Overview
This is no longer an active program.
Feel free to reach out to the Psychology Department for questions.
The UVA Brain Camp was a neuroscience-themed summer camp hosted by the UVA Psychology Department. Through hands-on interactive experiments led by UVA neuroscientists, campers learned fundamental concepts of neuroscience and basic lab techniques. UVA Brain Camp was free and accessible to local middle school students who identify as members of underrepresented communities or who are otherwise financially disadvantaged.
UVA Brain Camp
The UVA Brain Camp was a free day camp designed to give highly motivated middle school students a fun, hands‑on experience and training in some of the most fundamental aspects of neuroscience. The program was offered at no cost to teacher‑nominated middle school students who identified as members of underrepresented communities or who were otherwise unable to afford traditional STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) camps.
Our Motivation: We aimed to develop a novel educational summer program that would ignite and inspire young scientific minds through hands‑on experience in neuroscience. The week‑long UVA Brain Camp experience exposed children to the brain, how it works, and how to nurture its development. Additionally, through this camp we worked to build a mentorship network connecting UVA students and scientists with the greater Charlottesville community. This network supported and guided participants’ future scientific education and success. Our ultimate goal was to inspire and empower young students to pursue their scientific interests and contribute to addressing known disparities in STEM fields. The program also provided UVA students with opportunities to develop skills related to scientific outreach.
Rationale: In the previous decade, there had been significant nationwide efforts to increase diversity in the sciences. While some improvement had occurred, there remained a notable shortage of faculty from historically marginalized groups in science and related fields. A survey of checkpoints for careers in biomedical sciences revealed that although underrepresented minority (URM) students and white students expressed similar levels of interest in biological sciences during their freshman year, there was a significant decline in the number of URM students who ultimately earned degrees in biological sciences. A commonly reported reason for this trend was that URM students experienced a greater sense of isolation and inequitable access to mentors and formative experiences that influence future career success.