This seminar will be held online. Registration is required. Register here. 

Speakers

Carmela Alcántara, PhD, Associate Professor of Social Work, Columbia University
Sleep Health in the USA: Why Sleep is a Social Justice Issue

Maura Boldrini, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Columbia Medical College; Director, Human Neurobiology laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University Irving Medical Center and the New York State Psychiatric Institute
Brain Plasticity and Resilience

The events of 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic have introduced many of us to higher levels of stress than we have experienced before and have made understanding stress, and how it interacts with social and biological factors, even more urgent.

Stress affects us all, but in very different ways. Social factors such as where we live, our immigration status, socioeconomic status and how much discrimination we face all affect our response to stress, particularly how we sleep. Understanding how stress impacts our brains and how we can potentially recover from its effects are key to maintaining mental health, healthy aging and recovery. 

In the first of our virtual Stavros Niarchos Foundation Brain Insight Lectures, we will hear from two experts from Columbia University who study different aspects of stress, how they affect our lives and change our brains, and the potential mechanisms of recovery.

This conversation will be moderated by Bianca Jones Marlin, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute. 

This talk is part of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Brain Insight Lecture series, offered free to the public to enhance understanding of the biology of the mind and the complexity of human behavior. The lectures are hosted by Columbia’s Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute and supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.