Travel Grant Program
The O'Donnell Brain Institute Travel Grant Program was established to encourage and support OBI-affiliated trainees to attend and present original research at national and international conferences. Since April 2023, the program has made it possible for more than 20 young scientists to share their work with the neuroscientists around the world.
A trainee is defined as a Ph.D. student, postdoctoral scientist, resident, or clinical fellow. We will award up to ten travel grants per fiscal year of up to $2,500 in funding each.
Applications are now closed.
Awards
In 2025, we received 22 applications and granted 8 awards.
Dhvani "AJ" Jain, Biomedical Engineering Graduate Student, D’Mello Lab
Society for Neuroscience (SfN), San Diego, California, November 16, 2025
“Distilling interpretable sparse trees from sparse data: an information theory approach”
Tiffany Grezmak, Psychiatry Graduate Student, LoBue Lab
National Academy of Neuropsychology, Los Angeles CA, November 5-8, 2025
"Remote mild traumatic brain injury is not associated with worse cognitive and Alzheimer's Disease markers in mild cognitive impairment"
Fnu Sukanya, Neurology Postdoctoral Researcher, Noch Lab
2025 WFNOS and SNO Annual Meeting, Honolulu, Hawaii, November 19-23, 2025
"N-acetylcysteine induced lactate reprogramming is a targetable metabolic susceptibility in glioblastoma"
Syed Taskeen Rahman, B.S., Radiology Graduate Student, Bowen Lab
Nuclear Science Symposium, Medical Imaging Conference, and the Room-Temperature Semiconductor Detectors Symposium, Yokohama, Japan, November 1-8, 2025
"Development and Multi-Radiotracer Evaluation of a Deep Learning Based Internal Carotid Artery Segmentation for PET Input Function Estimation"
Si Cheng, Ph.D., Neurological Surgery Postdoctoral Researcher, Zhongzhen Fu Lab
Society for Neuroscience, San Diego, CA, November 15-19, 2025
"Acetylcholine modulates theta phase synchronization in prefrontal hippocampal dynamics during human memory formation"
Heidi Pak, Neuroscience Postdoctoral Researcher, Takahashi Lab
Gordon Research Seminar and Gordon Research Conference on Chronobiology, Barcelona, Spain, July 5-6, 2025
"Discussion Leader at the 2025 Meeting of Chronobiology"
Parker Bassett, Ph.D. Student, Saelices Lab
American Crystallography Association Annual Meeting, Lombard, Illinois, July 18-22, 2025
"Structural diversity and polymorphism in amyloid fibrils from single organs and single patients with AL Amyloidosis"
Satoshi Ishishita, Neuroscience Postdoctoral Researcher, Pool Lab
2025 United States Association for the Study of Pain Annual Scientific Meeting, Chicago, Illinois, April 29, 2025
"Characterization of the Spinal Projection Neuron Type Map of Somatosensory States"
From October 2023 to August 2024, we received 32 applications and granted 11 awards.
Chad Smith, Ph.D., Research Associate, Monson Lab
Society for Neuroscience, November 2023, Washington, D.C.
"Astrocytic stress response is induced by exposure to astrocyte-binding antibodies expressed by plasmablasts from pediatric patients with acute transverse myelitis"
Samir Ruxmohan, M.D., Neurology Fellow, Ding Lab
American Academy of Neurology, April 2024, Denver
"Improved Neuromonitoring for Critically Ill Patients Using Contextual Data & Cerebrovascular Complications in Takayasu's Arteritis: A Middle Cerebral Artery Stroke Case Report"
Pegah Askari, Graduate Student, Maldjian Lab
Annual Meeting of the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society, February 2024, Orlando, FL
"Predicting Cognitive Impairment using Resting-State MEG Data and Machine Learning"
Haley Moore, M.D./Ph.D. Student, Lega Lab
4th Annual In Vitro 2D & 3D Neuronal Networks Summit, April 2024, Zurich, Switzerland
"Exploring stimulation-induced gene expression and neuronal dynamics in human temporal cortex slices"
Aksheev Bhambri, Postdoctoral Researcher, Sun Lab
2024 Myelin Gordon Research Seminar, March 2024, Los Angeles
"Genetically Labelled Premyelinating Oligodendrocytes Reveal Multi-Faceted Effect of Neuronal Activity on Oligodendrocyte Differentiation"
Fnu Tahajjul Taufique, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Researcher, Yamazaki Lab
Society for Research on Biological Rhythms, May 2024, San Juan, Puerto Rico
"Constant Lilght Rescues Circadian Rhythm in Arrhythmic Period 1/2/3 Knockout Mice"
Fatma Ozlem Hokelekli, M.D, Ph.D., Psychiatry Resident, Trivedi Lab
Society of Biological Psychiatry, May 2024, Austin, TX
"Sex Differences in Effort/Cost-Based Decision Making among Depressed Outpatients"
Junyeon Won, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Researcher, Zhang Lab
North American Artery Meeting, June 2024, Aurora, CO
"Association of Central Arterial Stiffness with Brain White Matter Microstructure Integrity Across the Adult Lifespan"
Raegan Adams, Graduate Student, Bailey Lab
American Society for Gene and Cell Therapy, May 2024, Baltimore, MD
"Metabolic and Neuropathological Profiling of SLC13A5 Epilepsy Gene Therapy"
Margherita Tabet, Postdoctoral Researcher, Busch Lab
American Neurological Association (ANA) 149th Annual Meeting Orlando FL, Sept 14-17, 2024
"Cerebral Autoregulation and Neuroinflammation During Pediatric Extracorporeal Life Support"
Hudaisa Fatima, Graduate Student, Cullum Lab
National Academy of Neuropsychology, Austin, TX, November 6-7, 2024
"A Proof-of-concept for the Construct Validity of Cognitive Dispersion: Longitudinal Relationship between Cognitive Dispersion and Preclinical Alzheimer’s Cognitive Composite Scores"