Hello Neuonliners! I am honored by the opportunity to contribute to this wonderful community and am looking forward to serving as a community leader for this year. I’m Jaya Viswanathan, a neuroscientist, engineer, author, and artist born and raised in India. I earned a Master’s in neuroscience and a Doctorate in cognitive neuroscience before working as a post-doctoral fellow. I am currently a KGS Contractor Program Analyst in the Division of Neuroscience at the National Institute on Aging where I support program development to achieve the research goals of the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. This includes efforts to improve the rigor and reproducibility in published research through the Alzheimer’s disease Preclinical Efficacy Database (AlzPED), as well as using open science and big data approaches to address the big neuroscience questions.
Apart from my scientific pursuits, or rather, in parallel to them, I have been passionate about communicating science and making scientific concepts more accessible to a lay audience. In service to that goal, I authored and illustrated an award-winning neuroscience and neuroart book for children, Baby Senses: A Sensory Neuroscience Primer for All Ages (https://babysensesbook.com/). I also wrote a neuronline article about neuroscience education (https://neuronline.sfn.org/outreach/inspiring-young-scientists-through-art-science-and-poetry), and have been a guest on numerous educational video /audio podcast episodes in the service of the same goal (https://babysensesbook.com/brains-art-and-more/).
As a Neuronline community leader I hope to contribute to generating resources for neuroscience communication, supporting career development for diverse neuroscientists, developing resources for conducting rigorous and reproducible science, and enhancing the dialogue between neuroscience and society on various issues.