[Neuropostdocs] '05-06 Year Opening Statement

[Gene Robinson]

Dear Colleagues, Students and Postdocs,

I'm back from sabbatical, and very much looking forward to working together 
with you all again.  On behalf of all of us, I thank Paul Gold for doing 
such a great job as Interim Director.  In addition, Sam Beshers provided 
crucial continuity and support and we appreciate all that he does for us.

This email will cover the following:

1) Thanks to those who served NSP last year.
2) Welcome our new graduate students (the first of several welcomes; see below)
3) Statement of goals for the coming year, including not-so-subtle plugs 
for several events
4) Encourage enrollment in Dialogues in Neuroscience
5) Announce committee assignments for the coming year

1) Thanks to those who served NSP last year
Executive Committee
Tom Anastasio, Akira Chiba, David Clayton, Janice Juraska, Donna Korol, Sue 
Schantz, Lily Zurkovsky, student representative

Admissions Committee
Ed Roy, Chair; Lee Beverly, Stephanie Ceman, Claudio Grosman, Robert 
Wickesberg, Molly McElroy, student representative

Open House Committee
Sam Beshers, Coordinator; Cynthia Colon-Rivera, student-co-coordinator; 
Ying Yao, posters and abstracts; Darien Gross, housing; Karla Melendez, party

Brain Awareness at the Orpheum Committee
Donna Korol, Coordinator; Sam Beshers; Kara Federmeier; Kelly Fugo

Grievance Committee
Gary Iwamoto

Seminar Commitee
Sam Beshers, Coordinator; Refreshments Fall, Soong Ho Kim; Refreshments 
Spring, Daichi Kamyiama; Clean-up Fall, Chris Whalen; Clean-up Spring, Rie 
Ozawa; Lunch with Speaker Fall, Joel Stary; Lunch with Speaker Spring, Lei 
Shi; AV Fall Shawn Kohler; AV Spring, Ruchika Wadhwa

Prosser Award Committee
Essie Meisami and Bill Greenough

Carnegie Initiative Working Group
Sam Beshers, Convenor; David Clayton, Arthur Kramer, Patty Kandalepas, 
James Lee

Grass Lecture
Essie Meisami

Representative of the Central Illinois Chapter for SfN
Essie Meisami

Neuroscience Student Organization
Lilia Zurkovsky, President; Karla Melendez, Vice-President, Brian Powers, 
Treasurer; Jonathan House, Web Design and Alumni Database; Kelly Fugo & Jia-Min
Bai, Social Coordinator and Retreat Committee; Karla Melendez & Christopher 
Whalen, Seminar Committee

Postdoctoral Associates Association
Christian Beaulé, Coordinator

2) Welcome our new graduate students
I am pleased to introduce to everyone our incoming class of graduate students:
Stephanie Brewer, IL Wesleyan, joining Sue Schantz's lab
Renee Haag, UIUC, joining Paul Gold's lab
Keiko Hirayama, Univ. Tokyo, Japan, joining Rhanor Gillette's lab
Claire Miller, Reed College, MSP, joining Phil Newmark's lab
Samit Shah, Penn State, MSP, joining Al Feng's lab
Carolina Soto, UIUC, MSP, Ed Roy’s lab

Please make a special effort to meet these students and welcome them to the 
program.  This will make it easier for them to get settled into graduate 
school and to approach you about being on their Diagnostic Committee!

There are two upcoming events that will give you an opportunity to meet our 
new students:
a) Our first seminar will be on 6 September (you'll receive a separate 
notice about it), and we will start serving refreshments at 3:30 PM to give 
everyone a chance to say hello after the long summer.

b) Our graduate student (NSO)-run retreat is scheduled for 2 October 
(you'll receive a separate notice about it).  Whereas in some years faculty 
complained that the student turnout was low, last year it was the students' 
turn to complain that the faculty turnout was low.  Let's try this year for 
a great turnout by everyone --students, postdocs and faculty-- so no one 
complains about anything!

3) Statement of goals for the coming year
Here are some of our goals for this coming year:
Continue to find ways to expand and enhance interactions among members of 
the program.  This means: come to seminars, come to the retreat, come to 
SfN Night, come to Open House.  In addition, as part of our Professional 
Development Program, Sam is organizing a series of lunch discussions on 
topics related to community building in our program.  Sam wrote a proposal 
for these activities that was funded enthusiastically by the Grad College 
just for this purpose (and they asked permission to use it as a model 
proposal!).  Please stay tuned for further announcements.

Improve our ability to recruit and support graduate students with training 
grants. Bill Greenough and Al Feng are PIs on two training grants 
(Developmental Neuroscience and Psychology; Sensory Neuroscience) that are 
serving NSP students extremely well.  We are most grateful to them for 
their leadership.  But we need more.  At least three other training grant 
submissions are planned for this year: General Neuroscience (Paul Gold, 
PI); Developmental Neuroscience (Akira Chiba, PI) and Neurogenomics (Gene 
Robinson, PI).  I encourage you to think about other such proposals.  Sam 
is creating the databases that are required for such submissions, so that 
you can concentrate solely on the ideas, building the team, and designing 
the program that you'd like.  The NSP office plans to be able to provide 
the rest of the logistical support necessary to prepare a training grant 
proposal.  As I said, please think about it!

4) Encourage enrollment in Dialogues in Neuroscience
Dialogues in Neuroscience (MCB 529, section 2GC; same as NEUR 520, section 
2GC) was specially developed by Paul Gold and Akira Chiba, in consultation 
with the ’03-004 Executive Committee to provide a broad, integrative, and 
forward looking overview of neuroscience.  It was first taught by Paul and 
Akira last spring and was extremely well received.  The course was changed 
to a fall offering and is being taught again this semester (Meets at 1:30 – 
2:50 PM WF room B126 Chemical and Life Sci Lab­note new time).  With the 
change in semester, there is still space available, and it is important to 
achieve good enrollment for this course.   Students: Please talk with your 
advisor about taking this course!  We have no required core curriculum, but 
this course is highly recommended for advanced graduate students.  It is 
intended for 2nd yr and later graduate students in Neuroscience and related 
programs.  There is no other such course like it, especially tailored to 
our graduate students, and we owe Paul and Akira our great thanks for 
teaching it.


5) Committee assignments for the coming year
The following have kindly agreed to serve on NSP committees for '05-06.

Executive Committee
Stephanie Ceman, Lee Cox, Monica Fabiani, Paul Gold, Joe Malpeli, Essie 
Meisami, Phil Newmark, Shelley Tishkau, Karla Melendez, student representative

Admissions Committee
Donna Korol, Chair; Stephen Boppart, Joshua Gulley, Huey Hing, Charles 
Whitfield, Lily Zurkovsky, student representative

Open House Committee
Sam Beshers, Coordinator; Sophia Liang, student-co-coordinator; Seth Ament, 
posters and abstracts; Molly Kent, housing; Margaret Ferris, party

Brain Awareness at the Orpheum Committee
Mark Nelson, Coordinator; Denise Parks, Sam Beshers, Chris Whalen, Student 
Coordinator, Margaret Ferris, Student Assistant

Grievance Committee
Gary Iwamoto

Seminar Commitee
Sam Beshers, Coordinator; Refreshments Fall, Liping Wang; Refreshments 
Spring, Jinny Kang; AV and Clean-up Fall, Rui Ma; AV and Clean-up Spring, 
Adriana Bora; Lunch with Speaker Fall, Claudia Winograd; Lunch with Speaker 
Spring, Georgina Aldridge

Prosser Award Committee
Lee Beverly and David Gooler

Carnegie Initiative Working Group
Sam Beshers, Convenor; David Clayton, Arthur Kramer; Student Members: Patty 
Kandalepas, James Lee

Grass Lecture
Richard Kollmar

Representative of the Central Illinois Chapter for SfN
Richard Kollmar

Neuroscience Student Organization
President:  Karla Melendez;   Vice President:  Claudia Winograd
New Student Orientation Co-Chairs:  Seth Ament and Margaret Ferris
Fall Retreat Co-Chairs:  Jessica Stanis, Patty Kandalepas, and Rui Ma
Student-Selected Seminars Co-Chairs: Kevin Christie and Georgina Aldridge
Social Chairperson:  Molly Kent

Postdoctoral Associates Association
Christian Beaulé, Coordinator


I wish you all a productive and stimulating year and look forward to seeing 
a lot of you in the weeks ahead.

Best,
Gene







Gene E. Robinson
G. William Arends Professor of Integrative Biology
Director, Neuroscience Program
Chair, Genomics of Neural and Behavioral Plasticity Theme,
Institute for Genomic Biology
Department of Entomology
University of Illinois
505 S. Goodwin Ave., Urbana, IL  61801
Tel. 217-265-0309   Fax 217-244-3499
Website: 
<http://www.life.uiuc.edu/robinson/>http://www.life.uiuc.edu/robinson/
    
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