Columbia Neuroscience Seminars
Elaine Hsiao, PhD, Assistant Professor of Integrative Biology & Physiology at UCLA, speaks a recent seminar. Credit: Sirin Samman for Columbia's Zuckerman Institute
The Columbia Neuroscience Seminars series is a collection of invited talks by national and international researchers in the field of neuroscience. Speakers represent a range of research institutions and career stages, who are recognized experts in their field or who have demonstrated future promise for outstanding research. The seminars are open to Columbia affiliates and take place at the Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute or the Neurological Institute of Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Registration is required and registration links are forthcoming.
As a major goal of this seminar series is to expose graduate students, postdoctoral and junior researchers to high-quality science and to stimulate scientific discourse, the weekly lectures and associated events are designed to draw together the neuroscience community at Columbia and to catalyze the conversations and collaborations that advance the discipline. Invited speakers join meetings with faculty, graduate students and postdocs at Columbia to continue the conversation after their seminar. Those wishing to meet with a speaker may email the host listed below or see the contact information on individual event pages.
Speakers are chosen by a selection committee composed of faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate students from across Columbia's campuses. Guided by the Columbia Neuroscience Seminars Core Values and Participation Guidelines, the committee solicits nominations for speakers broadly from the Columbia community before inviting speakers whose work represents various fields and techniques in Neuroscience. Committee members are listed below.
The series is a collaborative effort of Columbia's Zuckerman Institute, the Department of Neuroscience, the Doctoral Program in Neurobiology and Behavior and the Columbia Translational Neuroscience Initiative, and with support from the Kavli Institute for Brain Science.
2024 Calendar
January 23
Dorothy Schafer, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Neurobiology, UMass Chan Medical School, University of Massachusetts
Title: Microglia-astrocyte crosstalk underlying cortical synapse remodeling
Hosts: Franck Polleux (Faculty) and Carlos Diaz (Postdoctoral Research Scientist)
Speaker Location: Jerome L. Greene Science Center, 9th Floor Lecture Hall
[more information]
January 30
Paloma Gonzalez-Bellido, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior University of Minnesota
Title: Predictions and fast decisions by aerial predatory insects
Hosts: Franck Polleux (Faculty) and Carlos Diaz (Postdoctoral Research Scientist)
Speaker Location: Jerome L. Greene Science Center, 9th Floor Lecture Hall
[more information]
February 13
Daniel Colón-Ramos, PhD, McConnell Duberg Professor of Neuroscience and Cell Biology Director, WTI Center of Neurodevelopment and Plasticity
Title: Electrical synapses act as a magnitude filter to modulate sensory information processing and behavioral choices in C. elegans
Hosts: Carol Mason (Faculty) and Kapil Ramachandran (Faculty).
Speaker Location: Jerome L. Greene Science Center, 9th Floor Lecture Hall
[more information]
February 27
Evan Macosko, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School and Institute Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
Title: Spatial and single cell genomics for next generation Neuroscience
Hosts: Andres Bendesky (Faculty)
Speaker Location: Jerome L. Greene Science Center, 9th Floor Lecture Hall
[more information]
March 5
Gwyneth Card, PhD, Associate Professor of Neuroscience, Principal Investigator at Columbia University Zuckerman Institute, Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Title: Cracking circuits with connectomes: A reverse Neuroethology perspective
Hosts: Melinda Miller and Ivy Elkins
Speaker Location: Jerome L. Greene Science Center, 9th Floor Lecture Hall
[more information]
March 5
Marcelo Wood, PhD, Professor and Chair, Department of Neurobiology & Behavior, School of Biological Sciences, University of California, Irvine
Title: Examining how the intersection of epigenetic, exercise, and metabolism affects memory formation in the adult and aging brain
Hosts: Shawn Liu (Faculty) and Xinyue Chen (Graduate Student)
Speaker Location: CUIMC, Neurological Institute First Floor Auditorium
[more information]
March 26
Rebecca Saxe, PhD, John W Jarve (1978) Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, Associate Dean of Science, MIT
Title: Getting started: Imaging the minds and brains of human infants
Hosts: Nim Tottenham (Faculty) and Anna Vannucci (Graduate Student)
Speaker Location: Jerome L. Greene Science Center, 9th Floor Lecture Hall
[more information]
April 2
Lucina Uddin, PhD, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, University of California Los Angeles
Title: Brain dynamics and flexible behaviors
Hosts: Daphna Shohamy (Faculty) and Catherine (Katie) Insel (Postdoctoral Research Scientist).
Speaker Location: Jerome L. Greene Science Center, 9th Floor Lecture Hall
[more information]
April 9
Lauren Orefice, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Molecular Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School
Title: Understanding somatosensory and viscerosensory alterations in autism spectrum disorder
Hosts: Wes Gruber (Faculty) and Lynn Yap (Postdoctoral Research Scientist)
Speaker Location: Jerome L. Greene Science Center, 9th Floor Lecture Hall
[more information]
April 16
Elizabeth Hillman, PhD, Herbert and Florence Irving Professor at the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Radiology at Columbia University
Title: How to image brains
Hosts: Wes Gruber (Faculty) and Lynn Yap (Postdoctoral Research Scientist)
Speaker Location: Jerome L. Greene Science Center, 9th Floor Lecture Hall
[more information]
April 23
Beatriz Rico, PhD, Professor of Developmental Neurobiology, Centre of Developmental Neurobiology, MCR Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders, King's College London
Title: Assembly of cortical circuits
Hosts: Ed Au (Faculty)
Speaker Location: Jerome L. Greene Science Center, 9th Floor Lecture Hall
[more information]
April 30
Christopher Baldassano, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Columbia University
Title: Using prior knowledge to build neural representations, make predictions, and encode memories
Hosts: Carol Mason (Faculty)
Speaker Location: Jerome L. Greene Science Center, 9th Floor Lecture Hall
[more information]
May 14
Nihkil Sharma, PhD, Assistant Professor of Molecular Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Columbia University
Title: Central roles for the peripheral nervous system
Hosts: Carol Mason (Faculty)
Speaker Location: Jerome L. Greene Science Center, 9th Floor Lecture Hall
[more information]
May 21
Bassem Hassan, PhD, Team Leader and Scientific Director, Paris Brain Institute
Title: Temporal emergence of wiring specificity
Hosts: Wes Grueber (Faculty) and Nova Qi (Graduate Student)
Speaker Location: Jerome L. Greene Science Center, 9th Floor Lecture Hall
[more information]
May 28
Noam Sobel, PhD, Professor of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science
Title: Telesmell: From the perceptual laws of smell to digital transmission of odor
Hosts: Stuart Firestein (Faculty)
Speaker Location: Jerome L. Greene Science Center, 9th Floor Lecture Hall
[more information]
June 4
Eiman Azim, PhD, Associate Professor, William Scandling Development Chair, Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Title: Sensorimotor circuits for dexterous movement
Hosts: March Churchland (Faculty) and Hector Cho (Graduate Student)
Speaker Location: Jerome L. Greene Science Center, 9th Floor Lecture Hall
[more information]
Seminar Steering Committee Members
- Daphna Shohamy, Kavli Professor of Brain Science; Associate Director of Columbia's Zuckerman Institute; Codirector of Columbia's Kavli Institute for Brain Science
- Carol Mason, Professor of Pathology and Cell Biology, Neuroscience and Ophthalmic Science (in Ophthalmology); Chair of Interschool Planning at Columbia's Zuckerman Institute
- Serge Przedborski, Page and William Black Professor of Neurology (in Pathology and Cell Biology and Neuroscience); Director, Columbia Translational Neuroscience Initiative
- Steven Siegelbaum, Gerald D. Fischbach, MD Professor of Neuroscience and Professor of Pharmacology; Chair, Department of Neuroscience
Seminar Selection Committee Members
- Ashok Litwin-Kumar, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience
- Caitlin Lloyd, Postdoc
- Carol Troy, Professor of Pathology and Cell Biology and Neurology
- Christoph Kellendonk, Associate Professor of Molecular Pharmacology and Therapeutics in Psychiatry
- Dritan Agalliu, Associate Professor of Neurology and Pathology and Cell Biology
- Emily Mackevicius, Postdoc
- Francisco Salema Oom de Sacadura, Graduate student in the Neurobiology and Behavior Program
- Franck Polleux, Professor of Neuroscience
- Frankie Garcia, Graduate student in the Neurobiology and Behavior Program
- Hynek Wichterle, Associate Professor of Pathology & Cell Biology, Neuroscience (in Neurology), Rehabilitation and Regenerative Medicine
- Inbal Israely, Assistant Professor in Pathology & Cell Biology, and Neuroscience
- Isabel Bravo, Graduate student in the Neurobiology and Behavior Program
- Ishani Ganguly, Graduate student in the Neurobiology and Behavior Program
- Jennifer Gelinas, Assistant Professor of Neurology/IGM
- Jennifer Merrit, Postdoc
- Katherine Delgado, Graduate student in the Biology Program
- Kristin Anderson, Postdoc
- Lori Zeltser, Associate Professor of Pathology and Cell Biology
- Maria Antonietta Tosches, Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences
- Niko Kriegeskorte, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience
- Nuno Alves, Postdoc
- Stevie Hamilton, Graduate student in the Neurobiology and Behavior Program
- Xinyue Chen, Graduate student in the Neurobiology and Behavior Program
- Yasmine El-Shamayleh, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience
Columbia Neuroscience Seminar Series: Speaker Archive