Other Interests | Michaelkelberman

Soccer Coach

I grew up playing soccer and began coaching during my freshman year of high school. Since moving to Atlanta, I've coached for 4 seasons at the local YMCA. Coaching helps me maintain work-life balance, which is particularly important in graduate school. I also find coaching has a lot of parallels to STEM. I develop practices that focus on improving the abilities of players regardless of their skill level, much like training students on lab techniques. Beyond natural ability, coaching also requires instilling players with basic concepts of the game, much like reviewing the background information for a new project or developing experiments to test a new hypothesis. At the same time, the players and parents I interact with on a weekly basis are able to see the life of a scientist in a non-academic setting, which I believe makes science more accessible. I currently hold a US Soccer National F Coaching License and am planning to work my way through other National Licenses during my graduate career. I am a proud supporter of Atlanta United FC and Southampton FC.

Neuroscience Program

Emory's Neuroscience Graduate Program is a vibrant community with an extremely active student body. During my first three years, I have held three executive committee positions:

Recruitment Committee Representative - Interacting with students and faculty during my recruitment weekend is what ultimately led me to attend Emory's Neuroscience Program. Three years in, I am now on the other side of recruitment, serving as one of the Recruitment Committee Representatives. We recently finished our 2021 recruitment (held completely virtually!), and are looking forward to welcoming the incoming class.
Central Sulcus Editor - The Central Sulcus is the Emory Neuroscience Program's student-run newsletter, keeping everyone up-to-date on the latest news within the program and around Atlanta. We also create two special editions for our program's recruitment and retreat weekends! Check out some of mine and others articles here.
Frontiers in Neuroscience Seminar Coordinator - Emory's Neuroscience Program hosts a weekly seminar series, Frontiers in Neuroscience, organized primarily by student coordinators. I worked with two other classmates to invite and plan visits from local and national scientists.