Program Director

A note from Dr. William Newsome, a Professor of Neurobiology and Psychology at Stanford University, and the founder of Brain Day.

Brain Day originated in 1993 when my oldest son was in 7th grade at JLS Middle School in Palo Alto. On back-to-school night, I signed up as a parent to come in and do a special session on the brain with Jonathan’s science class. At the request of the science teacher, I agreed to do the class before & after his as well…I could stay for the morning but not for the afternoon. Word about the brains went around the school like lightning that morning, and by noon many people were poking their heads in the door to see what was going on, including the principal, the other science teachers, and especially the 7th grade science students from the other class next door. I felt bad for the 7th graders who were left out, so I recruited two of my graduate students (both of whom are now faculty at the University of Washington and University of Texas) to go back with me and do the rest of the 7th grade classes.

We of course received requests for a repeat performance at JLS the following year, which we granted…myself and my lab doing the honors. In those years we worked out the basic format that we use today - brain-storm about function, brain-storm about disease, and then hands-on work at the three stations in 10 minute rotations.

Within 2 to 3 years, however, we were receiving requests from the two other Palo Alto middle schools. We agreed to take on this challenge, and I recruited the neurosciences graduate program students to share the fun and the work. It was great, and in contrast to the atmosphere today, it was OK for TV film crews and newspapers reporters and photographers to come along with us, which they did on occasion. We were actually on local TV news a few times, which of course generated even more requests. But we drew the line at Palo Alto because I did not want to exhaust everyone and make it burdensome for the TA’s, which would have been the death knell of the program. I figured if we could ‘hit’ every 7th grader in the PA school systems with a memorable neuroscience experience every year, we were doing our bit for neuroscience outreach.

We were at stasis in this mode for a few years, and then the neuroscience students themselves started to push for involvement in the East Palo Alto schools. I was concerned about the over-commitment issues, but the students wanted to take it on, and we figured we could add some more person-power to the team by recruiting medical students, postdocs, and lab techs, some of whom had already shown an interest in participating. It was also at this time (mid 2000’s, I think) that a trio of ‘head TA’s took over the actual administration of the program, which I could no longer do because of my growing administrative duties inside Stanford. There were a few bumps in the road as we worked out the new system, but I must say that Brain Day 2.0 has been a tremendous success. This year (2018), for example, we presented Brain Day to 42 classes of 7th graders in Palo Alto and East Palo Alto—an all time Brain Day record. It has been wonderful to extend our outreach beyond our oasis of privilege here in Palo Alto (although privileged kids need to learn about the brain too!), and it has also been very rewarding to extend our base of teaching colleagues beyond the bounds of the neurosciences graduate program.

I truly believe this program is win-win-win…a trifecta! It is a win for the 7th graders themselves who love our material and our format, it is a win for 7th grade teachers for Stanford people to take them and their work seriously, and it is a win for us as we learn to communicate the reasons for our work and our excitement about our work to the public who support us…those kids will be taxpayers one day! I deeply appreciate the hours that our head TA’s and our many hands-on student teachers spend with Brain Day each year. Seriously, it is one of the most meaningful accomplishments of my career at Stanford! My heartfelt thanks to all of you!