Each year, the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO) partners with the Society of Neuroscientists of Africa (SONA) to host summer neuroscience schools in Africa for graduate students and junior faculty from across the continent. Instructors from Africa and elsewhere collaborate to lead lectures, labs, and one-on-one student coaching.
Peter Kalivas, neuroscience professor and chair at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), has been an instructor twice and plans to continue in the years to come. Here, he shares his experience from July 2018 in Nairobi, Kenya and his hopes for the global scientific community.
Can you give a snapshot of the goal and structure of the summer school?
The broad goal of the IBRO-Africa summer schools is to promote neuroscience research and education in Africa. This year’s school in Nairobi, Kenya centered around addiction. Attendees were PhD students from across Sub-Saharan Africa, including Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda, and faculty were from Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, and the United States.
Faculty from Africa and North America partnered to lead the course, breaking up lectures by topic area. So, someone from North America gave a talk about addiction through the lens of epidemiology. Then, a faculty member from Africa gave a talk focused on addiction issues specific for Africa. From there, all the instructors go into the neurobiology of addiction.
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