Women in Neuroscience

Please see below for our upcoming Women in Neuroscience events, focusing on career trajectories for Neuroscience PhDs spanning law, data science, and NIH program management AND an upcoming Journal Club.

See details below and please save the dates! I will share zoom links as the dates approach.

Career Trajectories:

Dr. Lulu Wang | Law | February 18 @ 1pm

Lulu Wang received her PhD from Harvard in Neurobiology and is currently an attorney at Finnegan.  She works with life sciences companies of all sizes to manage and protect intellectual property portfolios.  On the scientific front, Dr. Wang engages with diverse technologies, including gene therapy, cancer biology, immunology, microbiology, synthetic biology, CRISPR, diagnostics, and neurology.  On the legal front, she represents clients in litigation, prosecution, and strategic counseling.

Dr. Alex Smolyanskaya | Data Science | March 25 @ 4pm

Alex Smolyanskaya received her PhD from Harvard in Neurobiology in Rick Born's lab and is currently Head of Data Science at Abl Schools. Abl is an education tech company that supports school and district leaders in closing the American education opportunity gap. Dr. Smolyanskaya’s focus is on democratizing and distilling data to enable school leaders to make and execute action plans to improve student equity and outcomes. Although she no longer listens to the private lives of neurons, she applies her grad school experience in the scientific method, asking the right questions, statistics, and programming on a daily basis. 

Dr. Marguerite Matthews | NIH Program Officer | April 20 @ 4pm

Marguerite Matthews received her PhD in neuroscience from the University of Pittsburgh and completed her postdoctoral training in behavioral neuroscience at the Oregon Health & Science University. Dr. Matthews is a scientific program manager in the Office of Programs to Enhance Neuroscience Workforce Diversity at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). Prior to working at NINDS, she was a 2016-2018 AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow in the Office of the Director of the National Institutes of Health.

Journal Club

Dr. Yasmin Escobedo Lozoya (Dymecki Lab) | May 6 at @ 1pm

Dr. Escobedo Lozoya will present on the role of Community Building in academia. Please be sure to read the primary literature linked here.  

**If you are interested in presenting as part of our Journal Club series, please contact me!

Social Meetups

We will host a number of social meet ups where anyone interested in sharing stories, having a coffee over zoom, and gathering with colleagues in the community are encouraged to participate. Topics will include parenting, applying for jobs, and freeform sessions as well! We will host these meetups the first Thursday of every month (zoom links to follow):

·         Thurs March 4 @4pm

·         Thurs April 8 @10am

·         Thurs June 10 @4pm

We will host our first Women in Neuroscience (WiN) meeting of the Fall on September 17, 2020 @ 12pm.

For our first meeting, we will introduce new members of the community to the group’s mission, and host a meet-and-greet with members of the Department (past/present):

·         Dr. Vicky Abraira, Assistant Professor, Rutgers University (and Goodrich and Ginty lab alumna) will talk about her experience as a junior faculty member during Covid, her experience going on the job market, and setting up a laboratory,

·         Drs, Anna Kutschireiter (postdoc, Drugowitsch lab) and Katie Lehigh (postdoc, Dymecki Lab; Ginty lab alumna) will also be available to talk about their Covid parenting experiences,

·         Dr. Angie Michaiel (postdoc, Datta Lab) will talk about the WiN group she started as a graduate student at the University of Oregon.

If you are interested in joining us for the event, please email Soha Ashrafi (soha_ashrafi@hms.harvard.edu) for the ZOOM link

We will hold another Women in Neuroscience Event on October 15, 2020 @12pm!

Caleb Weinreb (Datta Lab) will present a talk entitled:

The danger of implicit bias as a master narrative of oppression in science

Abstract: Implicit bias has become an all-encompassing framework for discussions of oppression in science. It is easy to explain, empirically demonstrable, and shows unambiguously that people act in racist/sexist ways. Yet by focusing on individual behaviors as opposed to the history and institutional roots of oppression, implicit bias narratives de-politicize the struggle for justice: People are taught that simply being aware of and counteracting their biases is enough, redirecting focus away from the necessary work of dismantling institutional and cultural practices that have an even greater role in perpetuating oppression / inequity. 

Resources related to this topic can be found here and here 

ALL members of the community are invited to join. Zoom link to follow!