Neuroscience fellowship offers rich opportunities

Adam Stone, a Ph.D. in Educational Neuroscience (PEN) student, was awarded a two-year fellowship in the prestigious Society for Neuroscience Scholars Program (NSP) in July 2015.

The program is designed to enhance career development and professional networking opportunities for underrepresented and diverse graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in the neuroscience field.  

It is extremely competitive, drawing fellows from neuroscience laboratories at schools such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford. Stone was one of 15 chosen from a field of hundreds, making his selection a momentous occasion for Gallaudet.  

His selection demonstrates Gallaudet’s commitment to Tier-1 research and the training of future scientists by bringing to campus world-renowned neuroscience scholar, Dr. Laura-Ann Petitto, who established BL2 and founded the pioneering PEN program. Petitto’s sponsorship of Stone’s application, together with his training and research work with her in BL2, provided him with a launching pad from which he could obtain the fellowship.  

“The training of the next generation of neuroscientists has been my passion since building my lab here at Gallaudet,” Petitto said. “Adam Stone’s success in winning this prestigious fellowship has been thrilling for me and is such a highly deserved honor for Adam!”  

As a fellow, Stone will gain special access to neuroscience research, networking, an online discussion community, and career development webinars and chats. He also will benefit from complimentary travel to and registration at SfN events, the opportunity to present at a SfN diversity poster session, and funding to enhance training and attend more conferences.  

Stone’s assigned SFN senior mentor is Dr. Melissa Harrington, director of the Delaware Center for Neuroscience Research. He had the opportunity to meet Dr. Harrington during SfN 2015 in Chicago in late October, where he also presented new research conducted with Petitto and her team on how the age of sign language acquisition interacts with neural activity for English reading in deaf adults with cochlear implants (authored by Petitto, Stone, Diana Andriola, Ph.D. candidate, PEN, and Dr. Clifton Langdon, assistant professor, PEN).  

“Quite a few people noticed that I was representing Gallaudet’s new Ph.D. in Educational Neuroscience program and were excited to see that there is a field that focuses on fusing cognitive neuroscience research with meaningful translation to address current issues in education,” Stone said. “This significantly raises Gallaudet’s profile in the neuroscience community.”