Competitions

In April of 2024, 16 undergraduate Loyola University Chicago students met for a one-day intensive neuroscience and entrepreneurship competition at Loyola’s Lakeshore Campus. The event was sponsored by the Center for Healthcare Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Loyola's Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health and the Quinlin School of Business. Teams were given a crash course in entrepreneurship. They then got into groups to brainstorm business ideas related to neuroscience. In the afternoon, the groups pitched their ideas to Loyola Professor April Lane Shuster and Professor Bill Rochlin.  

The first-place team’s concept was a venture called, “ReNewRx: Your Personalized Path to Recovery.” They envisioned a hybrid approach to treating addiction. 

The second-place team developed a business venture called, “SynapSense,” which would involve developing a new exposure therapy methodology to treat pediatric Sensory Processing Disorder symptoms. The program would use a combination of virtual reality (VR) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to relieve symptoms.  

All four teams received cash prizes. The competition will be held again in Fall of 2024. 

View more images from the competition

In conjunction with the Chicago chapter of the Society for Neuroscience, the Loyola Program for Neuroscience and Society ran a Neuro-Art competition for undergraduate and graduate students, and more advanced trainees in the Chicago area. The challenge was to create and submit neuroscience or neurotechnology-inspired artwork that conveys the beauty of the discovery and its societal impact. The winners received cash prizes. 

 The winners were: 

• Vincent Lotesto, first place, Northeastern Illinois University, undergraduate. 
• Grace Elizabeth Naylor, second place, Northwestern University, research technician. 
• Joe Salvo, third place, Northwestern University, graduate student. 

A similar contest will run in Spring of 2025. 

Neuroscience Journalism Competition 

Despite the sometimes fraught relationship between neuroscientists and the media, it would be a mistake to not see their goals as aligned. In an era where science is under attack and facts often are losing out against falsehoods that have been repeated enough, scientists and journalists are fighting on the same front.    

Journalists will continue to play a major role in the dissemination of scientific knowledge to the general public and unless they work for a major newspaper, chances are that covering science will not be a separate beat. It is therefore important that journalism majors get introduced to covering neuroscience accurately and responsibly. At the same time, neuroscience students stand to benefit from understanding how journalism works, as they more than likely will interact with reporters during their careers.  Familiarizing themselves with the conventions of journalism by producing a piece of journalism would allow them to be efficient spokespeople for the discipline in their future careers. 

This is why our program will organize two journalism competitions, one limited to Loyola students (Fall 2024) and one that's open to all U.S. undergraduates in the Spring of 2025. The goal of these competitions is to bring journalism and neuroscience students together, whether they collaborate directly with one another or not, by encouraging a collaborative mindset and expanding appreciation of values that are critical for the responsible reporting of new neuroscientific findings and their applications.   

 Please take a look at the rules of the contest if you are interested in participating in the Loyola neuroscience contest.  Email Co-PI Bastiaan Vanacker if you have any questions.

This competition is aimed at trainees who are conducting neuroscience research. It invites them to explore the ethical and societal ramifications of their field of work or a particular discovery in their field of work. The PI of the lab is required to co-author the submission so the PI will attend to the work, and submitters are encouraged to engage other lab members and also ethics articles in their analysis and exploration. The trainees submit a 10 minute video on their topic to a committee of neuroscientists, neuroethicists, and community advisory board members. The goal is to encourage reflection on ethical ramifications by neuroscience researchers—not just the person who does the work, but lab members and others who check out the work. To facilitate this, the top two competitors receive an award of up to $2000 if they present their work at SFN the following fall. 

The microgrant competition provides up to $5000 to non-profit community groups who wish to work locally to either increase appreciation/understanding of neuroscience and the societal/ethical ramifications of new discoveries or technologies among students and/or laypersons, or to facilitate interaction between communities and neuroscientists so that the needs of communities are better appreciated by neuroscientists. We are particularly interested in reaching underserved communities as one of our major goals is to decrease underrepresentation of people who are underserved or impacted by systemic racism. This guidelines for the competition are linked here.