USA National Brain Bee Champion Expresses Gratitude for the Help of PBS Graduate Students and Instructor

The 2023 Upper Valley Brain Bee winner, 10th grader Harini Venkatesh took first place last month in the 2024 USA National Brain Bee Championship. In a UCI story reporting on the event Harini expressed her gratitude for the help of PBS graduate students Elizabeth Bien and Erica Townsend, coordinators of the Upper Valley Brain Bee, and PBS Instructor Shawn Winter "for helping me learn material for the practical portion of the exam." She says of Shawn and John Weaver (Geisel faculty), "without their help I certainly could not have learned so much for the competition!" 

Elizabeth shared, "The main goal I had in continuing the chapter as head coordinator was to give an opportunity for local students to prove themselves early on in neuroscience. Erica also joined the Upper Valley Brain Bee as head coordinator to accomplish all of this, and, together, we are very excited that our 2023 regional brain bee winner ended up winning the national competition." "Dr. Winter not only helped make the 2023 regionals a big success by having a booth where he interacted with participants about the brain with real life sheep brain samples, but also gave up some of his free time to teach Harini anatomy of the brain. He is a wonderful resource for the Upper Valley Brain Bee over the years. You can trust that he will put together an engaging booth, and it is always full of students talking about the nuances of brain structure and about the function of those structures. It couldn't have happened without continued support from Dartmouth and the PBS department."