Congratulations to Ph.D. student Jingwen Hu for receiving a Fall 2021 Conference Travel grant!

This past fall, Jingwen Hu, a Ph.D. student in the Huang lab, received a grant to support her presentation at the Society of Neuroscience’s (SfN) 2021 annual meeting. Alongside Dr. Jeffrey Huang, Jingwen studies the neurodegenerative disease, multiple sclerosis (MS), in which patients experience abnormal immune responses in their central nervous system. She works to discover pathways that modulate the immune system and promote the recovery of body functions using animal models of MS. Although Jingwen has traveled to the SfN’s conference before, she has never presented, and has always dreamed of being invited to present her work at one of the largest global neuroscience conferences.

After three years of work on her research project, Jingwen finally had enough data to present at the 2020 conference, but it was canceled due to COVID. For this reason, she was even more excited to present at the meeting this fall. Despite its virtual status, the conference still had high registration fees and abstract fees. To help cover these expenses, Jingwen followed the advice of Dr. Ronda Rolfes and applied for the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences’ Conference Travel Grant (new window) . Working with Katie Li from GSAS, she attended workshops and completed the grant application process, successfully receiving an award to fund her conference travel! 
At the SfN’s meeting, Jingwen listened to several lectures from other scientists in her field and presented her work on MS. She gained a deeper understanding of neuroscience and was given great suggestions from experts about her thesis research, allowing her to refine her plans and network in the field of neurodegenerative disease research! Jingwen “truly appreciate[s] the experience of receiving this award and going to the conference” and hopes that more students will consider applying for the grant to support their graduate training. 

Read more about Jingwen’s work with the Huang Lab here: https://www.huang-lab.com/ (new window)