Research Opportunities
c-Fos RNA expression indicating active brain regions during a seizure in a mouse model of viral-induced epilepsy. Image Courtesy of Alex Petrucci and the Wilcox Lab
- The Neuroscience program at the University of Utah is unique, in that it is an interdepartmental program that includes more than 80 program faculty across 26 different departments. Approximately 24 of those faculty are included as mentors in the IDEAS in Neuroscience Program. IDEAS students can choose to work with faculty that have expertise that includes everything from molecular and cellular neuroscience, to systems and cognitive neuroscience.
- IDEAS students spend their first three weeks completing 3 one-week rotations in different labs they are interested in joining. At the end of the third rotation, they will join a lab.
- Students initially work with graduate students, post docs, or other mentors in the chosen lab, and then will eventually receive their own research projects.
- IDEAS students complete an Electrical Physiology bootcamp that coincides with their first semester on campus and attend the Snowbird Neuroscience Symposium in the fall. There are annual opportunities to attend a research conference, such as Society for Neuroscience, ABRCMS, or something more specific to their research, such as ARVO, as well as present research at monthly IDEAS meetings or a new, annual University of Utah Post-Bacc Conference in the spring.