Dr. Greg Petsko Selected As Phi Beta Kappa Society Visiting Scholar
Dr. Greg Petsko
Dr. Greg Petsko, the Arthur J. Mahon Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience and director of the Helen and Robert Appel Alzheimer's Disease Research Institute, has been selected to be on the panel of the Phi Beta Kappa Society's Visiting Scholar Program.
Dr. Petsko joins more than a dozen other professors, scientists and scholars from institutions across the country chosen this year for the annual program, which provides undergraduates the opportunity to spend time with America's most distinguished scholars. Over the year, they will collectively visit more than 100 colleges and universities, spending two days at each to meet informally with students and faculty, participate in classroom discussions and seminars, and give public lectures. A total of 5,004 visits have been made by 611 visiting scholars since Phi Beta Kappa's inception in 1956.
"This honor means a lot to me because most of the people chosen are not scientists," Dr. Petsko said. "I'd like to think they believe I can communicate effectively with people in a number of disparate fields."
An experienced public speaker, Dr. Petsko's public lectures have attracted wide audiences on the Internet. His TED talk on the increasing prevalence of neurological diseases in the aging population has been downloaded over half a million times.
"I hope my public lectures will raise public awareness not only of the importance of biomedical research," he said, "but also of how it's done and how exciting and fun it can be."
Additional awards and honors
Dr. Fabrizio Michelassi, chairman of the Department of Surgery and the Lewis Atterbury Stimson Professor of Surgery, gave the 14th annual Owen H. Wangensteen Visiting Professor of Surgery Lecture on Oct. 22 at the University of Minnesota. The lecture was titled "Management of Complex Small Bowel Crohn's Disease."
Dr. Licia Selleri, associate professor of cell and developmental biology and associate professor of neuroscience in the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute, will give an invited lecture titled "Mutation of Vps25/ESCRT-II Causes Craniofacial and Limb Abnormalities due to Perturbed Vesicular Trafficking of Select Signaling Molecules," on April 1 at the Craniofacial Morphogenesis & Tissue Regeneration Gordon Research Conference. The conference, which takes place March 30 — April 4 in Lucca, Italy, focuses on the events that control how the head and face are patterned during development, how morphogenetic processes shape craniofacial tissues and organs, and how distinctive features of the vertebrate head evolved. The ultimate goal is to understand the causes underlying craniofacial malformations.