NYU Langone’s Neuroscience Institute hosts the Seminars by Postdocs in Neuroscience: Extramural Series, or SPiNES. This monthly event invites postdoctoral researchers from outside of NYU Langone to present their work in an hour-long seminar, to meet one-on-one with faculty, and to engage our community in informal discussions. Founded in 2011, the SPiNES series was the first of its kind, and it has prompted similarly themed colloquia at nearly a dozen other universities. Over the past decade, 81 postdocs have presented their work at NYU Langone as SPiNES speakers (see a complete list of past speakers).

Being selected as a SPiNES lecturer provides an exciting opportunity for postdocs to share cutting-edge research and to receive feedback from NYU Langone faculty, postdocs, and students. This interaction is often an invaluable asset during the job search process. In fact, most SPiNES speakers have gone on to tenure-track positions at top universities. But we are not completely altruistic here; our community benefits greatly from this mechanism by learning about exciting research conducted outside of our institute. This is the essence of “farm-to-table” science: stories from individuals who have typically collected all the presented data.

2021–22 SPiNES Schedule

The 2021–22 SPiNES schedule features 8 speakers chosen from 140 applications. All talks follow a hybrid format, and access links are emailed to the neuroscience community prior to each talk. See our events calendar to learn more.

We are proud to present the following speakers for 2021–22:

Bradley Colquitt, PhD
University of California, San Francisco
Laboratory of Michael Brainard, PhD

Santiago Cuesta, PhD
UT Southwestern
Laboratory of Vanessa Sperandio, PhD

Paul Donlin-Asp, PhD
Max Planck Institute for Brain Research
Laboratory of Erin Schuman, PhD

Douglas Senna Engelke, PhD
UT Health Science Center at Houston
Laboratory of Fabricio Do Monte, PhD

Emilia Favuzzi, PhD
Harvard University
Laboratory of Gordon Fishell, PhD

Orna Issler, PhD
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Laboratory of Eric Nestler, MD, PhD

William Liberti, PhD
University of California, Berkeley
Laboratory of Michael Yartsev, PhD

Livia Tomova, PhD
University of Cambridge
Laboratory of Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, PhD

SPiNES Committee

Speakers were selected by the SPiNES committee. The 2021–22 committee consists of the following postdoctoral fellows and faculty:

Franziska Auer, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of David Schoppik, PhD
Philip Hasel, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Shane A. Liddelow, PhD
Nicholas Kathman, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Katherine Nagel, PhD
Sam Larsen, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Richard Tsien, DPhil
Julieta Lischinsky, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dayu Lin, PhD
Jason Moore, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Jayeeta Basu, PhD
Ipshita Zutshi, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of György Buzsáki, MD, PhD
Michael A. Long, PhD, faculty advisor

Please direct any inquiries about SPiNES to Rihan Hassad, MPH, senior project coordinator, Neuroscience Institute, at rihan.hassad@nyulangone.org.