Bunge Lab

From left: Chloe Green, Connor Lemos, Lisa Johnson, Sally Bae, Alison Miller Singley, Silvia Bunge, Maia Barrow, Zdena Op de Macks, Forrest Riege, Belén Guerra-Carrillo, and Carter Wendelken

At UC Berkeley, every Ph.D. graduate receives a lollipop when their degree has been conferred. Allyson Mackey and Kirstie Whitaker paid a little visit to Graduate Division on August 10th and received their lollipops! They both started in the Neuroscience program 5 summers ago, both leave the lab at the end of the month, and are both heading to Cambridge for postdocs. Allyson will go to MIT (Cambridge, Mass.) to work with my grad advisor John Gabrieli, and Kirstie will go to the University of Cambridge to work with John Suckling. The lab is in denial at the moment.

Reasoning training alters white matter microstructure

Open-access article:

http://www.frontiersin.org/neuroanatomy/10.3389/fnana.2012.00032/abstract

Science Daily:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120822125222.htm

The Wall Street Journal (misguidedly titled “Why Lawyers Are So Smart”):

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20000872396390444230504577615443664768610.html

Etc. And, of course, since this study involved LSAT preparation, it’s been cited in law-related websites, including some fun articles…

http://abovethelaw.com/2012/08/studying-for-the-lsat-makes-you-smarter-at-doing-well-on-the-lsat/

Silvia has been invited to give a Distinguished Scientist Lecture in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. This is not until September, so she may have enough time to grow a distinguished white beard beforehand.

The Supreme Court has just ruled that life-without-parole sentencing for juveniles is unconstitutional, relying in part on evidence regarding the protracted timecourse of brain maturation. Over the last few years, a number of researchers, including Professor Bunge, co-wrote amicus briefs and testified in state State senate hearings that led up to this decision. The researchers took care to provide a balanced overview of extant research on brain development.

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1455875-pistas-sobre-como-aprende-el-cerebro

At Humboldt University in Berlin, at Yana Fandakova’s thesis defense. Yana, who graduated summa cum laude, is wearing a neat personalized graduation cap with lots of photos on it. Behind her from left to right: a Humboldt reseearcher, Silvia, Yee Lee Shing, Hauke Heekeren, Ulman Lindenberger, and Peter Frensch.

Thanks to the fundraising efforts of Jack Shonkhoff, Director of the Frontiers of Innovation, our lab has received philanthropic funding for a “Proposal to Advance the Frontiers of Innovation in Early Childhood Policy and Practice” in Washington State.

http://developingchild.harvard.edu/activities/frontiers_of_innovation/

Change is in the air.

Today our 5th-year Neuroscience student Allyson Mackey gives her public Ph.D. thesis talk, titled “Reasoning training alters brain structure and function”. This fall she will head to Prof. John Gabrieli’s lab at MIT for a postdoc.

Kirstie Whitaker, also a 5th-year Neuroscience student, will be giving her thesis talk on August 17th, and then headed back to the U.K. for a postdoc.

Maia Barrow is coming on board on June 1st as a new full-time research assistant in the lab, followed by Belén Guerra, an incoming graduate student in Psychology.