Monique Mendes is officially the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Rochester.
"I virtually defended my PhD thesis!," she tweeted in July this year. "I made history today as the 1st Black woman to graduate with a Neuroscience PhD at my institution."
I virtually defended my PhD thesis! I made history today as the 1st Black woman to graduate with a Neuroscience PhD at my institution. Thank you Ania, Thank you mentors, Thank you DSPAN, Thank you @URNeuroscience, and Thank you to my family. #BlackInNeuro @BlackInNeuro pic.twitter.com/7dTCf33Rh2
— Monique Mendes, Ph.D. 🇯🇲 🇺🇸 (@monique_ja44) July 31, 2020
According to University of Rochester Alumni News Media, Mendes is among a small percentage of Black students in the U.S. who earn a Ph.D. each year, and an even smaller percentage of Black women in the U.S. who pursue an advanced degree in neuroscience.
Mendes is now a Postdoctoral Research Scholar at Stanford University. She is also a McNair Scholar and National Institutes of Health (NIH) F99/K00 Fellow.
Her experience listed on LinkedIn includes serving as a research assistant at the Center for Translational Research in Neurodegenerative Disease and volunteering with the STEP-UP (Science and Technology Entry Program up to Medicine) Neuroscience Workshop. She was also a Brain Awareness Week Volunteer for a year. Other interests include the YMCA Summer Neuroscience Workshop and The Meliora Collective Mentoring Program.
According to her website, Mendes came to the University of Rochester in search of a robust neuroscience program that focused on glial biology and a collaborative environment. The results from her study are expected to expand understanding of how microglia regulate brain development in both normal and diseased circumstances such as autism and schizophrenia.
