Barbara Banz, PhD, the Department of Emergency Medicine’s (DEM) DrivSim Lab Post-Doctoral Associate, was awarded “Outstanding Oral Presentation” for her presentation at the First Annual Yale University Postdoc Symposium held on Friday, June 8th. The focus of her presentation, “Drinking Symptomology and Attentional Processing Limitations During Driving Simulation”, was her current research mimicking distracted driving in sober young drivers in order to study potential effects of drinking. “We’ve been building exciting opportunities in the DrivSim Lab since I joined in 2017. Our work integrates high-fidelity driving simulation and neuroscience methods to study overlapping risky behaviors in young, vulnerable populations,” said Banz.
Crashes are the leading cause of death for young adults and nearly one third are alcohol-related. The mission of the DrivSim Lab is to understand the neural basis of driving behavior and risk processes during adolescence and emerging adulthood, and to develop individually tailored interventions to promote safe driving. “The DEM is especially honored that Banz ended up with one of the highest rankings out of over 40 presenters,” said DrivSim Lab Director, Federico Vaca, MD, MPH. Created to highlight work of Postdocs and Associate Research Scientists from all departments and fields of research at the university, this innovative symposium provides the opportunity for them to present their work to the diverse Yale research community. To learn more about the DrivSim Lab, please visit: https://medicine.yale.edu/emergencymed/research/drivsim/
The Postdoc Symposium is sponsored by the Yale Postdoctoral Association (YPA). Composed of postdocs from across disciplines, the goal of YPA is to create a broad sense of community and engagement among postdocs at Yale, as well as to help postdocs have a happy and successful experience at the university. To learn more, visit https://ypa.yale.edu/postdoc-symposium.