SPRING NEWSLETTER - 2002

Editor - Corey Cleland

• 2002 Dues Notice
• New FUN Membership Perks
• Call for Applications for 2002 Travel Awards
• FUN Social - SFN Meeting
• Secret Life of the Brain - New PBS Film and materials
• Eastern Psychology Association
• Positions Open

The old calendar on the wall says that it's time to remit your dues for 2002. We're now in our third year of spring, versus fall, dues collection. 

Accompanying that nagging feeling you get as the Society for Neuroscience abstract deadline approaches, there now should be a little voice that says "FUN Dues!" You may be thinking about nominating deserving undergraduates for a FUN Travel Award. Remember that your dues help support this worthy cause (carrot) and that only current dues-paying members are eligible to sponsor nominees (stick)!

So, take a moment to support undergraduate neuroscience. Go to http://www.undergraduateneuroscience.org/joinfun.html , fill out the renewal/application form, and send your check for $15.00 (Still only $15!) made out to "Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience" to:

Tim Cannon
Treasurer, FUN
Department of Psychology
Alumni Memorial Hall
The University of Scranton
Scranton, PA 18510-4596

If you'd like to make your check out for more than $15, don't forget
that donations to FUN can also be tax-deductible!!

Call for FUN 2002 Student Travel Award Applications

RECEIPT DEADLINE FOR NOMINATIONS: Monday, May 20, 2002

We have changed the deadline for receipt of the student travel award applications to shortly after the deadline for Society for Neuroscience abstracts. We did this for several reasons:

• This will allow the Travel Award Selection Committee time to review the applications, choose the recipients and notify them in the summer. 
• For students of limited financial resources, a travel award can be the deciding factor to attend the Society for Neuroscience national meeting. 
• Early notification will allow all students to shop for the best airfares during the summer.

Applications should be sent to:

Mary Lou Caspers, Ph.D.
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
University of Detroit Mercy
P.O. Box 19900 
Detroit, MI 48219-0900

Socialize and exchange ideas with others concerned with undergraduate research and education. Undergraduates will present posters, and FUN Travel Awards will be presented for outstanding undergraduate research. See the FUN web site (www.funfaculty.org/travelawards.html ) to access the FUN Travel Award application and/or register for a poster presentation. All undergraduate students are invited to present a poster at the Social, regardless of whether the poster is presented at the SFN meeting.

Neuroscience in the News 
Secret Life of the Brain Series

Channel 13/WNET New York wants the members of FUN-Net and Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience to be sure and catch The Secret Life of the Brain, which will premiere on public television stations on January 22, 2002.

This new five-part series will explore the startling new map of the brain that has emerged from the past decade of neuroscience, a view of our most complicated organ that contradicts much of what was previously believed and holds out hope for dramatic advances in treating many brain disorders.

THE SECRET LIFE OF THE BRAIN begins before birth and ends with old age. Each individual program explores a specific stage of human development -- infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age -- from
fundamental neural development and innovative medical treatments to behavioral therapies, new brain-based educational techniques, and the characteristics of the older brain that may form the basis of wisdom.
Narrated by actress Blair Brown, the series tells extraordinary stories through a mix of personal histories, expert commentary, and cutting-edge animation. Viewers will not only learn incredible new truths about the
brain, they will voyage inside it.

THE SECRET LIFE OF THE BRAIN Online, www.pbs.org/brain , will have two components: an Online Outreach Center, now available, and a companion site to the series. The series companion site, launching in January 2002 at www.pbs.org/brain, will feature several multimedia, interactive areas dealing with general topics of brain science, such as a tour of brain anatomy and a visual explanation of brain scanning.

The Online Outreach Center, www.pbs.org/brain , includes streaming video from the series, project updates, activities for adolescents and adults, resource lists, career profiles, downloadable logo art, and turn-key
tools for producing outreach materials such as press releases flyers and newsletter articles. These materials will be the building blocks of educational activities in communities across the country and will also be used as support to science curricula in formal and informal educational settings. The outreach will further encourage young people to pursue science careers.

TOP OF PAGE

In early January 2002, The Brain: A User's Guide for Teens and The Brain: A User's Guide for Adults will be available, free of charge, in print and in an easily downloadable form from www.pbs.org/brain . These
Guides will make it possible for teens and adults to learn more about the lifelong development of the brain and to implement lifestyle choices that can help to ensure a healthy brain.
 
WNET would like to offer FREE copies of the guide to "The Secret Life of the Brain" to faculty involved in teaching neuroscience. If you are interested in this, please send an email to to address below.

EDUCATIONAL PRINT MATERIALS

Thirteen/WNET New York's Educational Publishing Department is offering FREE print materials to accompany the five-part series The Secret Life of the Brain by David Grubin Productions, Inc. and Thirteen/WNET. The illustrated adult guides expand upon information offered in the series with essays, activities, discussion questions and research projects. The theme of guide is the brain's overarching role in human development from birth to old age.

THE SECRET LIFE OF THE BRAIN: ADULT GUIDE

The materials include:

• Five original essays that reinforce the themes of the series.
• Summaries of recent discoveries, important unanswered questions, controversies, and new technologies.
• Overview of brain development at life stages.

Send E-mail requests to: guiderequest@thirteen.org

In you request, please include:

• Number of Adult Guides requested
• Intended Use
  

Eastern Psycholgy Association

Teresa Barber (Dickinson), Mike Kerchner and Katherine Cameron (Washington College), and I held a panel discussion at EPA in Baltimore this Spring entitled Time Matters: Effective Combinations of Teaching Research in Behavioral Neuroscience Courses in Departments in Liberal Arts colleges. We discussed our strategies for mentoring undergraduate students in research activities. Students from each of the colleges also participated in the symposium. The conference itself had many symposia that were of interest to people in Behavioral Neuroscience including presentations by Patricia Goldman-Rakic, Steven Pinker, Robert Stickgold, Daniel Schacter and Daniel Dennett. 

Also of note is the "second-generational" nature of the panel. Katherine Cameron, who is in her first year at Washington, worked with Julio Ramirez while an undergraduate at Davidson.

At next year's conference in Baltimore, Teresa, Mike and I discussed the possibility of hosting a "FUN-sponsored" undergraduate poster session and a social event for faculty and students. We welcome anyone who might be interested in coming to EPA next year to join us in this program and participate in its planning.

Williams College

Essel Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Neuroscience , Psychology Department

For the past ten years, the Neuroscience Program at Williams College has been the recipient of an Essel Foundation grant to encourage talented undergraduate students to pursue careers in neuroscience. An integral part of the grant is the Essel Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. The Essel Fellow has responsibility for teaching the laboratory portion of our Introduction to Neuroscience course each fall. The remainder of the Fellow's time is reserved for their own research, in collaboration with one of the five neuroscientists at Williams College. Research funds are available, and the Neuroscience Program has recently moved into a new
facility, which provides excellent research space for the Fellow. The position is ideally suited for a recent Ph.D. in neuroscience; neurobiology or biopsychology who would like to gain more teaching experience in a
liberal arts setting while continuing their research. In the past, Fellows have gone on from this position to tenure track positions. Candidates must have a recent Ph.D. in neuroscience or a related field. This is a
full-time, one-year term position renewable for up to four additional years. The review of resumes will begin on April 26, 2002, and continue until the position is filled. Job #1848-FUN.

Please send a cover letter and resume including job number to:

Office of Human Resources, Williams College, 15 Park Street,
Williamstown, MA 01267
Phone: (413) 597-3129, Fax: (413) 597-4060, e-mail: hr@williams.edu
Web site: www.williams.edu/admin/hr

The 24-hour job line may be reached by calling (413) 597-2679.

* Williams College welcomes diversity * AA/EOE

Betty Zimmerberg, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology & Chair, Program in Neuroscience
Bronfman Science Center
18 Hoxsey Street
Williams College, Williamstown, MA 01267
phone: 413 597-2446 fax: 413 597-2085
 

Center University of Central Arkansas

Seeking Masters of Science students to study neuroethology

Our lab is interested in neuroethology: the neural basis of behavior studied in an ecological and evolutionary context.  Neuroethology is a broadly interdisciplinary approach to understanding how an animal's nervous system accounts for its behavior.  This approach employs molecular, cellular, physiological, morphological, biomechanical, ecological, and evolutionary methods.  Our current research emphasis is on the mechanisms of water-flow sensitivity in the nudibranch sea slug Tritonia diomedea, the integration of sensory information, and motor control of crawling and turning.  I am seeking motivated students interested in a masters degree in the neural basis of behavior.  Training in brain cell recording, computer analysis of video, microscopy, and  underwater animal observation is available.  Financial support is available during the academic year and the summer.  Applications will be accepted from biology and cross-disciplinary students (physics, chemistry). 

The Biology Department contains faculty including two neurobiologists, a sensory biologist, and another electrophysiologist with advanced courses in animal physiology, and neurobiology. 

Please send a curriculum vitae, unofficial transcript, a 1 page statement of research interest, and the name and contact information of 2 references to: 

James A. Murray, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Biology 156 Lewis Science 
Center University of Central Arkansas, Conway, AR 72035 (501) 450-5923 
Email: jmurray@mail.uca.edu 

Link to my homepage at which one can read about potential student projects, and download pictures and proposals related to our research. http://www.uca.edu/divisions/academic/biology/faculty/jmurray.htm