statistical and machine-learning methods. She aims to help her colleagues eke more value and discovery from the ever-expanding troves of connectomics data  – the brain’s wiring diagrams that scientists at Zuckerman and elsewhere have been uncovering and generating in unprecedented detail.

Attendees also heard from graduate student Jonathan Kasdin of the Gadagkar lab, who detailed his investigations into how levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine acts as the brain’s way of essentially saying “not quite” or “you got it!” to a young male zebra finch striving to emulate his father’s mating calls. They heard principal investigator Nima Mesgarani, PhD, explain how recordings from human brains helped him discern multiple ways in which brains encode speech. They heard postdoctoral research scientist Mengtong Li, PhD, discuss a newly discovered dynamic between the brain and immune system that opens up novel ways of managing health-compromising inflammation. 

The diversity of findings, disciplines, laboratory methods and questions that filled SciFest reflects the Zuckerman Institute's everyday mission: to create unprecedented synergies that generate new discoveries and insights about minds, brains and behavior. 

 

Just one of the many scientific discussions catalyzed during the lively poster session on Day 1 of SciFest. (Credit: Sirin Samman)


“It is easy to become isolated in your own work and your own questions,” said Anna Zhukovskaya, PhD, a new postdoctoral research scientist now in the lab of Ishmail Abdus-Saboor. “This is a great way to learn about the interesting work of others and to open doors to more interactions and even new collaborations.” 

At the event, for example, those studying touch in the Abdus-Saboor lab could hear from the Fitzpatrick lab about the role of misshapen proteins in neurodegenerative diseases. And there were also opportunities for attendees to learn about and meet with the institute’s Scientific Platforms teams. They’re the powerhouses who extend scientists’s imaginations and capabilities in cellular imaging, magnetic resonance imaging, molecular tools and computing. 

“We thought it would be exciting to host an event to celebrate the science at the institute, but the amazing experience we just shared far exceeded even our imagination of what was possible,” said institute Director and CEO Daphna Shohamy, PhD, in her closing remarks. “Over the past two days, our institute has come together in ways I had only dreamed of.”
 

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