Seminars by distinguished scientists are an important component of the graduate curriculum. There is a wide range of seminars for students in the Neuroscience Graduate Group to attend, from our formal Perspectives in Neuroscience Series to frequent faculty recruitment talks. It is not unusual for students to choose from over 5 seminars in a typical week during the academic year. Our students are encouraged to attend as many seminars as possible, as they play a large role in broadening their general neuroscience knowledge.

Perspectives in Neuroscience Series

The Perspectives in Neuroscience Series is the official formal seminar series at the Center for Neuroscience. For this Seminar Series, the faculty host a Pre-Perspectives Discussion of the general issues related to the month¹s seminar topic, usually a relatively informal discussion the night before the seminar. Our graduate students and post-docs meet all the speakers in the Perspectives Series at a catered lunch hour and an informal meeting following the seminar.

NeuroLunch

In addition to seminars from speakers outside UC Davis, we also have a seminar series for labs within the Neuroscience Graduate Group, called NeuroLunch. Each month, the members of a single laboratory present their recent research results to the Graduate Group. Neurolunch seminars are held on the last Tuesday of each month.  Lunch is provided by the Center for Neursocience at 11:30 a.m. and the presentations start promptly at noon.  

Student Organized Seminar Series

The Neuroscience Student Organized Seminar Series is a symposium in which graduate students nominate, invite, and host neuroscientists whose work they admire.  Traditionally, three to four speakers are hosted each academic year representing multiple areas of neuroscience research.  The goal of this seminar series is to promote interactions between graduate students and invited speakers.  As such, the invited speakers spend much of their social time with graduate students.  The graduate students are responsible for arranging all aspects of the speakers' visits.

For the 2007-2008 seminar series, the student organizers are Grant Nichols and Regina Faulkner, and the faculty advisors are Hwai-Jong Cheng and Karen Zito.  Students hosting invited speakers this year are Bartlett Moore, Jim Long and Mita Puri.  Support for the series has been provided by the Center for Neuroscience, the Section of Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior, the Vision Science Training Grant, and the Center for Mind and Brain.

The invited speakers for the 2007-2008 academic year are: Dr. Mu-ming Poo, UC Berkeley; Dr. Julie Schnapf, UCSf; and Dr. Bob Knight, UC Berkeley.

 Other Seminars 

There are many additional seminar series on campus. Click here for more information.