Travel award winner: Danielle Tomasello
Danielle Tomasello won a Hello Bio travel award back in November 2015, whilst she was a PhD student working at the University at Buffalo, Pharmacology and Toxicology Dept., New York, under the supervision of Professor Arin Bhattacharjee. We caught up with her to find out how she got on at her conference...
Name of event: American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) held in conjunction with the Experimental Biology (EB)
Date: April 2016
Location: San Diego, USA
Why did you want to attend this event – what were you hoping to achieve?
The ASPET meeting was a somewhat smaller conference than SfN - I was interested in it, as I hoped it would allow for optimal networking opportunities that would be very beneficial for advancing my career.
Did you achieve everything that you wanted?
Yes - I was able to network much better at this smaller meeting compared to the larger meeting I usually attend each year, SfN.
What would you say were the main highlights of this conference for you?
While I participated in the ASPET part of EB, the conference itself had other topics and forums and it was great to visit other areas that I was interested in. I was able to easily converse with new people at the conference
Did you present at this conference (eg. poster, oral communication)?
I presented a poster at the conference and also competed in ASPET’s Graduate Student Best Presentation Competition.
How did you feel about it, and how did it go?
I presented my poster twice, once for my normal exhibit time and once as an applicant for an award. The exhibit time was ok, but I did not get a lot of traffic unfortunately. However, the judging time was great and I received fantastic feedback. I was awarded 3rd place in the Division for Neuropharmacology.
How would you sum up this conference if you just had to use 3 words?
Networking, Diverse, Respected
Would you recommend this conference / course to others?
I think this is a great conference for undergraduate and new graduate students. You can learn a lot from the people and the topics. However, as a 4th year PhD student, it did not have as many helpful options as I would have liked. I still recommend the conference, but would recommend going earlier in ones career.
Thanks for this Danielle - I'm sure other students will appreciate your advice - and well done on getting an award for your poster! For anyone else interested in our travel awards - it's really easy to apply! Find out how and don't forget to share it with your colleagues!
