The 5th Annual Kranias Symposium on Early Career Mentorship (6-11-2026) featured a keynote address from Stefania Nicoli, PhD, FAHA of Yale University. "Helping Each Other Grow: Lessons from Brain Collateral Resilience" presented insights on the development of both blood vessels and careers.  Dr. Nicoli then joined PPN researcher Eric Wohleb, PhD, UC Biology's Daneille Winget, PhD, and Medpace's Stephanie Dakesian, PhD on a panel that fielded career questions from the audience. Pharmacology & Physiology (P&P) PhD candidate Liz Mancz moderated the discussion. 

Eric Wohleb, PhD was awarded the PhD student-selected, Best Mentor Award.  Alex Kuhn, selected by his fellow PhD students as the Distinguished Student Speaker, presented “A tale of two circuits: morphological analyses of specific corticolimbic projections following chronic stress“. 

Afterwards, the students and postdocs met with Dr. Nicoli in a private discussion.  Junior Faculty also had a mentoring session with Dr. Nicoli. Congratulations to the student planning committee: Lindsay Helock (chair), Liz Mancz, Kajol Thapa, Francisca Akhigbe, and Luis Tron Esqueda.  Thank you to Dr. Kranias for endowing such an amazing event for trainees.