The NACS Seminar Series brings NACS faculty and students together on a weekly basis.  The speakers are world-class neuroscientists and cognitive scientists who are working at the cutting edge of their discipline. Seminars are held on Fridays from 10:15-11:30am in room 1103 in the Bioscience Research Building. Titles will be posted as they become available. For additional information, please contact Cathy Holm at cholm@umd.edu.  NACS seminars are not recorded.

FALL 2021 SEMINARS

September 10: Dr. Amy Orsborn, University of Washington (Faculty Host: Dr. Melissa Caras)
Title: Shaping and optimizing learning in brain-machine interfaces 

September 17: Dr. Bob Knight, University of California, Berkeley (Faculty Host: Dr. Luiz Pessoa) 
Title:  Insights into Human Cognition from Intracranial Recording 
This seminar will be held via Zoom.

September 24: Dr. Ariel James, Macalester College (Faculty Host: Dr. Yi Ting Huang)
Title: Capturing and explaining individual differences in language processing: Triumphs and Challenges

October 8: Dr. Marlen Gonzalez, Cornell University (Host: Junaid Merchant) 
Title:  The Child is the Father of The Man

October 15 : Dr. Diana Tamir, Princeton University (Host: Junaid Merchant)
Title: Making predictions in the social world 
This seminar will be held via Zoom.

October 22: Dr. Mark Histed, NIH/NIMH (Faculty Host: Dr. Dan Butts) 
Title: Toward rules of network computation in cortical circuits

October 29: Dr. Andrew Miri, Northwestern University (Host: Nina Friedman)
Title:  Population Interactions in the Motor System

November 5: Dr. Deanna Barch, Washington University in St. Louis (Faculty Host: Dr. Arianna Gard)
Title:  The Enduring Relationship of Early Life Poverty and the Development of Brain Structure and Function

November 19: Dr. Nathaniel Harnett, Harvard Medical School (Faculty Host: Dr. Arianna Gard)
Title:  The neurobiological impact of trauma and mechanisms of PTSD susceptibility

December 3: Dr. Nathan Anthony Smith, Children's National Hospital (Host: Uzma Javed)
Title:  Calcium-independent astrocytic lipid release modulates neuronal excitability

SPRING 2022 SEMINARS

February 4: Dr. Susan Perlman, Washington University in St. Louis (Faculty Host: Dr. Lea Dougherty)
Title:  Neuroscientific Evaluation of Risk in Early Childhood Psychopathology: Integrating Proximal and Distal Factors
This seminar will be held via Zoom.

February 18: Dr. Elaine Hsiao, University of California, Los Angeles (Faculty Host: Dr. Jens Herberholz)
Title: The Microbiome as a Modifier of Environmental Risk for Cognitive Impairment
This seminar will be held at 12:15pm via Zoom - Please note time change.

February 25: Dr. Dean Mobbs, Caltech (Faculty Host: Dr. Alex Shackman)
Title:  Space, Time and Fear: Survival Decisions along Defensive Circuits
This seminar will be held via Zoom.​​​

March 4: Dr. Jessica Hay, University of Tennessee, Knoxville (Faculty Host: Dr. Rochelle Newman)
Title:  The Changing Role of Infant Statistical Learning Across the First Two Years 

March 11: Dr. Mark Sheffield, University of Chicago (Faculty Host: Dr. Josh Singer)
Title: How reward expectation influences memory representations in the hippocampus

March 18 and 25: No seminar (Spring Break)

April 1: Dr. Arielle Borovsky, Purdue University (Faculty Host: Dr. Yi Ting Huang)
Title: What can we learn from our first 500 (or so) words?  Insights into early language skills from semantic network modeling
This seminar will be held via Zoom.

April 8: Dr. Nathaniel Daw, Princeton University (Faculty Host: Dr. Alec Solway)
Title: Thinking the right thoughts

May 6: Dr. Gül Dölen, Johns Hopkins University (Faculty Host: Dr. Scott Juntti)
Title:  What octopuses and psychedelics teach us about the social brain  
This seminar will be held via Zoom.