Erin M. Purvis

Project focus: The Fellow will explore the ethical and societal implications of sleep neuroscience in partnership with the Santa Ana community.

Erin Purvis is a Ph.D. candidate in Neuroscience at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Her dissertation research is developing and characterizing the tissue-engineered rostral migratory stream, which is a regenerative medicine strategy for neuronal redirection and replacement following traumatic brain injury. As a graduate student, she became eager to interact with the community that her research was designed to ultimately benefit. This interest grew into a passion to strengthen the connection between academic researchers and their local communities – a connection that she felt was lacking in her own doctoral training. As a 2022-2024 Provost’s Graduate Academic Engagement Fellow at the Netter Center for Community Partnerships, she developed and implemented the first formalized academic program for community engaged scholarship for biomedical Ph.D. students at the University of Pennsylvania, including the Community-Engaged STEM Graduate Certificate Program. After defending her PhD in June 2024, Erin will be joining the Center for Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) at University of California, Irvine. As a Civic Science Fellow, she will be collaborating with the interdisciplinary CNLM team to investigate the ethical and societal implications of sleep neuroscience research in partnership with the Santa Ana community.