2024 Winner: Talia Chan

Talia is a third-year Behavioural/Cognitive Neuroscience student who’s passionate about communication and the fusion of neuroscience, computer science, and media. She writes, performs and produces media projects for the UBC Science Undergraduate Society, focusing on mental health, outreach, and academic resources. Her work has reached over 400,000 viewers. As the Social Media Manager at the UBC Hackspace for Innovation and Visualization in Education (HIVE), Talia designs informative graphics on topics such as the ethics of anatomy visualisation and the use of AI in neuroscience. Talia loves to dance, code, and practice Muay Thai outside of her neuroscientific interests.

2024 Runner Up: Farnaz Jamshidi

Farnaz Jamshidi is a third-year student studying Behavioural and Cognitive Neuroscience. Now in her second year with the UBC Neuroscience Association, she currently serves as VP Finance and has launched an initiative to secure a dedicated lounge space for Neuroscience students to connect outside of lecture. As a UBC student ambassador, she leads guided tours for prospective students, sharing her insights on life as a UBC and Neuroscience student. Her research interests focus on innovative approaches to mental health, addiction treatment, and brain injury recovery.

2024 Winner: Cindy Zhang

Cindy is a third-year student studying Cellular & Molecular Neuroscience at UBC. Along with her academic pursuits, Cindy is actively involved in the Jason Snyder Lab as an undergraduate research assistant where she researches representational drift in the hippocampus, as well as in the auditory and visual cortex areas. In addition to her research, she has taken on the responsibility of managing lab orders, ensuring smooth operations within the lab. In her free time, Cindy enjoys swimming, playing guitar, and photography.

2024 Runner Up: Finn Carlson

Hello! My name is Finn Carlson and I’m starting my third year in the UBC neuroscience program. I was born in a remote town on the central coast of BC called Bella Coola, home to about 2,000 people. This summer I was fortunate enough to receive a SURE award in Zoology to study the impact of ocean acidification on salmon’s olfactory system in the Brauner and Matthews Labs. Prior to this, I worked in the Visual Neuroscience Lab at BC Children’s Hospital using magnetoencephalography (MEG) to study how visuomotor learning ability develops in children. Outside of neuroscience I love running in Pacific Spirit Park or down at Jericho Beach with friends, or cycling on many of the great routes Vancouver has to offer. I also enjoy playing the trumpet and had the chance to perform with the UBC Concert Winds this past year.

2024 Winner: Achol Jones

Achol is a Neuroscience student interested in using the reciprocal relationship between neuroscience and education to improve student learning and wellbeing. She is also passionate about promoting social justice within science education. Over the past year, Achol has developed a novel course offered by the UPN called ‘NSCI 140: Your Position in the Neurosciences’. This course will provide students with the unique opportunity to engage with topics of equity, accessibility, positionality, and decolonization within a neuroscience context. Beyond this, Achol works towards inspiring meaningful learning through her roles as a Researcher, Curriculum Development Assistant, and Teaching Assistant at UBC.

2024 Runner Up: Adi Swaro

Adi is a 4th-year cellular neuroscience student. He is passionate about teaching and mentorship. Recognizing the success of his newsletter – The Brain Blast –, he was able to receive a partnership to incorporate the newsletter into the UPN curriculum, where students receive course credit to author/edit/design articles. He also worked hard to partner the UBC Neuroscience Association (UNA) with the UPN with the hopes of creating a meaningful neuroscience social community. Outside of school, Adi enjoys hanging out & walking with his dogs.

2024 Co-Winner: Adi Swaro

Adi is a 4th-year cellular neuroscience student 
on co-op in the Cembrowski Lab. He developed TBISeq, a website that enables researchers all over the world to explore how traumatic brain injury affects genes, cell types, and brain regions. He presented TBISeq at the NIH Campus for the International Initiative for Traumatic Brain Injury Research, as well as at Harvard College (NCR Conference), and at the Canadian Association of Neuroscience meeting in Vancouver. His research has earned over $15,000 in awards and will soon be featured in a first-author publication.

2024 Co-Winner: Julia Groening

Julia is in her final year of the undergraduate neuroscience program and has plans to pursue neuroscience research in graduate school in the upcoming years. She has had a keen interest in research throughout her undergraduate degree, with her varying experiences in the last three years shaping the direction of her future career and research aspirations. She recently presented some of her findings on Alzheimer’s disease from the MacVicar Lab at NURC in March 2024. Her primary focus is elucidating mechanisms of cell death in response to oxidative stress in Alzheimer’s disease, and hopes to continue studying this disease in her graduate studies.