NEUROSCIENCE
NEWS
Issue No. 1
November 11, 2002 |
|
An Electronic Bulletin distributed to students, faculty, staff,
alumni and others affiliated with the Graduate Program in Neuroscience
at the University of Minnesota.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Welcome
Awards: Students
| Faculty | Alumni
| Affiliated Researchers and Postdoctoral
Fellows
Publications: Students
| Faculty | Alumni | Affiliated Researchers
and Postdoctoral Fellows
Academic Achievements and Milestones:
Written Prelims | Oral
Prelims | Thesis Defenses
Personal Achievements and Milestones:
Student Directory
Faculty Directory
INTRODUCTION
Greetings!
This is the first issue of "Neuroscience
News," a monthly bulletin distributed by the Graduate Program
in Neuroscience to faculty, students, staff, alumni and postdoctoral
fellows and researchers affiliated with the Graduate Program in
Neuroscience. The purpose of the "News" is to help circulate
information among people within Neuroscience at the University of
Minnesota, to recognize their achievements, and to strengthen relationships
within this community.
Our first issue offers a preview of the information
we hope to share with you. It highlights some of the achievements
within the University of Minnesota Neuroscience community over the
past several months. For future issues, we plan to solicit information
from you. Every month, toward the end of the month, we will make
a call for "News" items via e-mail. Shortly thereafter,
we'll post the next bulletin. Of course, if you have anything you'd
like to share in the "News," and if you have feedback
about the bulletin, you can always send Paul Maki an e-mail at gpnsc@umn.edu.
Following is a list of the types of information
we would like to publish:
- Awards - such as scholarships, fellowships
and other awards to students, faculty, alumni, researchers and
others
- Publications - by students, faculty, alumni,
researchers, postdocs and others
- Personal Achievements and Milestones - marriages,
births, personal accomplishments
- Academic Achievements and Milestone - passing
the Written Prelims; passing the Oral Prelims; Thesis Defenses
- Welcoming new faculty and students to the
program
The "Neuroscience News" is distributed
via e-mail in ".html" format. You will also find an archive
of "News" issues on our web site at: www.neuroscience.umn.edu/news/NscNews1.html.
If you would prefer a text-only version of the e-mail, please e-mail
Paul at gpnsc@umn.edu.
Thank you.
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WELCOME
We would like to welcome the following students to the Graduate
Program in Neuroscience: Joanna Abrams, Michelle Arnhold, Alexandra
Basford, Christopher Biorn, Kristine Boesen, Erik Carlson, James
Hedges, Adam Johnson, Monica Metea, Catherine Satterfield, Jon Waataja,
and Qi Wu.
We would also like to welcome Dr.
Kelvin O. Lim, Professor, Department of Psychiatry, to the
Faculty of the Graduate Program in Neuroscience.
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AWARDS
Student Awards
Cheryl Wotus, Graduate Student in Bill
Engeland's lab, was awarded a Dissertation Fellowship from the
American
Association of University Women Educational Foundation (AAUWEF)
in April 2002. The AAUWEF is the largest source of funding in the
world exclusively for graduate women. Of the 515 applications reviewed,
only 51 fellows were selected from such diverse disciplines as philosophy,
mathematics, education, and archaeology.
In May 2002, the American Legion and its Auxiliary
awarded American Legion Brain Sciences Scholarships to Graduate
Students Lisa Johanek and Thomas Naselaris.
Lisa Anderson, Graduate Student in Virginia
Seybold's lab, has been selected as a recipient of the SFN Chapters
/Eli Lilly Graduate Student Travel Award. The award recognizes the
promising work of graduate students who have been nominated by their
local chapters for excellence in neuroscience. Lisa will be honored
along with other recipients at a special reception on Monday, November
4 during the SFN Annual Meeting.
Judy
Kim, Graduate Student in Paulo Kofuji's lab, was recently
awarded the Morris Smithberg
Memorial Prize for 2002. The Smithberg Prize is given each year
to recognize outstanding performance by a first-year neuroscience
graduate student. The award ceremony took place on October 2. Seven
members of the Smithberg family attended the ceremony. Judy's name
was added to the permanent plaque for the Smithberg Memorial Prize
located on the wall of the Atrium just outside of room 2-101 BSBE.
She'll also receive $1500 to be used to enhance her graduate career.
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Faculty Awards
Glenn
Giesler, Professor, Department
of Neuroscience, and Chair of the Awards and Recognition Committee,
received the Outstanding Medical School Teacher Award from the Minnesota
Medical Foundation (MMF). The MMF Distinguished Teaching Award was
established in 1962 to recognize superior teaching by Medical School
faculty and residents and honor those individuals who bring science
alive in the classroom and in the wards. Recipients of the awards
are nominated and chosen by students.
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Alumni Awards
Yve Ulrich-Lai,
former Graduate Student in Bill
Engeland's lab, received a 2002 Bacaner
Research Award in Basic Medical Science in April 2002. The award
was established by Dr. Marvin Bacaner, Professor of Physiology,
in memory of his parents Jacob and Minnie Bacaner. The award is
given through the Minnesota Medical Foundation to recognize excellence
in creative research.
Kevin Engel,
recent Graduate Student working in John
Soechting's lab, received the Graduate School 'Best
Dissertation' Award in Biological and Medical Sciences in May,
2002. Kevin will receive an honorarium and a special certificate.
Kevin's thesis was on "Oculomotor and manual tracking of visual
targets." His committee members were: Apostolos Georgopoulos
(chair), John Soechting, Martha Flanders, John Anderson, and Dan
Kersten.
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Affiliated
Faculty, Researcher, Postdoctoral Fellow Awards
Assistant Professor Carolyn Fairbanks
(primary appointment in Pharmaceutics,
with adjunct appointments in Neuroscience
and Pharmacology)
has received notice from The American Pain Society that she is to
receive the John C. Liebeskind Early Career Scholar Award at the
March 2003 APS meeting. She will be the twelfth recipient since
the inception of the award in 1992.
The John
C. Liebeskind Early Career Scholar Award is one of the two highest
awards a new principal investigator can receive in the pain field.
It recognizes exceptional accomplishment and promise in pain scholarship
among those who have completed their terminal degree within the
last seven years. Awardees must have made a series of distinguished
empirical contributions to the field of pain or contributed substantially
to the development of new theories or methods.
Last year's recipient was Dr.
Cheryl Stucky, Assistant Professor of Cell Biology, Neurobiology
& Anatomy at Medical College of Wisconsin. As some of you know,
Cheryl received her Ph.D. from the Graduate Program in Neuroscience
as Ginger Seybold's
student.
That this recognition has been awarded to both
Carolyn and Cheryl in two consecutive years also illustrates the
excellence and success of the training provided by our Pain Faculty.
(Timothy J. Ebner, Professor and Head, Department of Neuroscience)
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PUBLICATIONS
Student Publications
Kevin Crisp, student in Karen
Mesce's lab, has had an image from one of his publications chosen
for the cover of Neural Computation. Kevin's image will appear on
the cover of all 12 issues in 2003, and the back cover will carry
his citation. (See
a mock-up of the cover)
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Faculty Publications
The journal "Drug
Delivery Technology" (July/August issue, Vol. 2, No. 5)
selected an article by Dr.
William H. Frey II, Graduate Program in Neuroscience Faculty
member, for its cover. The article, "Intranasal Delivery: Bypassing
the Blood-Brain Barrier to Deliver Therapeutic Agents to the Brain
and Spinal Cord," describes practical noninvasive intranasal
technology for bypassing the blood-brain barrier to rapidly deliver
therapeutic agents to the CNS and reduce systemic exposure and side
effects.
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ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS
AND MILESTONES
Written Prelims
Congratulations to Ming Gu, Katherine Himes,
Marissa Iden, Nathan Jorgensen, Judy Kim, Holly Kordasiewicz, Fred
Langheim, Jessica Lynch, Huifang (Carol) Ma, Romina Sosa, and Katie
Wiens for successfully completing the Written Prelims this summer.
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Oral Prelims
Congratulations to Nathan Connors, Joe Fullmer, Amy MacDonald,
Cheryl Olman, Robert Raike, Eric Stevens and Roberto Zayas.
All of these students successfully completed their Oral Prelims
in 2002.
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Thesis Defenses in 2002
Robert Dunbar
successfully defended his Ph.D. Thesis "Imaging Two Functional
Architectures and Their Interaction in the Mouse Cerebellar Cortex
in vivo Using the pH Sensitive Dye Neutral Red." Rob's advisors
were Timothy J. Ebner
and Rodney Feddersen.
His committee members were: Alvin Beitz (Chair), Timothy Ebner,
Rodney Feddersen, Linda Boland and Stanley Thayer. Rob is currently
working as Postdoctoral Research Associate at Duke University Medical
Center's Department of Neurobiology.
Jack Grinband
successfully defended his Ph.D. Thesis "Resolving
the Structural States of Myosin." Jack's advisor was David
Thomas. His committee members were: David Thomas (Chair), Vincent
Barnett, John Day, EH Egelamn, and LV Thompson. Jack will soon begin
working as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Center for Neurobiology
and Behavior at Columbia University .
Stanislav (Stas)
Kholmanskikh successfully defended his Ph.D. Thesis, "Abnormalities
of neuronal migration in mouse models of lissencephaly." Stas's
advisors were Paul Letourneau
and M. Elizabeth Ross, now at Cornell University. His committee
members were: Costantino Iasdecola (Chair), Paul Letourneau, Elizabeth
Ross, Steve McLoon and W Shawlot. Stas has joined Dr. Ross in New
York and currently works as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Laboratory
of Neurogenetics and Development at the Weill Medical College of
Cornell University.
Jennifer
Nagode successfully defended her Ph.D. Thesis, "Neuroimaging
studies of the medial temporal role during learning and memory"
early this summer. Dr. Jose
Pardo was Jenni's advisor. Her committee included Esam El-Fakahany
(Chair), Jose Pardo, James Ashe, Sheng He, and M Dysken. Jenni is
still at the University of Minnesota, completing her medical training
in the combined M.D. / Ph.D. program through the University of Minnesota
Medical School.
Larry
Silvermintz also successfully defended his Ph.D. Thesis,
"Design of a Confocal Macroscope, and its use to colocalize
substance P, delta opioid receptor-1 and enkephalin in rat brain,"
this past spring. Dr. Robert
Elde was Larry's advisor. His committee consisted of George
Wilcox (Chair), Robert Elde, Christopher N Honda, Robert Sorenson
and Alvin Beitz. Larry is currently working as a Postdoctoral Research
Fellow in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of San
Diego.
In September, Yve
Ulrich-Lai successfully defended her Ph.D. Thesis, "Adrenal
splanchnic innervation modulates adrenocortical growth and function
in rats." Her advisor was Dr.
Bill Engeland. Her committee members were Virgina Seybold (Chair),
Bill Engelenad, John Osborn, and Esam El-Fakahany. Yve is now working
as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at the
University of Cincinnati.
Heather Wenk
successfully defended her Ph.D. Thesis, "Peripheral Opiate
Analgesia." Heather's advisor was Dr.
Christopher N. Honda. Her committee members were Glenn Giesler
(Chair), Christopher N Honda, David Brown, Virginia Seybold and
Donald Simone. Heather will soon begin work as a Postdoctoral Research
Associate at the Vollum Institute of Oregon Health & Science
University.
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PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENTS
AND MILESTONES
In September, 2002, Roberto Zayas, Graduate
Student in Christopher Gomez's
lab, was married to Melissa Eblen. Congratulations Roberto and Melissa.
Representing the University of Minnesota, Fred
Langheim, Student in the Georgopoulos
lab, competed in the inaugural Ironman Collegiate Championiship
in Wisconsin on September 15, 2002. He completed the triathlon,
consisting of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride and a 26.2 mile
run in 13 hours, 51 minutes and 24 seconds.
Anne Mosemiller, Graduate Student in
Laura Ranum's lab, and
Matt Hagen, Graduate Student in Jose
Pardo's lab, are engaged to be married in March, 2003. Congratulations
Anne and Matt!
Therissa Libby, Graduate Student in Robert
Elde's lab, is proud to announce that her partner Roxanne's
petition to adopt a little girl from Bulgaria was granted this October
by a Bulgarian court. Tzvetka Elizabeth Kibben, called Libby, will
be joining her new family in a few weeks. Cigars all around!
Murray Blackmore, Graduate Student in
the Letourneau and
Low labs, and William
Jurney, Graduate Program
Alumn, ran (and completed!) the Twin Cities Marathon on October
29.
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STUDENT DIRECTORY
A copy of the Student Directory is available online as a "pdf"
file at: www.neuroscience.umn.edu/CurStu/studirweb.pdf
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FACULTY DIRECTORY
A copy of the Faculty Directory is available
online as a "pdf" file at: www.neuroscience.umn.edu/ProStu/facdir.pdf
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