Vladimir Parpura, M.D., Ph.D., a professor in the Department of NeurobiologyVladimir Parpura, M.D., Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Neurobiology in the School of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, has been invited to become a member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives. The Dana Alliance is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to advance public education about the progress and benefits of brain research and to disseminate information on the brain in an understandable and accessible fashion.
Parpura will be only the second member of the UAB faculty with membership in the Dana Alliance, joining James Meador-Woodruff, M.D., chair of the Department of Psychiatry. There are more than 550 neuroscientists worldwide in the organization.
Outreach efforts of the Dana Alliance include organizing public forums such as an aging series targeted to older adults, facilitating speaking engagements, and supplementing K-12 neuroscience curricula with publications and teaching materials through free, downloadable materials on the alliance website.
The alliance’s flagship event is the annual Brain Awareness Week Campaign, now in its 22nd year. The upcoming campaign is March 13-19, 2017.
Parpura earned his medical degree from the University of Zagreb in Croatia in 1989, and a doctorate in neuroscience and zoology from Iowa State University in 1993. He was elected as a Member of Academia Europaea in 2012, and has held faculty appointments at Iowa State University, the University of California, Riverside, and the University of Rijeka, Croatia, before joining UAB.