The Academic Minute for 2018.02.19-02.23

Academic Minute from 2.19 – 2.23

Monday, February 19th
Paolo Forni – University at Albany
From the Nose to the Brain
2008                                       Ph.D. Biochemistry/Cellular Biotechnology, University of Turin, Italy.

2006-2011                            Visiting Fellow, NINDS, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA.

2011-2013                            Research Fellow, NINDS, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA.

2014-Present                     Assistant Professor, University at Albany, SUNY, NY, USA.

Tuesday, February 20th
Charlene Senn – University of Windsor
One Critical Piece of the Puzzle for Preventing Campus Sexual Assault
I am a Professor in the Applied Social Psychology Graduate Program within the Department of Psychology. I am cross-appointed in Women’s and Gender Studies. My research centres on male violence against women with a focus on sexual violence and campus interventions.

Over more than 10 years, I developed and evaluated a sexual assault resistance education program (EAAA) for first year University women. The efficacy of this intervention was demonstrated recently in a CIHR-funded randomized controlled trial in which the one-year incidence of completed rape was reduced by almost 50% in women who took the intervention compared to those in the control group. The EAAA is now available to universities and colleges through the SARE Centre non-profit and a Train-the-Trainer model. See SARECentre.org for more detail.  I will be studying the effectiveness of the EAAA program as it is implemented on campuses across North America.

I am also the co-founder of (and researcher for) the UWindsor Bystander Initiative which embeds bystander-focused sexual assault prevention and training into the academic curriculum.

I teach courses in the psychology of women, male violence against women, and applied social psychology.

Wednesday, February 21st
Sidsel Arnspang Pedersen – University of Southern Denmark
Hydrochlorothiazide Use and Risk of Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer
I am a medical doctor, and at the moment writing a PhD thesis, dealing with the drug hydrochlorothiazide and increased risk of skin cancer.

I have a special interest in photosensitizing drugs and their association to skin cancer.

I work at University of Southern Denmark, at Department of Clinical Research associated to the pharmacoepidemiological group at Department of Neurology and Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacy, Odense University Hospital in Denmark.

Thursday, February 22nd
Michal Stachowiak – University at Buffalo
Schizophrenia and Early Brain Development
Michal Stachowiak, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo. He is currently serving as a Fulbright Distinguished Professor and Chair of Medical Sciences at the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Medical University of Gdansk.

Stachowiak is interested in understanding neural development as it relates to developmental and aging-related diseases and their effects on brain function and behavior. Among the achievements of his lab are the development of a new transgenic mouse model of schizophrenia and models of Parkinsons’ Disease and Huntington disease. With other colleagues at UB, he is also exploring how to deliver gene therapy to the brain using nanoparticles. He teaches neuroscience and developmental neuroscience and he helped to develop a graduate neuroscience program at UB.

Friday, February 23rd
Samuel Sober – Emory University
Learning From Mistakes
I attended Wesleyan University, where I received a BA in Neuroscience & Behavior.

I did my doctoral research as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow with Philip N.  Sabes at UCSF and was a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Michael Brainard, also at UCSF.

I am presently an Assistant Professor in the Biology Department at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

I am a member of Emory’s Neuroscience Graduate Program and the joint Emory/Georgia Tech Program in Biomedical Engineering.