Monday
Deborah Finkel – University of Southern California Dornsife
Childhood Money Stress Can Leave a Lasting Mark
Deborah Finkel is a research professor (50%) at CESR. She earned her PhD in behavior genetics from the University of Minnesota in 1992. Since 2018, she has also served as professor of psychology (50%) at Jönköping University in Sweden. Her research explores genetic and environmental contributions to cognitive aging using longitudinal twin data, with related work in physical aging, self-rated health, and health disparities. She has worked extensively with Swedish twin studies, is PI of GENDER (a study of opposite-sex twins aged 70+ in Sweden), and serves on the leadership team of IGEMS (Interplay of Genes and Environment across Multiple Studies). She also collaborates on extending the Louisville Twin Study into midlife. Deborah is past president of the Behavior Genetics Association and a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America.
Tuesday
Begum G Babur – University of Southern California Dornsife
Your Brain Learns From Rejection
Begüm is a Ph.D. student in the Social Connection Lab at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. She received her B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Statistics from Barnard College. Her research examines how people navigate social interactions, learn from their social environment, and form meaningful connections using behavioral paradigms, neuroimaging, and computational modeling. Her recent paper, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that social rejection can help people learn about others and decide whom to connect with.
Wednesday
Vera Glusevic – University of Southern California Dornsife
Understanding Dark Matter By Coding Milky Way Galaxies
Vera received her B.Sc. from University of Belgrade (Serbia) in 2007, and her Ph.D. from Caltech in 2013. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, she moved to Princeton University as a Visiting Research Associate in Physics in 2018. In 2019, she joined USC as Gabilan Assistant professor of Physics and Astronomy, and was promoted to Associate professor in 2024. Vera is one of the founding members of two large international collaborations, CMB-S4 and the Simons Observatory. She is also the lead of an LA-based research Hub bringing together scientists from USC, Carnegie Observatories, and UC Riverside to study Lyman-alpha cosmology. In 2022, Vera received USC Raubenheimer Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, in 2023, she was named a Cottrell Scholar and in 2024 a Scialog Fellow by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. Her research is supported by NSF, NASA, the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the Templeton Foundation.
Thursday
Scott Kanoski – University of Southern California Dornsife
What If Forgetting Your Last Meal Made You Overeat?
Professor of Biological Sciences at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, Scott Kanoski’s research focuses on behavioral neuroscience, ingestive behavior, energy balance, neuroendocrinology, learning & memory and systems neuroscience. He is the principal investigator at the Kanoski Lab. The lab’s goal is to discover the neural systems and psychological processes that control energy balance, with a particular focus on understanding the neurobiological substrates that regulate obesity-promoting behaviors such as food impulsivity, environmental cue-induced eating, and excessive meal size.
Friday
Sylvain Barbot – University of Southern California Dornsife
Watching Earthquakes Unfold: A New Path to Prediction
Dr. Sylvain Barbot studied earthquake physics and tectonic geodesy at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (University of California at San Diego). As a postdoc, he studied at the California Institute of Technology. Dr. Barbot was a Nanyang Assistant Professor and National Research Fellow at the Earth Observatory of Singapore and the Asian School of the Environment. He is now an Associate Professor at the University of Southern California where he conducts research on the physics of friction, fault dynamics, and lithospheric deformation during the seismic cycle.
