Elizabeth Weaver

Liz is the rare Atlanta native. Coming from a long line of Elizabeths (6 generations) here in Atlanta, Liz's roots are deep within the Atlanta community. In the spirit of reaching out to her community, and before entering a graduate program at GSU, Liz started her own consulting firm, TOGA (we Take Over, you Get Accepted) dedicated to helping high schoolers in the Atlanta area get into college. Skills acquired while running TOGA include fundraising, operation management, process workflow, market strategy development and business plan development. It wasn't long before Liz wanted to go back to school to study a lifelong interest in Neuroscience. While working toward her Master's here at GSU in Neurobiology, Liz was a fellow with the Center for Disease Control in the Healthy Brain Initiative as well as an intern at Child Neurology Associates, where she took part analyzing data for a Tourette syndrome study. Toward the end of her Master's program, Liz found a way to incorporate her love for science with her desire to give back. NI faculty member, Dr. Kyle Frantz, gave Liz the break she needed as a coordinator for the Atlanta Neuroscience Expo. From there, a passion for science education quickly grew. After completion of her Master's, Liz knew she wanted to work outside the lab promoting and further developing science education initiatives. With the development of the Neuroscience Institute, Liz found a niche as an education specialist for the Brains & Behavior Area of Focus. While continuing to work for Dr. Frantz on her education outreach programs like BRAIN, NET/work, and ION, Liz eventually took over management of Brains & Behavior (B&B) and stepped up to the position she now enjoys as Associate Director. Going on 8 years here at GSU, her duties now include Editor & chief of the B&B Potential magazine, leading professional development and team building workshops /seminars /symposia, developing curricula for science retreats, organizing on and off campus graduate retreats, tracking student and alumni progress /research /presentations, developing software infrastructure & databases to understand trends in student progress and demographics, recruiting a diverse student body at national conferences, website management, streamlining and managing annual seed grants, managing social networks, branding, and artwork for both Brains & Behavior and the Neuroscience Institute.