The Friedman Brain Institute has joined forces with The Story Collider to bring you a 6 week storytelling course. This course will run for 1.5 hours per week starting Jan 17 till Feb 21 from 4-5:30pm (Hess Seminar Room B except Feb 7th which will be in Hess 9-101). We strongly encourage individuals from communities underrepresented in science to apply. 

The goal of this course is to bring together trainees and researchers at different levels of their scientific career at the FBI and equip them with the skills needed to effectively tell a story about their journey in academia. The course will be taught by one of the talented Story Collider producers. Topics covered will include:

• Introducing relevant psychology, neurocognitive, and social science theory and literatures;
• Teaching basics of story structure and composition, including elements of narrativity;
• Increasing appreciation of storytelling as a process and perceived self-efficacy in creating stories;
• Providing opportunities and a process for identifying possible stories and developing them; and
• Offering intensive, personalized editing and coaching on story development and delivery.

At the end of the 6 week course, 5 storytellers from the course will be selected to tell their story of scientific journey on stage at our live show at Caveat during the week of March 18, 2025. To reserve a spot in the course please fill out the below information. 

The Story Collider understands that the goal of this project is to represent stories from all academic levels (lab technicians to senior professors) within the Mount Sinai community. Together, Story Collider and Mount Sinai seek to create a storytelling culture at Mount Sinai emphasizing diversity and inclusion by working in-depth on the stories and understanding the different aspects of storytelling. The goal for the public show will be to highlight stories developed in the workshop for 2025 Brain Awareness Week

For more information, please contact abha.rajbhandari@mssm.edu and/or aya.osman@mssm.edu