Professional Development Workshops

Preparing for Your Career Away From the Bench: Essential Skills for Navigating Your Career Transition

Organizer/Moderator: Annette Gray
Speaker: Victoria Prince, Andrew Castiglioni, John Spiro, Peter Schmidt, Heather Dean, Retsina Meyer

Breaking into a new career path is challenging, particularly for those looking to make a move away from the bench. This workshop will discuss important skills to help you learn how to find your career path, make the transition, and grow throughout your career. Through a panel discussion and smaller group interactions, participants will learn about skills such as gaining relevant experience, developing and communicating your own brand, and practicing the art of negotiation.

Reproducibility for Everyone

Organizer/Moderator: Aparna Shah
Speaker: Susanna Bachle, Lenny Teytelman, April Clyburne-Sherin, Gundula Bosch, Robert Calin-Jageman

Rigor and reproducibility are at the core of modern science and set apart scientific inquiry from pseudoscience. Many new tools have been created to address barriers to reproducibility, which can be hard to sift through. This workshop will introduce you to reproducible workflows and a range of tools along the themes of organization, documentation, analysis, and dissemination. It will consist of a 90-minute interactive session followed by a 30-minute Q&A session with the instructors. Prior to attending this workshop, you are encouraged to fill out this survey.

Imposter Syndrome: Confronting the Career Development Monster Hiding Under the Bed

Organizer/Moderator: Sadye Paez, Ericka Boone, Marguerite Matthews
Speaker: Rebecca Calisi, Gina Poe, Rockelle Guthrie, Nanthia Suthana, Erich Jarvis

Imposter syndrome, an internalized fear of being 'exposed as a fraud', impacts ~70 percent of the population, particularly women and underrepresented groups, and may slow or stall optimal career advancement. This workshop is about leaning into, getting at the roots of, and reframing this intellectual self-doubt to confront the 'imposter' within us. Participants will learn from other neuroscientists' experiences as well as develop and implement their own strategies for reducing imposter behaviors.

Integrating Research and Teaching at Primarily Undergraduate Institutions

Organizer/Moderator: Joyce Fernandes
Speaker: Leah Chase, Barbara Lom, Mary Morrison, Deanne Buffalari, Matthew McMurray, Amy Jo Stavnezer

This workshop is relevant for postdoctoral fellows and graduate students to discuss strategies for integrating research and teaching with an overall goal of developing a successful research program at a primarily undergraduate institution (PUI). The workshop will have two parts: (1) Short presentations from invited speakers followed by Q&A and (2) Breakout sessions for detailed discussions and formulation of personal strategies and milestones for careers at PUIs.

Getting Creative with Course-Based Research Experiences to Enhance Scholarship and Generate Publishable Data

Organizer/Moderator: Lina Dahlberg, Jacqueline Rose
Speaker: W. Jeffrey Wilson, Elizabeth Becker, Lisa Gabel, Roshan Jain

This workshop will feature a panel discussion on the topic of Course-based Research Experiences (CRE) that aim to enhance scholarship and produce publishable work. The panelists will highlight examples of CRE projects geared towards original research and data generation across a broad range of neuroscience areas. An example of a collaborative course model where cooperation across two CRE courses allows for multi-level analyses of a research question will be shared.

How to Thrive as a Woman in Neuroscience

Organizer/Moderator: Melissa Harrington
Speaker: Michelle Jones-London, Kasey Jackson, Christina Dalla, Miri VanHoven, Jessica Tanis

This workshop will feature a panel of diverse women speakers from a variety of backgrounds and career stages, and will focus on how women can be successful in their neuroscience careers. The panelists will speak from experience about dealing with the major obstacles that undermine the success of women including: bias (both implicit and explicit), marginalization within organizations, imposter syndrome and discomfort with competitive environments, balancing work and family, and childcare.

Bringing Genetic Diversity to Neuroscientific Research

Organizer/Moderator: Elissa Chesler
Speaker: Catherine Kaczorowski, Yehuda Ben-Shahar, Robert Williams, Abraham Palmer, Tamara Phillips

The vast majority of research in the neurosciences is performed in the very limited context of widely used strains of mouse, rat, Drosophila, and other organisms. Genetic variation in mouse, rat, Drosophila, and other species reveals biological mechanisms of neural and behavioral phenomena through population genetic and genomic analyses. In this workshop, panelists will discuss benefits and approaches for bringing genetic diversity into conventional neuroscientific research.

Navigating Team Science

Organizer/Moderator: Chiara Manzini, Lique Coolen
Speaker: Cristopher Bragg, Bolu Ajiboye, Anne Churchland, John Davenport

As Neuroscience becomes more interdisciplinary it requires expertise from multiple sub-fields, leading to collaborations within and outside of academia. This workshop will showcase different types of "team science” projects. Trainees and young investigators who are interested in team science are encouraged to attend to hear how the featured projects were conceived and managed and learn the pros and cons of working with scientists from different backgrounds towards a common goal.

Becoming a Resilient Scientist

Organizer/Moderator: Janet Clark
Speaker: Lorna Role, Shahriar Sheikhbahaei, Aurelio Galli, Sharon Milgram

Resilience is important in navigating your career in science. In this interactive workshop, we will discuss attitudes and behaviors that can get in our way and explore strategies for building resilience, dealing with self-doubt, and developing our confidence.The workshop will highlight the emotional intelligence competencies needed for success in research and healthcare careers and will provide insights into approaches for developing these competencies as part of your training experience.

Science Management

Organizer/Moderator: Tanya Brown
Speaker: Tina Kokan, Theresa Rass, Randy McIntosh, Helena Ledmyr, Christa Studzinski

The landscape of scientific research is changing. Today's researchers need to participate in large-scale collaborations, secure and oversee funding, share data, and publish and undertake Knowledge Translation (KT) activities in order to be successful. As per these increasing demands, Science Management (SM) is now a vital skill all researchers can benefit from adopting. Our goal is to motivate participants to regard SM as an essential component of their workflow and obtain practical project management skills.

Neuroscience Departments and Programs Workshop - Hiring and Promoting Faculty in the Era of Team Science

Organizer/Moderator: Rosalind Segal
Speaker: Hollis Cline, Saskia E.J. de Vries, Steven Hyman

As research becomes more collaborative and global, team science is becoming the “new normal." Despite this, many institutions have not yet adapted their traditional academic recruitment and promotion processes to account for scientists whose research increasingly relies upon interdisciplinary teamwork and global collaboration. This workshop will explore how institutional leaders can recognize and evaluate team science when it comes to faculty hiring and advancement and adapt their hiring and tenure practices to reflect the growing team science approach to research.

Support contributed by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke under SfN's “Foundations of Rigorous Neuroscience Research” grant number R25NS114922. The contents of this program are solely the responsibility of the Society for Neuroscience and do not necessarily reflect the official views of NINDS.

Building a Neuroscience Career at a Teaching Focused Institution

Organizer/Moderator: Melissa Harrington
Speaker: Hadley Horch, Andrea Holgado, Kristy Welshhans, Stephani Davis, Ileana Soto

Doctoral universities with high to moderate research activity represent only seven percent of U.S. institutions of higher education, and educate less than a third of U.S. college students. Most U.S. faculty positions are not at research universities. This workshop will feature a panel of diverse speakers who are faculty at a variety of primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs). The panelists will speak from experience about the preparation and paths that lead to career success and satisfaction at PUIs.

Advancing Your Career Through Effective Science Writing for the Public and Creating Eye-Catching Research Statements

Organizer/Moderator: Eduardo Rosa-Molinar
Speaker: Wendy Jarrett, Jim Newman, Paula Clifford

This hands-on workshop focuses on overcoming the challenges of writing clear, effective research summaries. Presenters will demonstrate how to: communicate complex scientific topics for the public and scientists outside the field; articulate the importance of one's research; and place the work in the context of increasing scientific knowledge and improving public health. Participants will write research summary drafts and learn how to meet the challenge of translating science for various audiences.

The Art of Building a Career

Organizer/Moderator: Martha Davila-Garcia
Speaker: Orly Weinreb, Musa Mabandla, Willias Masocha, Pamela Butler

We all have the potential to build a productive scientific career. During this workshop, a panel of speakers from around the world will discuss the following five fundamental principles for building a successful career: (1) Be reflective about where you want to go; (2) Be proactive and prepared for what is coming; (3) Be ready to self-promote; (4) Be willing to adapt, change, and modify your goals based on challenges and opportunities; (5) Be collaborative, get a mentor, and build a network.

Optimize Your Grant Application: News You Can Use From the NIH

Organizer/Moderator: Bruce Reed
Speaker: Susan Weiss, Jean Noronha, Anna Taylor, Rene Etcheberrigaray

The purpose of this workshop is to help new investigators improve their funding chances. Representatives of the NIH Center for Scientific Review will discuss navigating review, what reviewers look for, and new things NIH is asking reviewers to focus on. Senior staff at NINDS, NIA, NIMH, and NIDA will discuss funding opportunities and priorities for their institutes and offer their perspectives on what contributes to early career success. People from all career stages are welcome, but the program is directed at early stage investigators.

Teaching Computation in Neuroscience

Organizer/Moderator: William Grisham, Richard Olivo
Speaker: Walter Babiec, Mathew Abrams, Adrienne Fairhall, Pascal Wallisch, Robert Kass

This workshop will review current examples of teaching computation for neuroscience. It will begin with the statistical foundations that students need and consider which programming languages are most useful. It will continue with computational methods for physiological data, practical aspects of teaching computational neuroscience, and end with an overview of resources for teaching and learning computational modeling in neuroscience.