Promoting Science Literacy through Yale’s ‘Brain Education Day’

September 9, 2013

Mitra Miri (Neuroscience) has been a Fellow at the Graduate School’s Office for Diversity and Equal Opportunity at Yale (ODEO), mentored a local student through the Hill Neighborhood Mentoring Program, and worked as a graduate assistant for the Science, Technology and Research Scholars Program, which is designed to support women, minority, economically underprivileged, and other historically underrepresented students in the sciences, engineering, and mathematics. But arguably her most ambitious volunteer project is Brain Education Day, which she has coordinated for the past three years in collaboration with ODEO, the Yale Pathways to Science Program, and fellow student Nikki Woodward (Neuroscience).  This day-long event brings about 100 local public school students to campus, where they visit labs and interact with graduate students, undergraduates, medical students, post-doctoral fellows, and faculty. Last year’s program included sheep brain dissections and sessions on comparative neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and sensation and perception.  Mitra’s dissertation research focuses on seizures and what inhibits them on a cellular level.  However, one of her main motivations is to make neuroscience accessible to non-scientists, a goal which she also pursues through the Yale Neuroscience Outreach Program, which is dedicated to promoting knowledge about and interest in neuroscience to local K-12 students through school visits.

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