C.W. Post Offers Free Workshops to Prepare High School Students for ‘Brain Bee’ Competition
Campus to Host Long Island Regional Brain Bee Jan. 28

Each year, Long Island high school students are among the top finishers in the International Brain Bee, a quiz-show style neuroscience knowledge competition held in Baltimore, Maryland. First-place finishers have been offered scholarships, internships and jobs in the field of neuroscience.

Free workshops to prepare for the 2006 Long Island regional Brain Bee will be offered on three consecutive Saturday mornings in January at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University. The winner of the Long Island regional Brain Bee wins an all-expense-paid trip to Baltimore for the international competition.

The workshops will be held on Jan. 7, 14 and 21 from 9 a.m. to noon in Room 125 of Humanities Hall at C.W. Post. The workshops are conducted by C.W. Post professors John Neill, Ph.D., and Grace Rossi, Ph.D., both widely published neuroscientists.

The Long Island regional Brain Bee will be held Saturday, Jan. 28 at 9 a.m. in Hillwood Commons at C.W. Post.

Past workshop participants include Bhakti Nagalla of Farmington, Conn., winner of the 2004 International Brain Bee, and Saroj Kunnakkat of Lynbrook, N.Y., the 2003 international champion. The 2002 Long Island Brain Bee winner, Vikas Gupta of Comsewogue High School in Port Jefferson Station, N.Y., finished second in the international contest. Last year, Suraj Rambhia of Jericho High School won 8th place.

The International Brain Bee is part of Brain Awareness Week. Spearheaded by the Dana Alliance, a private philanthropic foundation, and the Society for Neuroscience, its goal is to motivate youth to learn about the brain and pursue careers in biomedical brain research in the war against mental retardation, cerebral palsy, spinal-cord injury and other brain disorders. 

For more information on the workshops and to sign up for the Long Island Brain Bee, contact Dr. Neill at John.Neill@liu.edu, Grace.Rossi@liu.edu, or Colette Weckbecker at 516-299-2377, or visit www.liu.edu/brainbee.