Careers in neuroscience
Approximately 100 attendees joined us for this evening event, which featured a panel discussion and personal career journeys shared by five expert speakers. Held at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre in London, the event offered a relaxed setting where guests could engage directly with the panellists, ask questions, and network informally.
Panellists:
Dr Rebecca McKelvey
Education Partnership Lead at Google DeepMind, founder of In2Science
Rebecca holds a PhD in neuroscience, was a science teacher for four years through the TeachFirst program and founded and grew the social mobility charity In2scienceUK where she stayed for 10 years. Rebecca is now working at Google DeepMind to leverage their technology and the passion of employees to build AI education knowledge and skills that can drive innovation and solutions important to local communities.
Dr Ruth Weir
Head of Entrepreneurship, UCL
After her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry, Ruth pursued a PhD in Neuroscience at UCL. She then worked as a post-doc at the University of California, Davis, switching from neurobehavioural animal models of ADHD to human neuropathology of autism. She currently works in Enterprise Education and is the Head of Entrepreneurship at UCL.
Dr Keri Tochiki
Accenture
Keri completed her undergraduate degree in the US, followed by a Masters and PhD in Neuroscience at UCL. She completed her PhD part-time while working full time as a Research Technician, after which she then joined Accenture’s Strategy & Consulting Practice in Health and Public Services.
Dr Sophie Morgan
Senior Science Editor in the Neuroscience team at Nature Communications
After obtaining her undergraduate in Neuroscience at UCL, Sophie received a PhD from the University of Cambridge where she studied α-synuclein aggregation and propagation. At the Oxford Drug Discovery Institute, her postdoctoral work investigated novel drug targets for Parkinson’s disease. Sophie handles submissions on neurodegeneration and neurological diseases and is based in the London office. Sophie is also an Advisory Editor for npj Parkinson’s disease.
Dr Sandrine Géranton
Associate Professor, Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, University College London
Sandrine is an Associate Professor in molecular neuroscience in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology. Sandrine studied organic chemistry and biochemistry at the "Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Montpellier" in France. After an MSc in biotechnology at the University of the West of England, she joined University College London where she carried out a PhD in the then Department of Pharmacology. She went on learning about pain mechanisms as a post-doctoral researcher with the London Pain Consortium in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at UCL, where she is now Associate Professor.
Programme:
5.30 - 6.00pm - Registration
6.00 - 6.10pm - Welcome and introduction
6:10 - 6:50pm Panellist career stories
6:50 - 7:30pm - Panel discussion
7.30-8.00pm - Networking and refreshments
The evening concluded with the a networking and drinks reception and the BNA are grateful to the SWC for hosting this event.