Fozdar Symposium
Top row (left to right): Rachel Johnston, Sydney Holton, Campbell Coleman, Christopher Turner, Gianna Latorre, John Lee. Bottom row (left to right): Shrinidhi Kittur, Charlotte Burgess, Pritika Modhukuru, Faye Berry, Kate Meyer.
Spring 2026 Fozdar Symposium
Save the Date: The spring 2026 Fozdar Symposium will be held on April 29th, Chemistry Building 217. More details will be posted as we get closer to the event.
Founded by a UVA Neuroscience Graduate
The Fozdar Symposium for Undergraduate Neuroscience Research was founded in 2012 by Preeya Fozdar, MD, a UVA Neuroscience major (Class of 2012). Now a primary care physician practicing in the South Hills of Pittsburgh and the founder of Twin Hills Primary Care, Dr. Fozdar established a community-centered practice after completing her medical training at UPMC and working at Johns Hopkins.
As an alumna of the UVA Neuroscience program, Dr. Fozdar envisioned a symposium that would give fourth-year Neuroscience majors the opportunity to present their research while celebrating the end of the spring semester and the collective hard work of students and faculty.
The Fozdar Neuroscience Symposium provides a unique opportunity for NESC majors to share their research with the broader neuroscience community. Presentations are evaluated on scientific merit and overall presentation quality, with select students receiving awards in recognition of their accomplishments.
Past Symposiums
Spring 2025 Fozdar Symposium
The Spring 2025 Fozdar Symposium was held on April 30th, in Chemistry Building 217 from 10:30am-4:30pm. The symposium started with talks from 3 PhD students: Heather Barber (Sarah Kucenas lab) Radial astroglia cooperate with microglia to clear neuronal cell bodies during zebrafish optic tectum development; Katherine Canada (Kevin Pelphrey lab) Functional Protein Clustering Predicts Differential Gene Expression in Autism; and Addison Webster (John Campbell lab) Unraveling the Neural Circuitry of Energy Balance with Molecular Connectomics
The symposium continued in the afternoon with 11 talks from Neuroscience Distinguished Majors (shown above). We had 9 volunteer judges from the Program in Fundamental Neuroscience, Biology Department, Psychology Department, UVA Brain Institute, and the Neuroscience Graduate Program. We are proud to announce this year's Fozdar Symposium award winners!
Congratulations to our 2025 Award Winners
1st Place: Sydney Holton
Characterizing the Morphology and Connectivity of Geniculate Relay Cell Dendrites and Synaptic Inputs in P14 Mice
2nd Place: Rachel Johnston
Development of a Tissue-Engineered Model of the Blood-Brain Barrier
3rd Place: Charlotte Burgess
Seeking Synthetic Lethal Treatment for Myc-driven Medulloblastoma
Symposium Schedule:
- 10:30am-12:00pm: We’ll start with three talks from some of our highly successful PhD students:
- Heather Barber: Sarah Kucenas lab: Radial astroglia cooperate with microglia to clear neuronal cell bodies during zebrafish optic tectum development.
- Katherine Canada: Kevin Pelphrey lab. Functional Protein Clustering Predicts Differential Gene Expression in Autism
- Addison Webster: John Campbell lab: Unraveling the Neural Circuitry of Energy Balance with Molecular Connectomics
- 12:00pm-1:00pm: Catered Lunch (RSVP is now closed)
- 1:00pm-4:00pm Fozdar Symposium Talks, presented by undergraduate NESC DMP students
- Gianna Latorre: Hungry & Stressed: Understanding Metabolic State Effects on Autonomic and Psychological Stress Responses in Humans
- Faye Berry: Characterizing the Mesencephalic Locomotor Region: A Neural Hub Coordinating Breathing With Locomotion
- Pritika Modhukuru: Cellular Garbage Pile-Up: Effects of Reduced Efferocytosis in Multiple Sclerosis
- Rachel Johnston: Development of a Tissue-Engineered Model of the Blood-Brain Barrier
- John Lee: Sarm1-Dependent Metabolic Reprogramming of Schwann Cells Following Nerve Injury
- Campbell Coleman: Estimated Axonal Latency Predicts Differences in N170 Latency in Autistic and Neurotypical Cohorts
- 2:30-2:45 - 15 min break
- Christopher Turner: Characterization of Cortico-Tectal Input Across Species: An Evolutionary Comparative Analysis
- Charlotte Burgess: Seeking Synthetic Lethal Treatment for Myc-driven Medulloblastoma
- Kate Meyer: Effect of Apoptotic Genes on Aberrant Glial Infiltration in Drosophila
- Shrinidhi Kittur: Vasoactive intestinal peptide-expressing interneurons are impaired in SCN8A epileptic encephalopathy
- Sydney Holton: Characterizing the Morphology and Connectivity of Geniculate Relay Cell Dendrites and Synaptic Inputs in P14 Mice
- ~4:15pm: Fozdar Symposium Award Presentations