2025 Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Science Day --
Monday, October 6, 2025

2025 Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Science Day was held Monday, October 6, at Vanderbilt University Student Life Center. Science Day festivities included lunch, two poster sessions, a keynote, and a Data Blitz, closing with a wine/cheese reception. Click here to view photos taken during 2025 Science Day. Read the VKC News article here.

Please extend congratulations to 2025's VKC Science Day honorable mentions and awards recipients!

2025 Science Day Poster Competition: Presenters had the option to participate in a Science Day Competition, which awarded cash prizes to one graduate and postdoctoral presenter from each of the three themes (Systems Neuroscience; Cellular & Molecular Neuroscience; and Clinical, Behavioral, Education, and Intervention Research), as well as one overall undergraduate presenter. In addition to the $250 VKC travel award they're eligible to receive by presenting at Science Day, prize winners can choose between a $250 cash prize or an additional $250 Warren Lambert Travel Award to present their research at a scientic meeting during the next year.

Congratulations to this year's winners of the Warren Lambert Memorial Awards:

Undergraduate Overall:

• Jillian Zhu: “Acute changes in tau pathology and microglia morphology due to sepsis in the P301S Alzheimer's mouse model” (PI: Fiona Harrison)

Clinical, Behavioral, Education, and Intervention Research:

• Graduate: Ellen Windham: “Predicting postpartum psychopathology using community and individual-level stress indicators” (PI: Autumn Kujawa)

Systems Neuroscience:

• Graduate: Adam Tiesman (Graduate): “Behavioral evidence for visually biased audiovisual motion integration in humans” (PI: Mark Wallace)
• Postdoc:Noah Fram (Postdoc): “Rhythm as a prism into predictive coding in autism” (PI: Miriam Lense)

Cellular/Molecular Neuroscience:

• Graduate: Genevieve Hunn (Graduate): Regulation of the GRM7 3'UTR by microRNAs that are dysregulated in Rett syndrome” (PI: Colleen Niswender)
• Postdoc: Rachel Spicer (Postdoc): “Peripheral inflammation Alters Microglial Response to Amyloid Pathology and Increases Amyloid Protein in the APP/PSEN1 model of Alzheimer's Disease” (PI: Fiona Harrison)

2025 Science Day Research Award Winners: Granted on the work submitted during this year’s Call for Abstracts. The award categories, winners, and their prizes, are as follows:

• Best Research Featuring Unrepresented or Underrepresented Populations:
  • Yinru Long: “Effects of Daily Friend or Parent Support on Active Suicidal Ideation of Adolescents After a Psychiatric Hospitalization: The Moderating Role of Sexual and Gender Minority (SGM) Status” (PI: Autumn Kajawa)
• Best Research Employing Community Engagement/Voices of Persons with Lived Experiences
  • Taydi Ray: “How Do Latina Caregivers' Cultural Values Influence Their Beliefs About Early Language Development and Book Sharing? A Qualitative Investigation” (PI: Ann Kaiser)
• Best Demonstration of Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration:
  • Alireza Karimi: “Integration of Audiovisual Motion in Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortical Neurons” (PIs: Ram Ramachandran & Christos Constantinidis)

Each year, one graduate student and one postdoc from each of the three Science Day themes are chosen by their respective Science Day theme chairs in recognition of their exemplary abstract submittals and will be given 8-9 minutes to discuss their research findings with the audience on Oct. 6. Please extend congratulations to 2025's VKC Science Day Data Blitz presenters!

• Yinru Long, Clinical/Behavioral/Educational Intervention (PI: Autumn Kujawa): “Effects of Daily Friend or Parent Support on Active Suicidal Ideation of Adolescents After a Psychiatric Hospitalization: The Moderating Role of Sexual and Gender Minority (SGM) Status”
• Rachel Marlowe, Systems Neuroscience (PI: Autumn Kujawa): “Neural Responses to Interpersonal Images as Moderators of Associations between Chronic Social Stress and Symptoms of Depression and Social Anxiety in Adolescents”
• Jacob Feldman, Systems Neuroscience (PI: Tiffany Woynaroski): “Audiovisual Multisensory Integration in Autistic and Non-Autistic Youth: Links with Language and Core Autistic Features”
• Kevin Zhang, Cellular & Molecular Neuroscience (PIs: Ege Kavalali and Lisa Monteggia): “Targeting Synaptic Timing: A New Therapeutic Strategy for Disorders of Circuit Dysfunction”
• Hrishita Das, Cellular & Molecular Neuroscience (PI: Bruce Carter): “A role for the p75NTR - hB7.1 interaction in Alzheimer's disease”

VKC Science Day: A Tradition With Innovation

The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center supports basic/molecular, applied, and clinical research and training. The VKC has more than 300 faculty researchers, staff, and affiliate members working together across disciplines to create basic and clinical scientific discoveries, to translate research into best practices, and to train the next generation of researchers and practitioners. The ultimate goal is to make positive differences in the lives of individuals with developmental disabilities and their families.

• Promote “centeredness” by providing a scientific forum.
• Provide an opportunity to present significant research findings.
• Encourage research collaboration.

Poster Sessions:
Posters are presented by undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, research faculty, and research staff conducting research in labs or research programs of VKC members. Poster submittals are divided among three Science Day research themes (*NEW* definitions of each at the bottom of this page):

• Cellular & Molecular Neuroscience
• Clinical, Behavioral, Educational, & Intervention Research
• Systems Neuroscience

Following Science Day, all poster presenters (first authors) are eligible to submit a request for VKC travel award funding ($250 maximum) to present at a scientific or professional conference before the next Science Day (date TBD). Posters presented at other scientific or professional meetings within the last year are eligible for submission. More information on travel award eligibility may be found here.

Data Blitz Consideration:
Presenters who enter the Science Day Poster Competition also submit their abstract for consideration for the Science Day Data Blitz. Following the submission deadline, Science Day Program Committee members review the submitted abstracts in each theme and, based on ABSTRACT QUALITY, select in advance a small number of presenters to share brief research presentations with the Science Day audience, with time for Q&A.

Science Day Poster Competition:
Presenters who opt into in the Poster Competition will have two faculty judges visit their poster during their assigned poster session to review the poster and ask questions. Judges will issue scores based on PRESENTATION QUALITY and COMPREHENSION OF THE RESEARCH. Scores will be tabulated at the end of the second poster session.

Up to seven winners will be chosen: one graduate and postdoctoral presenter from each of the three themes (Systems Neuroscience; Cellular & Molecular Neuroscience; and Clinical, Behavioral, Educational, & Intervention Research), as well as one overall undergraduate presenter. The winners will each receive a $250 Warren Lambert Award, in the form of a cash prize or supplemental travel funds to present their research at a scientific meeting during the year.

Science Day Themes and Their Definitions:
Science Day posters are divided into three themes. Please read the definitions of each theme below to determine the category that best fits your poster research:

• Cellular & Molecular Neuroscience: Posters within this theme feature studies of model organisms, tissues, cells, molecules, or organelles using molecular biology, flow cytometry, imaging cytometry, and/or pharmacological or genetic tools.
• Clinical, Behavioral, Educational, & Intervention Research: Posters within this theme feature research involving human participants, some of which may be designed to evaluate the effects of an educational or behavioral intervention. The effect of the intervention being evaluated should be a health-related, biomedical, educational, or behavioral outcome. This can include knowledge and quality of life outcomes. The intervention in this case can be defined as a manipulation of the participant's environment for the purpose of modifying one or more of these outcomes. Examples can include delivery systems, medications, devices/instruments, procedures/techniques, therapeutic interventions, treatment/prevention/diagnostic strategies, or implementation strategies of any of the above.
• Systems Neuroscience: Posters within this theme feature research on the nervous system at the level of circuits or entire networks, with the goal of understanding neural mechanisms supporting sensory and motor function, multisensory interactions, learning and memory, attention, emotion, and decision-making. Many studies in this category are translational, involving both neurotypical participants and individuals with disabilities (congenital or acquired), as well as animal models. Research methods in this category tend to include functional imaging techniques such as (f)MRI, EEG/ERP, fNIRS, PET, etc.