A summer of neuroscience:DAAD RISE programme brings young scientists to Bochum

RUB PhD students host American undergraduates

The DAAD RISE programme offers summer research internships in Germany for undergraduates from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. As part of the programme two students are spending the summer doing neuroscientific research at the Ruhr University Bochum (RUB).

Guests from Utah and Georgia

Oliver Richardson from the University of Utah and Shrestha Sonakchhi from Wesleyan College in Georgia are spending a summer research internship at the RUB. The RISE (Research Internships in Science and Engineering) programme, initiated by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), partners undergraduate students from North America and the United Kingdom with PhD students at German universities. During their three month stay in Bochum, Oliver and Shrestha are hosted by Richard Görler and Jing Fang, who are both PhD students at the Ruhr University’s department of computational neuroscience.

Collaborative neuroscientific research

The American guests and their hosts work in close collaboration as they tackle neuroscientific research projects. Richard Görler’s work on the impact of episodic memory on the learning of semantic representations has already profited from the programme: “If I hadn’t known Oliver is a bachelor student, I would have believed he was already a master student. The work we have completed together has been really valuable.” Similarly, the research conducted by Shrestha Sonakchhi, a neuroscience major, on neurogenesis and memory retrieval has already produced some “very interesting results” reports Jing Fang.

Cultural experience

Apart from profiting from the research experience of their German hosts, the internship is also a new cultural experience for the undergraduates. Both of them had never been to Germany before and made some surprising discoveries upon their arrival in late May: “The RUB architecture is unlike anything I have ever seen before,” laughs Oliver Richardson, “And I love the public transport system here!” remarks Shrestha Sonakcchi.

Further information:

www.daad.de/rise/en/rise-germany/
www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/sfb874/integrated_research_training_group/irtg.html