Corey Harwell, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, aims to create a diverse, collegial, and collaborative lab environment. Part of that stems from the influence of his own ambitious and caring mentors who supported his career step-by-step, often by sharing new research opportunities he wouldn’t have known existed. Here, he reflects on those relationships, his path into science, and his hopes for increasing diversity in the field, through exposing underrepresented minorities to science as a career path. His message to them, “We need you.”
This interview is a complement to SfN’s podcast series, History of SfN: 50th Anniversary. Guests on the podcast were asked to nominate individuals whose careers are making positive cultural or scientific impacts that will shape the next 50 years of neuroscience. Corey Harwell was nominated by Bill Martin, president and chief operating officer of Blackthorn Therapeutics.