Last week, Belmont’s School of Sciences presented “Brain Awareness Week” as a part of the global campaign to increase public awareness of the progress and benefits of brain research. Events included speakers from Vanderbilt University and the Belmont neuroscience program as well as a showing of the film Memento.
In addition, students were given the opportunity to dissect sheep brains to help better understand structure-function relationships in the nervous system. Dillon Oman, a junior neuroscience major, facilitated this event. Dillon is interested in pursuing a career that will allow him to combine his love of neuroscience with his passion for educating people about neuroscience.
“Brain Awareness Week is a great opportunity to showcase the talented neuroscientists we have at Belmont along with fascinating speakers from our community. Given the plethora of exciting new techniques and discoveries, it’s easy to see why President Obama called his BRAIN initiative ‘the next great American project’,” Dr. Lori McGrew, associate professor of biology, said.
Neuroscience is a growing field, including a wide range of subdisciplines such as cognition, behavior, cellular neuroscience and computational neuroscience. Belmont’s neuroscience major combines foundational courses in biology, chemistry, psychology and physics with upper level coursework in biology and psychology and culminates in a student-driven research project in neuroscience. The program prepares students for careers as research assistants and animal behavioralists among others or for entry into medical school or graduate school.
Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice Dr. Anthony Blash is now certified, (CPHIMS and CAHIMS) by examination, in the area of health care informatics. Faculty with these credentials continuously set Belmont College of Pharmacy apart as an institution where student pharmacists can pursue a concentration that prepares them for specialization in the practice of pharmacy.
Belmont senior Nicole Brandt presented an interactive workshop about her organization at the Tennessee Conference on Volunteerism and Service-Learning held in Franklin, Tenn. on March 10-11. She is founder of the non-profit organization 
Dr. Danny Biles, professor of mathematics and computer science, along with Marcia Federson of the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil and Rodrigo Lopez Pouso of the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, served as guest co-editors of a Special Issue of the journal Abstract and Applied Analysis released this year. The issue was entitled “Generalized Differential and Integral Equations” and collected some of the most recent research dealing with topics such as differential inclusions, stochastic equations, fractional equations, discontinuous equations, singular equations, functional equations, fuzzy equations, impulsive equations, dynamic equations on time scales, generalized integration with applications to differential equations, over determined boundary conditions and generalized notions of solutions. Abstract and Applied Analysis is a mathematical journal devoted exclusively to the publication of high-quality research papers in the fields of abstract and applied analysis.
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Despite tough losses in OVC Championship games, both of the Belmont basketball teams earned postseason automatic bids.
Meanwhile, the women’s team awaits seeding late Monday night for the 2014 Postseason WNIT, marking the Bruins first postseason berth since 2007. The Bruins, in their first year under head coach Cameron Newbauer, returned to the OVC Tournament for a second consecutive season. After earning a double-bye with a No. 2 seed, BU defeated No. 6 Jacksonville State, 65-50, to advance to the 