Career Development
Join us for Lunch & Learn, where you'll have the chance to socialize with other grad students and hear talks by students in Religious Studies and Psychological & Brain Sciences. While we won't be able to share pizza in person, all attendees will be entered into a raffle to win a $15 Target gift card.
Join us for Lunch & Learn, where you'll have the chance to socialize with other grad students and hear talks by students in Religious Studies and Psychological & Brain Sciences. Lunch & Learn is co-sponsored by the Graduate Division, the Graduate Student Association, and the UCSB Library.
While we won't be able to share pizza together in person, all attendees will be entered into a raffle to win one of ten $15 Target gift cards.
September 2021 Edition: Singing & Spatial Navigation
September 10, 12-1:15pm
Zoom*
*RSVP here to receive the Zoom link*
Singing Us Into Women: Navajo and Mescalero Apache Girls Coming of Age Ceremonies
Julie Bongers
Graduate Student in Religious Studies
Traditional Mescalero and Diné girls' initiations into womanhood center on multiple-day ceremonies that occur in relationship to menarche. These ceremonies, known to the Mescalero as Isánáklésh Gotal or Sunrise Ceremony, and to the Diné (Navajo) as Kinaaldá, are unique. However, they share the underlying ritual logic of auspiciously extending blessing to the community via the initiates' transformation into the life-creating sacred being, Changing Woman. They actualize in present time the stories of their people's creation, and through this process usher girls into becoming empowered women and strengthen the relationships of family and community with cosmos, sacred beings, and each other.
Sex Differences and Aging in Spatial Navigation
Shuying Yu
Graduate Student in Psychological & Brain Sciences
Spatial navigation is a complex behavior that we use everyday which involves decision-making, memory, and integrating perceptual cues from our environment. Sex differences in spatial ability are evident across mammalian species, and distinct aspects of successful human navigation change with advanced age. However, it is unknown whether navigational deficits emerge earlier in the aging process or whether age-related changes vary by sex. This represents a critical gap in our understanding of the aging brain, especially given an increasing awareness that navigation deficits are one of the first behavioral fingerprints of dementia. In this talk, I examine three different aspects of spatial navigation (path integration, spatial knowledge acquisition, and navigational strategies) and present results indicating that sex differences diminish and that age-related changes in navigation ability and strategy are evident as early as midlife.
This event will be moderated by Carlos Nash, Director of Diversity Programs at UCSB's Graduate Division.
Interested in being a presenter at an upcoming Lunch & Learn? Click here to find out more! If you have any questions about this event or Lunch & Learn in general, please email Chava Nerenberg.