Workshops
Kickoff Graduate Student Appreciation Week (GSAW) by driving through to pick up a boxed lunch and care package from the Division of Graduate Studies. Register for a boxed lunch and care package via our registration form. Limit of one boxed lunch and care package per student. Please bring your Flashcard/Student ID or other form of identification for pickup. Limited quantities are available, so we recommend registering early.
Join us for a fun evening of trivia with questions that span across the world! The students with the top scores will receive prizes! Register to join us.
The 2021 Graduate Research Symposium showcases graduate student research. Day 1 of the Sympoium will feature graduate students' poster presentations and a keynote speaker.
The virtual poster presentations will take place from 2:30-4:30 p.m. and the keynote address will begin at 4:45 p.m.
CliftonStrengths is a paid leadership assessment, and the Division of Graduate Studies will be covering the cost of the assessment for graduate students on a first-come, first-served basis. The deadline to register for the CliftonStrengths assessment is Wednesday, March 24 at 5 p.m. Career Exploration and Development (CED) will be hosting a virtual workshop during Graduate Student Appreciation Week (GSAW) on April 8. Students will be sent an access code to complete the assessment prior to attending the workshop. Register for the assessment and workshop.
The 2021 Graduate Research Symposium showcases graduate student research and will feature oral presentations from graduate students on Thursday.
Dr. Zhiqiang (Molly) Wang
Dr. Zhiqiang (Molly) Wang, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has been teaching at Kent State since August 2007. She earned a Ph.D. in Bioinorganic Chemistry from Fudan University, Shanghai, China. Dr. Wang has been awarded grant funding from the American Heart Association and Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh. In addition, she has received numerous scholarship awards, a Paper of the Week award from the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Farris Innovation award, William E. Lower Award and Kent State University Summer Research and Creativity Awards. She also has been awarded Distinguished Teaching Award from KSU in 2017. Dr. Wang has fifty publications in high caliber scholarly journals including the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Biochemistry, Protein Science, Biochemie, Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, Biophysical Chemistry, International Journal of Nanomedicine, BMC Biochemistry, Chemistry of Materials, FEBS J., Biochem. J., Journal of Rare Earth, and others. She is a co-author of a book chapter of “The Encyclopedia of Biological Chemistry”. In addition, she has presented her work at numerous scientific conferences across the United States, Canada, Japan, Italy, France, Greece and China. Dr. Wang also actively engage in local community service as being a science fair judge, Science Olympiad coach, Keynote speaker and organizer of “Women in Stems” and Honors Symposium presenter.
Critical thinking is an essential skill for our students. The workshop will cover how critical thinking skills are viewed in different STEM disciplines and how our faculty help students develop and evaluate such skills in undergraduate and graduate courses. This interactive workshop will provide the opportunity for faculty to share their own experiences in cultivating critical thinking skills.
Dr. Rachael Blasiman
Dr. Rachael Blasiman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences. She teaches at the Salem campus, where she actively promotes undergraduate research and mentoring. Her research interests include memory, learning, and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). She is currently serving as a Faculty Fellow in the Center for Teaching and Learning.
Learning is the fundamental objective in every college course, but how does it work? How do you get your students to deeply learn information and retain it over time? In this workshop, we will discuss best practices in helping your students connect to course material, provide practical classroom techniques from award-winning teachers, explore methods of enhancing connections in both synchronous and asynchronous environments, and brainstorm ideas to create cross-disciplinary connections in learning.
The goal of my Faculty Fellows project is:
- To describe best practices in helping students make connections between course content and their own experiences
- To provide resources for faculty to use the power of connections to enhance their own teaching
- Conduct research on interdisciplinary use of connections to enhance learning and improve retention. The connections we make are especially relevant in this time of remote teaching, which can often feel impersonal. Forming strong connections between course content and students' experiences is the foundation of all we seek to do as educators, and improving connections will have a measurable impact on learning and retention.
The endocannabinoid system, its extension to the endocannabinoidome, and the relationships of both with the gut microbiome
Vincenzo Di Marzo, PhD, Professor and Canada Excellence Research Chair, Université Laval
For several decades, and starting some 25 years from its discovery, the only plant cannabinoid (phytocannabinoid) with an established mechanism for its pharmacological actions has been D9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). To THC are ascribed the most important euphoric and psychotropic effects of recreational preparations (e.g. marijuana, hashish) obtained from those varieties of Cannabis sativa that are rich in this compound. These effects on the central nervous system are now known to be due to THC capability of activating endogenous G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) that are among the most abundant such proteins in the mammalian brain: the type-1 cannabinoid (CB1) receptors. THC also activates another GPCR, the type-2 cannabinoid (CB2) receptors, through which it produces instead anti-inflammatory and immune-modulatory actions. The discovery of CB1 and CB2 receptors led to the finding of their endogenous agonists, later named endocannabinoids: N-arachidonoyl-ethanolamine (anandamide) and 2-arachidonoyl-glycerol (2-AG). The chemical signaling system composed of CB1 and CB2 receptors, the two endocannabinoids and the anabolic and catabolic enzymes regulating endocannabinoid levels, became known as the endocannabinoid system.
Later, an expanded endocannabinoid system, including several non-endocannabinoid long chain fatty acid amides and esters, among which: a) the congeners of anandamide and 2-AG, b) the N-acyl-aminoacids, c) the N-acyl-neurotransmitters and d) the primary fatty acid amides, has been discovered. These lipid mediators often share with the two endocannabinoids biosynthetic and/or inactivating enzymes, but not necessarily their receptors, which instead include orphan GPCRs, ligand-activated ion channels and peroxisome proliferator-activated nuclear receptors (PPARs). These small molecules, therefore, should not be considered endocannabinoids sensu stricto, but instead as endocannabinoid-like mediators, and this expanded endocannabinoid system is becoming known as the endocannabinoidome.
The endocannabinoidome is involved in almost all aspects of mammalian physiology and pathology, and recent work from my and other laboratories have highlighted how this complex signalling system is modulated by, and in turn modulates, another fundamental player in several physiopathological conditions: the gut microbiome. I will present data on the endocannabinoidome-gut microbiome axis and its emerging importance in obesity and neuropsychiatric disorders.
Contact: Email dcostel3@kent.edu for link and/or to be added to the BSCI seminar mailing list
The mission of the Brain Health Research Institute is to foster and support collaborative research leading to innovative discoveries about the brain that ultimately improve the health of our communities and beyond.
Interactions between the circadian and neuroendocrine systems in female reproductive health and offspring development
Speaker: Lance Kriegsfeld, PhD, UC Berkeley
Successful female reproduction requires the precise, temporal coordination of numerous neural and hormonal events over several timescales. Converging lines of evidence implicate a critical role for circadian timing in female reproductive health across mammalian species, including humans. More specifically, ovulation, fertilization, pregnancy maintenance, and fetal development each require specific temporal patterns of hormone secretion regulated by the circadian timing system. The negative consequences of chronic circadian disruption for female reproductive health are underscored in studies investigating women or animals with marked circadian deficits. Women with rotating work schedules, for example, experience irregular menstrual cycles, reduced fertility, and increased miscarriage rates. In rodents, destruction of the master circadian clock in the brain, the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), its neural output, or the genes regulating cellular clock function lead to pronounced deficits in fecundity. Our work examines the neural pathways and neuroendocrine mechanisms by which the circadian timing system coordinates hormonal events to maximize female reproductive success and healthy offspring development.
Contact: Email dcostel3@kent.edu for link and/or to be added to the BSCI seminar mailing list
The mission of the Brain Health Research Institute is to foster and support collaborative research leading to innovative discoveries about the brain that ultimately improve the health of our communities and beyond.
Understanding human brain development and degeneration using cerebral organoid and human-mouse chimeric brain models
Peng Jiang, PhD, Rutgers University
Our research is focused on studying the cellular and molecular basis of human neural development and pathogenesis of neurological disorders by using human patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (a.k.a. iPSCs). We’re interested in a genetic disorder, Down syndrome (DS). DS, caused by triplication of human chromosome 21, is the most common genetic cause of intellectual disability and the single most common risk factor for early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. We have generated human iPSCs from DS patient-derived skin fibroblasts. I will introduce our recent research on creating iPSC-based in vitro cerebral organoid model and in vivo human-mouse chimeric brain model to investigate how aberrant gene expression in DS causes abnormal brain development and intellectual disability, and also how aberrant gene expression leads to accelerated aging and early-onset Alzheimer's disease in DS.
Recommended reading:
Contact: Email dcostel3@kent.edu for link and/or to be added to the BSCI seminar mailing list
The mission of the Brain Health Research Institute is to foster and support collaborative research leading to innovative discoveries about the brain that ultimately improve the health of our communities and beyond.
