The Vanderbilt International Scholarship Program (VISP) is sponsoring a symposium of biomedical research from 9:10 a.m. to noon Friday, Feb. 26, in room 208 Light Hall.
Eight undergraduate interns and three graduate scholars supported by the program will present their work, followed at 11:30 a.m. by a keynote address by Jun Ding, Ph.D., assistant professor of Neurosurgery at Stanford University.
Ding, a native of China, earned his Ph.D. in Neuroscience at Northwestern University, did postdoctoral work in Neurobiology at Harvard, and came to Stanford in 2012. He studies circuit mechanisms that underlie motor behavior and which may shed light on pathophysiological changes in disorders such as Parkinson’s disease.
The title of his lecture is “Do or do not, there is no try — insights of navigating American academic sciences from an international scholar.”
Ding also will give a seminar entitled “Mixed signals — dopamine modulation of synaptic plasticity” at 12:20 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 25, in room 1220 MRB III. His visit is co-sponsored by the Vanderbilt Brain Institute.
VISP was established in 2010 to strengthen international collaboration. Its primary mission is to support international Ph.D. students in the biomedical sciences at Vanderbilt. It also sponsors the Vanderbilt International Summer Research Academy, which offers international undergraduate students considering careers in biomedical research a rigorous research experience.
The program is directed by Kathy Gould, Ph.D., professor of Cell and Developmental Biology and associate dean for Biomedical Sciences.
For more information, visit the VISP website at https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/visp.
