The Alba Diversity Podcast

The ALBA-IBRO Podcast Miniseries is a collection of three episodes designed to provide a broader audience with exclusive insights into the topics covered at ALBA-IBRO diversity and inclusion events held during three international conferences in 2023.

For the second episode, we are at the IBRO World Congress 2023 on 9-13 September in Granada, Spain. The ALBA Network and the IBRO Early Career Committee partnered to facilitate a wide-...

The ALBA-IBRO Podcast Miniseries is a collection of three episodes designed to provide a broader audience with exclusive insights into the topics covered at ALBA-IBRO diversity and inclusion events held during three international conferences in 2023.

For the first episode, we are at the 16th International Conference of the Society of Neuroscientists of Africa (SONA) held in Johannesburg, South Africa (11-14 July 2023), where ALBA a...

Dr. Maryam Ziaei received her PhD in Neuroscience from School of Psychology, the University of Queensland (UQ), Australia. Following completion of her postdoctoral fellowship at the Centre for Advanced Imaging, UQ, she joined Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience in Norway to establish her own research group. She is currently an associate professor, and her primary focus is to understand neurocognitive mechanisms underlying soci...

Dr. Suraj Honnuraiah is a postdoctoral scientist in the laboratory of Prof. Greg Stuart at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. He grew up in India and did his Masters in Neuroinformatics with Prof. Rodney Douglas at the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland.

A tragic accident in childhood led to his friend losing his vision at an early age. Suraj talks about how he used this incident as his motivation to study and wor...

Dr. Dan Ohtan Wang is a neuroscientist trained in Japan and US. Her work connects genetic information to cognitive brain functions through the regulation of RNA. Her work centers on live-cell imaging techniques in visualizing RNA molecules and characterizing the diversity of RNA molecules at neuronal synapses. Currently, she is leading a team to study "Neuroepitranscriptomics" at RIKEN BDR, to decipher RNA information in the contex...

Dr. Mehmet Kurt is the director of Kurtlab (www.kurtlab.com) and an Assistant Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology since January 2017. He also hold an adjunct faculty position at the Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Institute (BMEII) at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. My primary research area of interest is brain biomechanics and neuromechanics imaging.

He speaks eloq...

Merima Šabanović is a PhD student in the Wellcome Trust Doctoral Training Programme in Neuroscience at the University of Oxford. She grew up in Bosnia and Herzegovina and moved to sunny Abu Dhabi to study Biology, with specialization in Brain & Cognitive science and a minor in Psychology, at New York University Abu Dhabi. Her interest in behavioural neuroscience has led her to study psychedelics and focus on how these can impac...

André Mecawi is an Adjunct Professor of Biophysics at the Federal University of São Paulo. His laboratory is focused on understanding the role of the vasopressin and oxytocin producing hypothalamic neurons in physiological and pathological conditions. 

He talks to us about the importance of good teaching and mentorship provided by exceptional teachers. He also tells us his experiences of growing up in Brazil as the son of an Egypti...

Dr. Noèlia Fernández Castillo was awarded her PhD in Genetics from the University of Barcelona in 2011. She is currently a researcher at the Centro de Investigaciones Biomédicas en Red de Enfermedades Raras(CIBERER) and an Associate Professor of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics at the University of Barcelona.

The main focus of her research is on the genetic basis of neuropsychiatric disorders, such as Addiction, Autism, ADHD a...

Dr. Nancy Padilla-Coreano is a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Science with Prof. Kay Tye. She did her graduate thesis work at Columbia University in the laboratory of Prof. Joshua Gordon on functional connectivity in hippocampal-prefrontal pathway during anxiety behavior and collaborations on the role of interneurons in the prefrontal cortex during cognition. She talks to us about her experiences as an imm...

Prof Huda Yahya Zoghbi is a Professor of Pediatrics, Neurology, Neuroscience, and Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine, an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Director of the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital.

Her work has led to the discovery of the genetic cause of Rett syndrome and provided insight into the function of the gene in various ...

Basma Radwan is a postdoctoral research associate in the Biology department at New York University, Abu Dhabi. She talks to us about her experience as a woman scientist and single mother. She credits her time in NYU, New York as formative for her personal and scientific growth. As an Egyptian woman, she shines a light on the kind of cultural messaging that young Egyptian girls receive while growing up.

Basma Radwan received her B....

José Zepeda is a poet-scientist hybrid and originates from San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora in México. He talks about his experiences as a first generation immigrant making his way in academia. As a DREAMer, he recounts incidents of his life when he first recognized racism and racist attitudes. During the conversation, he shares poignant insights on how academic institutions need to change their power structures to better reflect the ...

Dr. Ibukun Akinrinade just concluded her PhD from Prof. Rui Oliviera at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia, trying to understand the role of oxytocin in social behaviour in Zebrafish. She talks to us about being an African woman neuroscientist and a mother. Ibukun credits her mother-in-law as her personal mentor, who constantly champions her work and efforts to become a scientist. She also tells us about TReND in Africa, a charity...