Inaugural neuroscience fellows ’looking to make a difference’
(L-R) Uma Venkatasubramanian, Roberto Budzinski and Kathleen Lyons are three inaugural research fellows of the Western Institute of Neuroscience. (submitted photo) - It is not a large a leap, Uma Venkatasubramanian insists, between her degree in electrical engineering and her PhD in neuroscience. "Both are about signal processing. Everything in electronics is about signals and so are the workings of the brain." Venkatasubramanian is using electroencephalography (EEGs) to research specifically what is happening in a baby's brain during delirium: what signals are firing or failing to fire, and what connections are processing differently from the norm when disease or serious illness makes them delirious. "I'm always interested in learning new things and always looking to make a difference," she said. But there's deeper reason this work holds meaning: her daughter spent three days in neonatal intensive care when she was born two years ago, and Venkatasubramanian and her husband, also a neuroscientist, know the anxiety parents feel when their children are ill. And while their daughter is bright, happy and healthy today, "This became the strongest reason and motivation for my husband and me to want to help children." Venkatasubramanian is one of three newly named inaugural research fellows of the Western Institute for Neuroscience.
