Affiliated Groups

NUIN provides funding and/or administrative support to a variety of student-led groups in our neuroscience community. NUIN-affiliated groups focus on teaching, mentorship, outreach, student government and scientific discussion.

Computational Neuroscience Club

Computation and modeling are now featured prominently in nearly every arm of neuroscience — from single-cell sequencing to whole-brain simulation. As "big data" becomes increasingly affordable and easy to generate, computational skills are now as essential as skills at the bench. The goal of NUCNC is to provide a venue for computational neuroscientists of all skill levels to discuss techniques and ongoing research. We also aim to enable scientists new to computation to develop their coding skills. Toward these aims, NUCNC hosts regular research-in-progress talks from students and featured faculty and guests, with an emphasis on hosting early-career speakers. We will now also increasingly offer hands-on coding tutorials and discussion sections. Interested lecturers and attendees should contact Vivek Sagar, Rogan Grant (outgoing Chairs), Adil Wafa, or Sebastian Malagon Perez (incoming Chairs) for more information. Details can also be found on our Slack page (nucomp-neuro).

Student Advisory Committee

The quality of the scientific training and overall experience in the NUIN program depends on effective communication between NUIN leadership and NUIN students. The NUIN Student Advisory Committee (NSAC) represents one avenue for student-leadership interactions. NSAC meets with NUIN leadership formally at least once a quarter. In addition to representing and advocating for the views and needs of their peers, NSAC representatives serve as student leaders by helping to organize student participation in NUIN activities such as the annual retreat and recruitment events.

Teaching Fellowship Program

The NUIN Teaching Fellowship Program (NTF) was launched in 2018 to provide NUIN graduate students and postdoctoral fellows with an opportunity to gain hands-on teaching experience. Eligible candidates who are interested in developing their teaching skills can apply to serve as teaching fellows for NUIN faculty members with undergraduate teaching responsibilities (faculty mentors). Candidates that are selected to serve as teaching fellows will attend their faculty mentor's course to observe their teaching style, and they will also design and present content (e.g., lecture, discussion) for the course. Teaching fellows may gain additional experience with course design, making and grading assessments and mentoring undergraduate students. For more information, please email nuin_TF@northwestern.edu.

NTF Leadership

2022-Present: Alex Cates (Gordon Lab) and Kelsey Wright (Yao Lab)

2018-2022: Dr. Laura Shanahan (Kahnt Lab) & Dr. Carmen Lin (Disterhoft Lab)

NTF Teaching Fellows & Faculty Mentors
2021-2022:
Dr. Chris Vaaga (Raman Lab), Faculty Mentor: Dr. Yevgenia Kozorovitskiy
Dr. Jemma Webber (Garcia-Añoveros Lab), Faculty Mentor: Dr. Thomas Bozza
Mikki Novakovic (Prakriya Lab), Faculty Mentor: Dr. Valerie Kilman
Kacey Suvada (Dewald/Acosta Labs), Faculty Mentor: Dr. Tiffany Schmidt

2020-2021:
Dr. Bart van Alphen (Allada Lab), Faculty Mentor: Dr. Yevgenia Kozorovitskiy
Dr. Annika Cichy (Bozza Lab), Faculty Mentor: Dr. Thomas Bozza
David Swygart (Schwartz Lab), Faculty Mentor: Dr. Tiffany Schmidt

2019-2020:
Dr. Michael Alpert (Gallio Lab), Faculty Mentor: Dr. Yevgenia Kozorovitskiy
Dr. Kyle Blum (Miller Lab), Faculty Mentor: Dr. Tiffany Schmidt

2018-2019:
Kevin Wilkins (Yao Lab), Faculty Mentor: Dr. Mark Segraves
Sophia Wienbar (Schwartz Lab), Faculty Mentor: Dr. Tiffany Schmidt

Northwestern University Brain Awareness Outreach

Northwestern University Brain Awareness Outreach (NUBAO) is a graduate student–led public outreach initiative dedicated to educating, exciting and inspiring the Chicago community about the brain. Founded in 2010 as part of NUIN, NUBAO consists of a diverse group of mostly graduate students, in addition to several undergraduate students, postdoctorate fellows, faculty and research staff from various departments and scientific disciplines at Northwestern University. Through collaborations with public schools and science education programs in the Chicago area, NUBAO organizes a number of hands-on lectures, workshops and open house-style events in an effort to teach a variety of neuroscience topics to students of all ages.

Peer Mentoring

The purpose of the program is to facilitate relationships between more advanced PhD students and first-year students. The program encourages the incoming graduate students to branch out and connect with the other cohorts while integrating them into NUIN and offering them another support network.

Student-Hosted Seminar Series

The Student Hosted Seminar Series (SHSS) was created in 2006 as an opportunity for NUIN students to host highly distinguished neuroscientists for seminar and site visits. Candidate SHSS speakers are selected and invited by a committee of NUIN students and postdoctoral fellows. Each event is organized by a team of one or two members from the committee that works closely with the speaker to arrange all aspects of their visit, including travel and itinerary.

Current Committee Members:

Genia Kozorovitskiy, PhD (faculty adviser)
Grace Bellinger
Cindy Chiu, PhD
Shruti Dave, PhD
Devon Greer
Amy Kristl
Chris Vaaga, PhD
Hongkai Wang
Feng Xuan

Please contact Grace Bellinger if you are interested in joining this committee!