The Tenth Annual BHI Symposium will be held on two days- Thursday, November 14, and Friday November 15, 2024 at the Douglass Student Center in New Brunswick, NJ. The symposium will celebrate the TENTH Anniversary of BHI!! Across the two days, you will learn about the five BHI centers and hear cutting-edge talks by new Rutgers neuroscience faculty. New this year, we will have talks by four post-docs selected by each of the four BHI focus area working groups. Also new this year, the afternoon sessions on both days will include flash talks by student/post-doc poster presenters.  Cash awards to the top three best posters each day! Finally, an "Art in Neuroscience" exhibition opportunity for trainees! We will select top 10 submissions to be exhibited at the tw0 day symposium.

Early Registration and Poster Abstract & Art Submissions have ended.
On-site late Registration will be available (Cash Only) - Faculty: $75, Post-doc/Student/Staff: $40 .

View Symposium Booklet

The keynote speaker for this year is Dr John H. Morrison. Dr. John H. Morrison is currently Director of the California National Primate Research Center (CNPRC), UC Davis Distinguished Professor, Professor of Neurology in the School of Medicine, and Professor in the Center for Neuroscience at UC Davis. Dr. Morrison earned his Bachelor’s Degree and Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, and completed postdoctoral studies in the laboratory of Dr. Floyd E. Bloom at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.  He then served as a faculty member at The Scripps Research Institute until he joined the faculty at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 1989 where went on to be Chair of the Fishberg Department of Neuroscience and serve as Dean of Basic Sciences and the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai before moving to UC Davis in 2015. Dr. Morrison has served on Council for the Society for Neuroscience (SfN), served as the Editor-in-Chief of SfN’s public-facing website, BrainFacts.org, and was recently elected Secretary of SfN. Dr. Morrison is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

The 2024 Two-day Tenth Annual BHI Symposium is next week on Thursday, Nov 14th & Friday Nov 15th. The symposium begins at 8 AM with registration and breakfast and ends at 5.30 PM. Based on pre-registration we have about 225 faculty, trainee and staff attending. Across the two days, we have an outstanding lineup of faculty and trainee speakers with the Keynote Lecture by Dr. John Morrison from UC-Davis. 

Below is useful information for attendees.

  1. The symposium is being held in the Douglass Student Center. The main event will be in the Trayes Hall in Douglass Student Center, 100 George Street, New Brunswick, 08901. The afternoon poster sessions will be in Douglass Lounge in the same student center.
  2. The Google Map directions to Douglass Student Center and parking- Lot 70/ Douglass Deck- https://maps.app.goo.gl/Eiu9kVSa3iV6NngL8
  3. A Special Event parking request has been processed. Visitors may park in Lots 70 & Douglass Deck. Guests must use the below link to register for the event. They must enter an email address where they will receive a confirmation. Until this process is completed their vehicles are not registered and guests may receive a citation. Special Event parking does not include metered parking or allow free parking to faculty, staff, or students. Rutgers affiliated Faculty, Staff and Students must have a Rutgers parking permit (Semester, Daily, or Event) and park accordingly. Faculty, Staff, and Students parking without a parking permit or outside their parking permit assignment will be subjected to ticketing and/or towing.

 [code]Tenth Annual Rutgers Brain Health Institute Symposium[/code]

  1. The symposium starts at 8 AM with light breakfast and beverages and is being held in the Douglass Student Center. There will be on-site registration available for attendees who have not paid and registered on-line. On-site registration fees are $75 for Faculty and $40 for trainees and staff. Please note we will only be able to accept CASH (please bring correct change).
  2. Students & post-docs who are presenting posters on the assigned days (Nov 14th ; Nov 15th ) can put up their posters during the morning break and lunch in the Douglass Lounge in the Douglass Student Center.
    1. The Poster Session will start at ~3.45 PM after the last session in Trayes Hall on each day. Based on the day assigned to you for presentation, please have your posters put up by then.
    2. The foam poster boards are 60 inches long and 40 inches wide and on tripods- so they can be oriented horizontally or vertically. We will provide push pins.
    3. Your poster board number will be on your name badge and pinned on your poster board and also in the Symposium Booklet. Please make sure that the poster board number is visible over your poster so that the judges can find you.
    4. There is at least one judge assigned to your poster. So please make sure that you stay by your poster till the judge has come by. We expect all judging to be over by 5 PM at the latest.
    5. The best poster awards will be presented between 5.15 PM and 5.30 PM. The top three posters will receive certificates and award of $200, $150 and $100, respectively.
    6. BHI communications and marketing coordinator, Lily Zhang will be taking a short 2–3-minute video of the winners with their posters!

Trainees whose submitted artwork were selected to display at the Brain Art Exhibition will have their artwork on the poster wall in Trayes Hall.

Please let us know if you have any questions. We look forward to meeting everyone!! 

The Symposium Schedule

The symposium check-in begins at 8 AM each day with breakfast, lunch, reception and award ceremony at 5.15 PM.

View Symposium Booklet

Thursday, November 14th

9: 00 AM: Welcome remarks by Rutgers Health Chancellor Dr. Brian Strom and Director of the Brain Health Institute, Dr. Gary Aston-Jones.

9:35 AM-11.55 AM: BHI Centers- Updates from Directors
Drs. Wayne Fisher, R. Chris Pierce, David Zald, Anna Konova, Michal-Schnaider Beeri

1:30PM-2:40 PM: Post-doc Alliance Working Group & FAWG-selected Post-doc Talks
Drs. Rebecca Sebastian, Benton Purnell, Sarah Swinford-Jackson, Mark Gradwell, and Jaclyn Eisdorfer/ Aysegul Gungor Aydin.

2:45 PM-3.45 PM: Two-Minute Flash Talks by Trainee Poster Presenters

3:45 PM-5.15 PM: Trainee Poster Session (Douglass Lounge)

5:00 PM-5.30 PM: Trainee Poster Award Winners for Day 1 Poster sessions (Douglass Lounge)

Friday, November 15th

9: 00 AM: Welcome remarks and BHI updates by Director of the Brain Health Institute, Dr. Gary Aston-Jones.

9:35 AM-10.00 AM: BHI Center Pilot Grant Updates
Drs. Steve Levison and Tammy Chung

10:05 AM-11.20 AM: New Rutgers Neuroscience Faculty Talks
Drs. Sangmi Chung, Salman Qasim, Elizabeth Holly, Natasha O'Brown and Sharon Sanz Simon.

11:30 AM-12.30 PM: Symposium Keynote Lecture
Dr. John H. Morrison

2:00 PM- 2.25 PM: New Rutgers Neuroscience Faculty Talks
Drs. Nathan Wages, Marilyn Piccirillo

2:30 PM-3.30 PM: Two-Minute Flash Talks by Trainee Poster Presenters

3:30 PM-5.00 PM: Trainee Poster Session (Douglass Lounge)

5:00 PM-5.30 PM: Trainee Poster Award Winners for Day 2 Poster sessions (Douglass Lounge)