SUNY Old Westbury

The 2018 SUNY Old Westbury 3rd Annual College “Brain Awareness Week” consisted of 10 table top neuroscience games/activities, vendor donations, hand-outs, educational materials from the DANA Foundation, and a lecture series with 4 talks on the theme “Brain Health, Motivational Behavior & Cellular Phone Habits.” The four talks were as follows: “Clinical Assessment of Dementia & Alzheimer’s Disease: The Role of Neuropsychological Evaluations in Age-Related Disorders.” “Ho Ingestion of a Diet Rich in Fats Alters Brain Neurochemistry,” “Only the Lonely.” Loneliness, the Brain, and Social Media,” “Teaching Better Screen Time Habits with Flipd,” & “Cellular Phone Addiction and its Brain Correlates.” The combination of events drew nearly 400 faculty and students to the weekly events, even despite inclement weather. Students were also able to engage in research activities conducted by undergraduate students during the weekly events. We were also graced and delighted to host CEO and Co-founder of Flipd, a cellular phone activity monitoring and distraction limiting App company, Cristian Villamarin at our campus. Villamarin gave an educational seminar to our students on being more conscious of their cellular phone habits and trying to limit them to get more out of their college education and learning experience, not just in the classroom, but in life as well. Overall, the events were another success for the campus.

Our undergraduate college students were provided a unique opportunity to engage in a series of neuroscience and neuropsychology related activities that both psychology majors and non-majors would not ordinarily experience. Therefore, the events created through the Partnership with the DANA Foundation have continued to be invaluable in providing neuroscience educational outreach to our students at the college level.

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