About the Symposium & Award Ceremony

About the symposium

A major activity of the Gill Center is our annual neuroscience symposium organized around a specific theme. This symposium invites prominent neuroscientists to the IU Bloomington campus for lectures and meetings with trainees and faculty. Its highlight is the annual awarding of Distinguished and Transformative Gill Awards for Neuroscience. We also present awards for an outstanding thesis and image. The meeting concludes with a poster session and reception with the awardees, speakers, students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty. This symposium provides unprecedented access for trainees, faculty, and members of the neuroscience community to scientific luminaries which would be otherwise impossible.

Scientist and investigator awards

For more than 20 years, the Gill Center has awarded prominent scientists and investigators for their unique and significant contributions to neuroscience.

Gill Center Awards

Francisco Guimaraes, Ph.D.—The School of Medicine of Ribeirao Preto-University of Sao Paulo

Elizabeth A. Thiele, M.D., Ph.D.—Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard Medical School

Miriam Melis, Ph.D.—University of Cagliari (Italy)

Matthew N. Hill, Ph.D.—Hotchkiss Brain Institute at University of Calgary

Yasmin Hurd, Ph.D.—Addicition Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Deborah Clegg, Ph.D.—Drexel University Medical Center

Margaret M. McCarthy, Ph.D.—University of Maryland School of Medicine

Barry Dickson, Ph.D.—HHMI - Janelia Research Campus

Catherine Dulac, Ph.D.—Harvard University

Catherine S. Woolley, Ph.D.—Northwestern University

Viviana Gradinaru, Ph.D.—California Institute of Technology

Loren Looger, Ph.D.—HHMI - Janelia Research Campus

Ryohei Yasuda, Ph.D.—Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience

Anthony M. Zador, M.D., Ph.D.—Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Hongkui Zeng, Ph.D.—Allen Institute for Brain Science

Clifford J. Woolf, M.B., B.Ch., Ph.D.—Harvard Medical School

Diana Bautista, Ph.D.—University of California, Berkeley

Beth Stevens, Ph.D.—Harvard Medical School

George F. Koob, Ph.D.—National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

Garret D. Stuber, Ph.D.—University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Matthias H. Tschöp, M.D.—Technische Universität München

Scott Sternson, Ph.D.—HHMI - Janelia Farm Research Campus

Bruce L. McNaughton, Ph.D.—University of California, Irvine

Loren M. Frank, Ph.D.—University of California, San Francisco

Hugo Bellen, D.V.M., Ph.D.—Baylor College of Medicine

Marc G. Caron, Ph.D.—Duke University Medical Center

Leslie B. Vosshall, Ph.D.—The Rockefeller University Allan Zepeda

Mark Tessier-Lavigne, Ph.D.—Stanford University

Karl Deisseroth, M.D., Ph.D.—Stanford University

Daniel Johnston, Ph.D.—University of Texas, Austin

Linda Hsieh-Wilson, Ph.D.—California Institute of Technology, CALTECH

Robert Sapolsky, Ph.D.—Stanford University Stanford News Services

Karel Svoboda, Ph.D.—Stanford University

Benjamin F. Cravatt, Ph.D.—Scripps Research Institute

Carla J. Shatz, Ph.D.—Stanford University

Eric J. Nestler, Ph.D.—Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Jonathan V. Sweedler, Ph.D.—University of Illinois

Image awards

The Gill Center began giving awards to the most outstanding neuroscience image beginning in 2011. Faculty and students from IUB, IUPUI, University of Notre Dame and Purdue are invited to submit their best images and they are voted upon by members of the Gill Steering Committee.

Plant growth requires a network of microtubules shown here in red and yellow. Jessica Regan Lucas (IUB), 2011 Image Awardee

Transcriptional repression in the Drosophila Eye-Antennal Disc. Bonnie M. Weastner (IUB), 2012 Image Awardee

Sea of Glia. Astrocyte projections (green) appear to entwine immune cells (red) in this coronal section of vertebrate cerebellum. Nuclei (blue) of unstained cells are also present. Jim Wager-Miller (IUB), 2013 Image Awardee

Neuronest. Glial cell filaments are shown in red. MAP2 stains dendritic processes of neuron sitting on the glial layer. Nuclei of cells appear in light blue. Alex Straiker (IUB), 2014 Image Awardee

Pre-metamorphic horned beetle brain. Brain of the prepupal stage of a female of *Onthophagus sagittarius*, a species of horned beetle. Eduardo Zattara (IUB), 2015 Image Awardee

In the process of characterizing cannabinoid signaling in the cornea, we examined the eye lid as a potential source of endogenous cannabinoids. The eyelid proved to be strikingly complex. This image shows an auxiliary goand, eyelid muscles (left) and outer epithelium (right). Alex Straiker (IUB), 2016 Image Awardee

Neuron Salad Alex Straiker (IUB), 2017 Image Awardee

Neuregulin-3 (NRG3) is a signaling growth factor which has been associated with several neuropsychiatric disorders, including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Interestingly, the expression of NRG3 in the central nervous system continues to be ill characterized. This image delves into the cellular expression of NRG3 in primary cortical cultures grown for 8 days in vitro. Through immunocytochemistry, we stained cultures for NRG3 (in green) and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP, in purple) to label astrocytes. Our findings show that NRG3 is not prominently expressed in astrocytes and NRG3 expression localizes to the perinuclear region of these cells (colocalization in yellow). Afrida Rahman (IUB), 2018 Image Awardee

A subset of glia in the *Drosophila* larval brain optic lobes. Depth-coded projection suggests that these glia are near the surface. Melanie Chin (IUB), 2018 Image Awardee

This was a test image for various markers of the lacrimal gland to set the stage for a study of cannabinoid protein expression in lacrimal gland. Cannabis users frequently report dry eye and regulation of tear secretion from lacrimal gland is a likely site of action for cannabinoids. Amanda Thayer (IUB), 2019 Image Awardee

Retinal ganglion cells(RGCs-red) show expedited morphological and functional maturation when co-cultured with astrocytes(green) mimicking in vivo conditions. Sailee Lavekar (IUPUI), 2020 Image Awardee

Confocal image of biocytin labeled cerebellar Purkinje cells visualized by streptavidin 488 fluorescent dye (red) together with cell nuclei marker DAPI (faint-orange) and glial cell marker GFAP (blue). Benjamin Barti (IUB), 2021 Image Awardee

The image shows the high-resolution tract density imaging at 10 µm isotropic resolution of a mouse brain. The colors stand for the different axon fiber directions. The image is derived from 3D high-resolution diffusion magnetic resonance imaging. Nian Wang (IUSM), 2022 Image Awardee

Graduate awards

Also beginning in 2011, The Gill Center began recognizing an outstanding graduate student in the Life Sciences. This annual award is open to students from IUB, IUPUI, University of Notre Dame and Purdue.

Joel Matthew Brittain, 2011 Graduate Awardee

Kathryn D. Fisher, 2012 Graduate Awardee, with Dr. Cary Lai

Vijay K. Ramanan, 2013 Graduate Awardee, with Linda and Jack Gill and Dr. Cary Lai

Karl R. Koehler & Erkin Kuru, 2014 Graduate Awardees, with Dr. Cary Lai

Liting Deng, 2015 Graduate Awardee, with Dr. Andrea Hohmann and Dr. Cary Lai

Reesha R. Patel, 2016 Graduate Awardee, with Dr. Dan Tracey

Emma Leishmann and Ekaterina O. Morozova, 2017 Graduate Awardees, with Dr. Cary Lai

Dr. Dan Tracey with Dr. Yves Brun, who accepted the award on behalf of 2018 Gill Graduate Student Awardee Courtney K. Ellison. photo by Ann Schertz

Dr. Dan Tracey presenting the 2018 Gill Graduate Student Honorable Mention award to Dr. Richard Slivicki. Pictured with Dr. Andrea Hohmann, who was Dr. Slivicki's advisor. photo by Ann Schertz

Danielle Panoz-Brown is presented the 2019 Gill Graduate Award by Dr. and Mrs. Jack Gill, her Advisor, Dr. Jon Crystal, and Gill Center Director, Dr. Hui-Chen Lu. photo by Miximillian Tortoriello

Ninghai Gan, Ph.D.—2020 Gill Graduate Awardee at the first ever Virtual Symposium and Awards Ceremony

Ian Guldner, Ph.D.—2021 Gill Graduate Awardee

Andy P Tsai, Ph.D. - 2022 Gill Graduate Awardee

No Gill Symposium in 2023!

The Gill Symposium will Return in 2024!

Following a great 2022 Gill Symposium on Cannabis, the Gill Center is holding an invitation-only event for Gill researchers and affiliates, and to celebrate the research within the Gill Center and focus on the work of 20-year Gill Chair Richard DiMarchi.

Gill Image Award

This popular symposium award will return to our broader audience in 2024. The award is open to faculty and students and recognizes an outstanding neuroscience image. The winner receives a $100 prize.

Gill Graduate Student Award

This sought-after symposium award will return in 2024. The award is open to graduate students within 12 months (before or after) at IUB, Purdue, University of Notre Dame, and IUPUI in Neuroscience. The winner receives a $500 prize.

Can't wait until 2024 to visit?

We know you will miss our symposium, but there are opportunities to visit! Please contact one of our Gill Chairs to discuss visiting and speaking at one of our Friday speaker seminars, interacting with our talented students, and sharing ideas with our scientists.