October 25, 2021
Linda Blaser
Glassman Brain, Mind, Behavior Symposium is November 4–5
The 2021 Robert B. Glassman Memorial Brain, Mind, and Behavior Symposium will be held Thursday, November 4 and Friday, November 5.
The symposium consists of a series of talks given by Lake Forest College faculty and alumni on November 4 and a poster session where Lake Forest students and alumni will present their original research on November 5.
This unique symposium is a highlight of the College’s award-winning Brain Awareness Week, Monday, November 1 through Friday, November 5.
The Glassman Symposium will begin with a set of interdisciplinary faculty and alumni talks. This year’s topics focus on cognitive probablities, the Parkinson’s disease brain, avian cognition, metastatic cancer in the brain, and improving police-community relations. The talks will be held via Zoom from 7 to 9 p.m.
The following lectures will be presented:
- “Cognitive Probabilities: Simulating Human-Like Object Identification in Situations of Uncertainty”—Sara Zelenberg, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Mathematics, Lake Forest College
- “Klotho: The Key to Building a More Resilient Brain in Parkinson’s Disease?”—Nijee Sharma Luthra ’04, Assistant Professor of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco
- “Avian Cognition and Socratic Method”—Janet McCracken, Professor and Chair of Philosophy, Lake Forest College
- “Improving and Extending Life for Patients with Metastatic Cancer in the Brain”—Michael White ’07, Assistant Professor of Neuro-Oncology, University of Rochester
- “A New Frontier for Improving Police-Community Relations”—Vivian Ta, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Lake Forest College
A research poster session will be held from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. in Calvin Durand Hall. Enjoy posters and exhibits by current students and recent alumni of original student/faculty research conducted at Lake Forest, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, Midwestern University, Northwestern University, University of Minnesota, Illinois Institute of Technology, and Rush University.
“The greater community benefits from the Glassman Symposium as it creates a more enriched, connected, and knowledgeable scientific community and, therefore, society,” said Kealey Humphrey ’22, co-president of Synapse, one of the student groups helping to organize the event.
An art sculpture inspired by the 2021 annual education theme in neuroscience, “Neuroscience of Racial Bias and Identity,” will be unveiled. Art students collaborated with science students on creation of the piece.
The Brain Awareness Week Faculty/Student Symposium was renamed the Robert B. Glassman Memorial Brain, Mind, and Behavior Symposium in 2013 in honor of the late Professor of Psychology Robert Glassman, who played a leading role in developing Lake Forest’s popular neuroscience major.
The Glassman Symposium and all Brain Awareness Week events are free and open to the public.