The Sainsbury Wellcome Centre is delighted to announce the winners of our 2025/26 Emerging Neuroscientists Seminar Series (ENSS). Now in its eighth year, the ENSS continues to spotlight early-career researchers who are advancing the field of systems neuroscience.

Selected from a highly competitive pool of applicants, this year’s speakers represent a diverse range of topics and institutions, showcasing cutting-edge neuroscience from around the globe. 

The 2025/26 SWC ENSS winners are:

• Dimokratis Karamanlis, Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Geneva, who will present: “Prefrontal correlates of a social learning strategy during joint decision-making in mice” on 27 November 2025
• Raffaele Sarnataro & Peter S. Hasenhuetl, Postdoctoral Research Scientists at the University of Oxford, who will present: “Neuronal and metabolic dynamics underlying sleep homeostasis” on 22 January 2026 
• Saurabh Vyas, Postdoctoral Scientist at Columbia University, who will present: “Flexible problem-solving in prefrontal cortex” on 12 February 2026
• Sonja Blumenstock, Project Scientist at the University of California San Diego, who will present: “Restoring motor vigor through neuron-type specific circuit intervention in Huntington’s disease mice” on 5 March 2026
   

Kris Jensen, ENSS committee member and Senior Research Fellow at SWC, expressed his excitement for the upcoming series:

“We were very impressed with the quality of applications for the Emerging Neuroscientists Seminar Series this year, and it was amazing to read about so much exciting neuroscience happening around the world. The four selected speakers work at the cutting edge of our field, and we are very excited to host them at SWC to hear more about and discuss their work.”

Fellow ENSS committee member and Senior Research Fellow at SWC, Shohei Furutachi, also shared his enthusiasm:

“We’re delighted to welcome this year’s Emerging Neuroscientists Seminar Series speakers to the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre. Selected from a highly competitive pool of applicants, these early-career researchers are pushing the boundaries of neuroscience. We look forward to engaging talks, stimulating discussions, and opportunities to build connections across the global neuroscience community.” 

SWC is committed to fostering innovation and collaboration in neuroscience, and our ENSS provides a platform for early career neuroscientists to share their research and engage with the London neuroscience community. We eagerly anticipate the contributions of this year’s speakers and the stimulating conversations their presentations will inspire.

Full details of the upcoming seminars will be announced on our Events page in due course. If you are interested in finding out more and applying for next year’s ENSS, please look out for the announcement of the application process in late spring 2026.

About SWC ENSS

SWC ENSS first launched in 2018 with the aim of fostering scientific exchange and collaboration with the global neuroscience community. Each year, SWC hosts four exceptional early career neuroscientists giving them the opportunity to present, as part of the regular SWC seminar series, and discuss their science with SWC faculty, postdocs and students. To find out more about our previous winners, please visit the Emerging Neuroscientists Seminar Series page.

The SWC ENSS Committee 2025

• Kris Jensen
• Adrian Roggenbach
• Karyna Mishchanchuk
• Shohei Furutachi
• Tyler Boyd-Meredith
• Rachel Swanson

Contact:

April Cashin-Garbutt
Head of Research Communications and Engagement, Sainsbury Wellcome Centre
a.cashin-garbutt@ucl.ac.uk