The Alba Diversity Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Season 2 of the ALBA Diversity Podcast is coming in 2025!

The Diversity Podcast interviews neuroscientists from underrepresented groups to better understand their hurdles and victories, and what keeps them going in today’s brain research community. In season 2, we focus on the transition from postdoc to PI, highlighting the unique challenges faced by postdocs and early-career PIs worldwide. By sharing their experiences and strategies for overcoming obstacles, the podcast aims to provide valuable insights for scientists navigating this critical career stage.

Listen to season 2’s trailer to learn more!

The ALBA-IBRO Diversity Podcast season 2 is organized with the support of the International Brain Research Organization, a founding partner of the ALBA Network.

The ALBA-IBRO Podcast Miniseries is a collection of three episodes designed to provide a broader audience with exclusive insights into the topics covered at ALBA-IBRO diversity and inclusion events held during three international conferences in 2023.

For our third and final episode, we're coming to you from the 2023 Society for Neuroscience Meeting held in Washington, D.C., where ALBA and IBRO hosted an evening social about deconstructing colonial and historical biases in neuroscience. Dr Bashir is speaking with two researchers today about their insights on how historical biases have influenced our understanding of the brain and affect diversity and inclusion in research and academia today. The researchers are Dr Tiffany Younger from Columbia University, and Dr Melissa Perreault from the University of Guelph.

Dr. Noèlia Fernández Castillo was awarded her PhD in Genetics from the University of Barcelona in 2011. She is currently a researcher at the Centro de Investigaciones Biomédicas en Red de Enfermedades Raras(CIBERER) and an Associate Professor of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics at the University of Barcelona.

The main focus of her research is on the genetic basis of neuropsychiatric disorders, such as Addiction, Autism, ADHD and aggressive behavior, using different methodological approaches that include genomics, transcriptomics, methylomics, association studies, animal and cellular models and functional studies. 

As a person with rheumatoid arthritis, Dr. Fernandez gives us a glimpse of how constant pain and reduced mobility have changed her life and scientific career.

Links:

1. Dr. Fernández Castillo’s ORCiD page
2. Federacion de Jovenes Investigadores (FJI-Precarios)

Audio-transcription of the episode

Interviewed and edited by Dr. Shruti Muralidhar, Audio content editing by Abhishek Chari, Music from Lee Rosevere. Other projects by Shruti Muralidhar: BiasWatchIndia and IndSciComm.

Dr. Nancy Padilla-Coreano is a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Science with Prof. Kay Tye. She did her graduate thesis work at Columbia University in the laboratory of Prof. Joshua Gordon on functional connectivity in hippocampal-prefrontal pathway during anxiety behavior and collaborations on the role of interneurons in the prefrontal cortex during cognition. She talks to us about her experiences as an immigrant from Puerto Rico navigating American STEM academia. 

Along with being a recipient of many awards and fellowships, she was recently nominated as a L’Oreal USA Women in Science Fellow. She is also the co-founder and director for Stories of Women in Neuroscience (WiN) – a project that highlights the stories of female neuroscientists at different career stages and from diverse backgrounds and subfields.

Links:

1. https://twitter.com/DrNancyPadilla
2. https://www.storiesofwin.org/
3. L’Oreal Women in Science Fellows for 2020

Audio-transcription of the episode

Interviewed and edited by Dr. Shruti Muralidhar, Audio content editing by Abhishek Chari, Music from Lee Rosevere. Other projects by Shruti Muralidhar: BiasWatchIndia and IndSciComm.

Prof Huda Yahya Zoghbi is a Professor of Pediatrics, Neurology, Neuroscience, and Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine, an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Director of the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital.

Her work has led to the discovery of the genetic cause of Rett syndrome and provided insight into the function of the gene in various neurons. Along with training over 90 scientists and physician-scientists who have gone on to successful careers, she is the recipient of many prizes including the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for 2017 and the Brain prize in 2020.

In this episode, she shares her wisdom about a life and career in science and how structures and institutions can come together to include members from underserved and underrepresented minorities. 

Links:

1. Brain prize profile
2. Breakthrough prize profile

Audio-transcription of the episode

Interviewed and edited by Dr. Shruti Muralidhar, Audio content editing by Abhishek Chari, Music from Lee Rosevere. Other projects by Shruti Muralidhar: BiasWatchIndia and IndSciComm.

Basma Radwan is a postdoctoral research associate in the Biology department at New York University, Abu Dhabi. She talks to us about her experience as a woman scientist and single mother. She credits her time in NYU, New York as formative for her personal and scientific growth. As an Egyptian woman, she shines a light on the kind of cultural messaging that young Egyptian girls receive while growing up.

Basma Radwan received her B.S. degree in neural science from New York University, New York, the M.S. in biomedical engineering from Boston University, and Ph.D. in Neural science from New York University, New York, in 2015. Her current research revolves around investigating the interplay between sleep and depression and how sleep abnormalities could lead to stress-prone individuals. She was the recipient of the L’Oreal-UNESCO-For Women in Science (Middle East) in 2018 for her research in the field of neuroscience.

Audio-transcription of the episode

More information about Basma:

• Chaudhury Laboratory
• L’Oreal-UNESCO-For Women in Science (Middle East) fellowship 2018
• Mona Lisa smile – a fictional account of women breaking professional and cultural barriers in 1950s America

Interviewed and edited by Dr. Shruti Muralidhar, Audio content editing by Abhishek Chari, Music from Lee Rosevere. Other projects by Shruti Muralidhar: BiasWatchIndia and IndSciComm.

Brought to you by The ALBA Network

José Zepeda is a poet-scientist hybrid and originates from San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora in México. He talks about his experiences as a first generation immigrant making his way in academia. As a DREAMer, he recounts incidents of his life when he first recognized racism and racist attitudes. During the conversation, he shares poignant insights on how academic institutions need to change their power structures to better reflect the diversity of today’s society.

During the day, he is interested in how neural circuits within the brain can rewire themselves within the context of experience, both during regular development and pathologically. Whenever he gets a break from the lab, José is intent on crafting prose and poetry centered around the contemporary Xicano experience. José currently resides in Nashville, TN where he is pursuing a PhD in neuropharmacology at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

More information about José - www.jczepeda.com More information about racism in higher education:

• The proportion of Black faculty in higher educations (2018) - https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=61
• White Privilege in the workplace - The Bias of ‘Professionalism’ Standards

Audio-transcription of the episode

Interviewed and edited by Dr. Shruti Muralidhar, Audio content editing by Abhishek Chari, Music from Lee Rosevere. Other projects by Shruti Muralidhar: BiasWatchIndia and IndSciComm.

Brought to you by The ALBA Network

Dr. Ibukun Akinrinade just concluded her PhD from Prof. Rui Oliviera at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia, trying to understand the role of oxytocin in social behaviour in Zebrafish. She talks to us about being an African woman neuroscientist and a mother. Ibukun credits her mother-in-law as her personal mentor, who constantly champions her work and efforts to become a scientist. She also tells us about TReND in Africa, a charity organization that gave her the exposure and skills she needed to become the neuroscientist she is today.

Originally from Nigeria, She has a background in Anatomy from the University of Ilorin, following which she did a one-year training at the University of Bordeaux in France where she studied the role of stress systems in addiction focusing on corticotropin receptors, opiate reward and social behaviour in mice.

More information about Ibukun:

• Molecular biology initiative Ibukun helped organize under TReND in Africa

Audio transcription of the episode

Interviewed and edited by Dr. Shruti Muralidhar, Audio content editing by Abhishek Chari, Music from Lee Rosevere. Other projects by Shruti Muralidhar: BiasWatchIndia and IndSciComm.

Brought to you by The ALBA Network

The ALBA-IBRO Podcast Miniseries is a collection of three episodes designed to provide a broader audience with exclusive insights into the topics covered at ALBA-IBRO diversity and inclusion events held during three international conferences in 2023.

For the second episode, we are at the IBRO World Congress 2023 on 9-13 September in Granada, Spain. The ALBA Network and the IBRO Early Career Committee partnered to facilitate a wide-ranging discussion of what neuroscientists can do as a community to build research capacity in the Global South, and how this increase in local capacities for research and innovation can, in the broader picture, bring benefits to us all. 

Dr Asma Bashir is speaking with the chairs and panelists of this event: Dr Miguel Maravall (University of Sussex, UK), Dr Isabel del Pino (Instituto de Neurociencias CSIC-UMH, Spain), Dr Mahmoud Bukar Maina (University of Sussex, UK / Yobe State University, Nigeria), Dr Pike-See Cheah (Universiti Putri Malaysia, Malaysia), Dr Jo Havemann (CEO of Access 2 Perspectives, Germany) and Dr Francisco Parada (Universidad Diego Portales, Chile). They share initiatives and success stories that allowed for capacity building in scientific research in diverse settings across the globe.

More information on this miniseries here: https://www.alba.network/alba-ibro-podcast-miniseries

This miniseries is organised with the support of the International Brain Research Organization, a founding partner of the ALBA Network.

The ALBA-IBRO Podcast Miniseries is a collection of three episodes designed to provide a broader audience with exclusive insights into the topics covered at ALBA-IBRO diversity and inclusion events held during three international conferences in 2023.

For the first episode, we are at the 16th International Conference of the Society of Neuroscientists of Africa (SONA) held in Johannesburg, South Africa (11-14 July 2023), where ALBA and IBRO organised a Mentoring circle workshop on Leadership at every career stage, in collaboration with World Women in Neuroscience and SANS (Southern African Neuroscience Society)

Dr Asma Bashir is speaking with three researchers located on the African continent about the role of mentoring in career advancement and capacity development in Africa: Dr Sara Elfarrash (EG), Dr Royhaan Folarin (NG) and Dr Lihle Qulu (SA).

For the closing remarks, Dr Bashir is discussing with the ALBA Network Office: Mathilde Maughan (Project and Network Manager) and Dr Keerthana Iyer (Partnerships and Development Manager), on their views and experience with mentoring in the field of equity, diversity and inclusion in neuroscience.

More information on this miniseries here: https://www.alba.network/alba-ibro-podcast-miniseries

This miniseries is organised with the support of the International Brain Research Organization, a founding partner of the ALBA Network.