A Timely Introduction To Dr. Ian Brooks

I want to take this opportunity to give you a timely introduction to Dr. Ian Brooks, who will be a frequent guest blogger on our site. Dr. Brooks serves on Autism Solution Center's board of directors, but also has a significant interest in autism spectrum disorders, research, and furthering the communication relationships between the scientific community and the general public. I have listed his bio below for your review and as you get to know him better, I am convinced you will be thrilled with the dialog he opens in this venue. He is very down to earth, open to new ideas, and willing to investigate and research the tough topics most will shy away from. I hope you will join me in welcoming him to our blog staff! I am looking forward to working with Dr. Brooks and opening some new doors to autism research and information that have illuded the scene for far too long!

Laura :)

Ian Brooks is a Project Manager for the Biomedical informatics Unit, part of the Clinical & Translational Science Institute at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. He has a PhD in Neuroscience (sub-specialty molecular genetics), and has been an academic researcher for 11 years. In Grad School he successfully applied for Predoctoral Fellowships from the American heart Association, with his second grant being ranked in the top 2% of the applicant pool. He has published several peer-reviewed scientific articles & has submitted approximately one million dollars worth of grant applications to the National institutes of Health this year.

Ian is also a Science Communicator, a “job” he takes very seriously; the lack of clear, two-way communication between science and the general public is at fault for many of the very serious problems facing society and the world today. Since 2006 he has been Commissioning Editor for the science magazine Lablit, and he has a lay-writing portfolio of over almost 30 science-communication articles. He maintains a blog on the award winning “Nature Network” that is consistently one of the “Featured Blogs” on Nature’s main site, with his blog ranked in the top 5 blogs on the Network. Ian is an Associate Editor for the National Postdoc Association magazine, “The Postdocket”.

In Graduate School Ian was a member of the Dean’s Working-Climate Committee, was past-President of the UT Postdoc Association, an elected Member of the Board of Directors of The National Postdoc Association (NPA), and chair of the NPA Oversight & Elections Committee. Under his leadership the UT Postdoc Association was awarded “Most Outstanding New PDA” at the NPA 2008 Annual Meeting.