UC-HBCU Neuroscience Pathways Program

PROGRAM NEWS:

The 2025 BRI Summer Undergraduate Research Poster Fair was held on August 08, 2025.

Student Presenter	Faculty Mentor	Project Title
Favour Badewole	Fayal Abderemane-Ali	Assessing the Impact of THK1 Mutations on K+ Channel Activity in Microglial Cells
Rhys Coleman	Stephanie White	Identifying Neuronal Projections in the HVC-RA Pathway of a Zebra Finch Brain
Lindsay Fomundam	Peyman Golshani	Testing a Behavioral Paradigm for Head-Fixed Spatial Navigation
Brandy Jacob	Carrie Bearden	Altered Cortical Thickness Asymmetry in Individuals with 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome
Loren Lewis	Valerie Tornini	Investigating the Role of a Vertebrate-Specific Conserved 3’UTR on Neurodevelopment

UC-HBCU Trainee Loren Lewis Named the 2025 Institute for Society and Genetics Honorary Summer Fellow

Thanks to a generous contribution from the UCLA Institute for Society & Genetics, we are proud to announce Loren Lewis as the 2025 ISG Honorary Summer Fellow! Loren spent 8 weeks in the laboratory of Dr. Valerie Tornini investigating the regulation of neurodevelopmental protein stability by conserved, noncoding mRNA regions.

Loren is a current student at Spelman College in Biology. With a passion for medicine, she fully embraced her role the lab, taking the initiative to individualize her project while picking up valuable neuroscientific techniques along the way. We can’t wait to see where you go from here, Loren!

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION:

The UC-HBCU Neuroscience Pathways Program is an 8-week summer enrichment program for undergraduate students attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the United States. The program is open to undergraduate students from all backgrounds that major in a natural science and are in good academic standing. The goals of the program are:

to increase the impact on students and faculty at both HBCU partner institutions and UCLA, and
to incentivize quality mentorship of interns in our UCLA host labs.

A group of interested students, selected jointly by the HBCU partner institutions and UCLA, will be invited to spend 8 weeks on campus conducting research in appropriate host laboratories. The training, executed by host lab Principal Investigators, will be commensurate with the students’ experiences at their home institution. We will engage in active research and teaching partnerships that accompany students before and beyond the 8-week internship. Additionally, we will host one “chaperone” HBCU faculty member per year to accompany the trainee cohort for the first week of the program, intending to foster both scientific collaboration and quality mentoring. To incentivize graduate studies at UCLA for HBCU interns, the UCLA Brain Research Institute will offer a full 5-year stipend — disbursed annually — for at least one student accepted into the graduate Neuroscience Interdepartmental Program (gNSIDP). Furthermore, we will conduct outcome studies and publish them in a peer-reviewed journal. In short, we will take an innovative and holistic approach by providing not only a summer travel opportunity, but by following students before and after their journey with us.

HBCU1 — Brandy Jacob (Delaware State University) presenting her research from the lab of Dr. Carrie Bearden.

HBCU3 — Favour Badewole (Fisk University) presenting his research from the lab of Dr. Fayal Abderemane-Ali.

HBCU4 — 2025 UC-HBCU students enjoying lunch at historic CA landmark Olvera Street.

We will host a comprehensive research environment for the 2026 Program by taking advantage of on-campus tools, engineering a robust and rewarding experience. Activities include, but are not limited to, (1) analysis of data from ongoing experiments, (2) modeling of biological or behavioral systems, (3) computerized coding, and a variety of other analysis tools/methods. During the Program, host labs will train Neuroscience Pathways fellows to conduct a rigorous research project, culminating in a poster competition. Apart from conducting experiments, students will be involved in activities that enrich their summer experience, including (1) writing a research paper, (2) exploring the Ph.D. career path, (3) learning about applying to programs and funding opportunities, (4) participating in research journal clubs, seminars, and career panels, (5) preparing abstracts and posters, and (6) visiting cultural centers in Los Angeles (e.g. California Museums, the California Science Center, the Hammer Museum, the Getty Center). The program is under the administration of the UCLA Summer Programs in Undergraduate Research (SPUR) umbrella.

APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS:

Completion of UCLA SPUR online application form
A major in the natural sciences
A minimum GPA of 3.0
Academic transcript
Personal statement (limit: 1000 words) describing your past, present, or future leadership in / commitment to scientific research
Summary of prior research, if any (limit: 1000 words)
Two letters of recommendation from science faculty* (due February 11, 2026)
Paragraph (limit: 500 words) summarizing your interest in neuroscience or physiology
In a separate file, rank your top three research training areas:
- Neuroendocrinology, Sex Differences, and Reproduction
- Neural Repair
- Neural Microcircuits
- Neurobehavioral Genetics
- Molecular and Cellular Neurobiology
- Molecular, Cellular, and Integrative Physiology

This is an 8-week experience run in conjunction with the BRI-SURE and UC-HSI SOMA programs from June 15 to August 07, 2026.

Student Applications are due by January 21, 2026, at 11:59 PM PST. Please send all supplementary application materials to Ethan Snook at esnook@mednet.ucla.edu.
- Use “UC-HBCU Application Materials – First_Name Last_Name” in the subject line for tracking purposes.
*Faculty recommendation letters are due by February 11, 2026, at 11:59 PST, also to esnook@mednet.ucla.edu.

For additional information about the UC-HBCU Neuroscience Pathways Program, please contact Program Director Dr. Hakeem Lawal or Program Coordinator Ethan Snook. For more details about SPUR, click here.

HBCU2 — Rhys Coleman (Howard University) presenting her research from the lab of Dr. Stephanie White.

APPLY NOW

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR:

Hakeem Lawal, Ph.D. is Professor and Chair in the Department of Biological Sciences at Delaware State University (DSU). He graduated from the University of Lagos, Nigeria with a bachelor’s degree in Microbiology and obtained his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Alabama. He then did his postdoctoral training at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA before joining the faculty at DSU. He is also the Director of the Investigator Development Core of the NIH-funded Interdisciplinary Health Research Center at DSU. In the State of Delaware, Dr. Lawal serves on the Research Development Committee of the Delaware IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence. Dr. Lawal is also an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Neurobiology at UCLA. He is currently the Director of the UC-HBCU Neuroscience Pathways Program.

Dr. Lawal’s research is focused on understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate how the brain chemicals dopamine and acetylcholine are released from their respective neurons, and their implications for disorders associated with those neurotransmitter systems. Training and mentoring students and scholars from all backgrounds and at all levels in the biomedical research space is integral to his lab’s mission. This mission includes making significant contributions to the basic biology of neurotransmitter release from the central nervous system; to use that knowledge to help discover viable treatments for disorders like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases; and to accomplish both goals by leading a talented group of investigators.

Dr. Hakeem Lawal

Adjunct Associate Professor
Department of Neurobiology
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
hlawal@ucla.edu

Professor and Department Chair
Department of Biological Studies
Delaware State University