CONFERENCE PROGRAM FOR YOUNG MINORITY SCIENTISTS

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The Society for Neuroscience has established a fellowship program to assist young minority students and neuroscientists to attend annual meetings of the society. This program is intended to attract graduate students, and post-docs from traditionally underrepresented minority groups to the field of Neuroscience and to expand their opportunities within the field. The field of Neuroscience is one of the more recent specialty areas in biomedical research and teaching. In 1969, the Society for Neuroscience was founded to co-ordinate several activities that would serve to promote the field. Since then, the Society has grown to reach a membership of 9,500 from one of 500 at its inception. Members come from numerous disciplines that include biochemistry, neurology, physiology, anatomy, pathology, psychology and psychiatry, engineering and other related fields. The integrated study of the nervous system has evolved into one of the most challenging areas of theoretical and experimental biology medicine and engineering. Projections for the future of the field are bright and continued growth is expected. In the face of such bright prospects, there is, however, the depressing condition of a gross under representation of ethnic minorities in the neurosciences. This condition, in fact, exists in all areas of science and is not endemic to the neurosciences. Many members of minority groups study the sciences at small colleges or universities which specialize in programs geared towards the needs of ethnic minorities in the U.S. Few, if any, of these institutions have neuroscience programs. The society for Neurosciences therefore seeks to rectify this problem and an attempt is made to increase the number of minorities in active research and teaching in the neurosciences. Personal interaction with highly competent established scientists is a major factor in successful career development of young scientists. The proposed program of Travel Fellowship would expose selected minority students to recent developments in Neurosciences and stimulate personal interaction with a wide cross section of neuroscientists. This is thus, a "mainstreaming" approach designed to facilitate both informal interaction and access to science institutions.