Jacob Ruden is a Neuroscience PhD Candidate at Vanderbilt University. He is completing his thesis work in the laboratory of Dr. Laura Dugan in Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Division of Geriatrics within the Department of Medicine. The Dugan Lab is interested in neuronal injury and inflammation in the brain, and Jacob specifically studies parvalbumin interneuron injury in disease and injury states such as hypoxia. He is using a transgenic mouse model to better understand the nature of parvalbumin neuron injury. Jacob is also generating human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neurons to understand how parvalbumin neuron injury affects the function of receptors in the brain that are important for learning and memory. Jacob grew up in New Jersey and graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 2015 with a Bachelor of Arts in Biological Basis of Behavior. Jacob is the current co-president of the Vanderbilt Science Policy Group, and he was the president of Vanderbilt’s Neuroscience Student Organization for the 2019-2020 academic year. Before the pandemic, Jacob enjoyed exploring Nashville’s restaurant scene and traveling.