last updated 15. April 2025

2025 Annual Research Day

The School of Graduate Studies held the centerwide Annual Research Day on Wednesday, March 19^th, 2025.

The day consisted of poster sessions, a platform session for graduate students and the Annual Research Day Dinner.

The 2025 annual Graduate Day lecture, entitled "From a demand-based to a supply-limited view of brain development, function and evolution." was presented on March 19^th at 4pm in the Alumni Auditorium. Suzana Herculano-Houzel, biologist, neuroscientist, researcher, writer, columnist at brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo and Associate Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Biological Sciences at Vanderbilt University was the keynote speaker. She is also the first female editor-in-chief of The Journal of Comparative Neurology.

Suzana Herculano-Houzel

Participation in Annual Research is mandatory for PhD students in the School of Graduate Studies past their second year, and for MD/PhD students past their 1st year in their PhD training. More junior Graduate students are encouraged to participate.

Only students in the School of Graduate Studies are eligible to compete for awards or present at the platform session, but other entities on the campus may use the Research Day mechanisms present their research findings, and to score and award prizes to their students or employees at the poster sessions.

Participation is encouraged for SUNY Downstate College of Medicine students, Public Health students, College of Nursing students, School of Health Professions students, post-doctoral fellows, graduate medical fellows, residents and undergraduates who are associated with SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University faculty members.

A link to application and instructions is here, which was live from February 11^th to February 27^th 2025. The full text of the application is here.

Annual Research Day provides an excellent occasion for the entire Downstate community to share the results of their research efforts. Any research is welcome and these research areas are typically represented:

Molecular & Cellular Biology
Neural & Behavioral Science
Biomedical Engineering
Clinical Research
Case Reports
Public Health
Translational Research
Social Research
Quality Improvement

For the poster sessions, the size of the posters is not larger than 60" wide x 40" top to bottom. Each applicant is responsible for producing their own poster and can find more guidance by clicking here or scrolling below. Each participant is allowed a maximum of submitting two (2) posters for consideration. In rare cases, the Dean of the School of Graduate Studies will allow the display of a second non-competitive poster, but this must be prearranged via Dr. Justine Lottermoser justine.lottermoser@downstate.edu

The schedule for 2025 is below:

Time	Event	Area
9:30am – 11:25am	Poster session A	PHAB A, B, C & D
10:00am – 12:30pm concurrent with Poster Sessions A/B	School of Graduate Studies Oral Platform Presentations. Each presentation is 10min with 5min Q&A	PHAB 2C
11:30am – 1:25pm	Poster session B	PHAB A, B, C & D
2:00pm – 3:55pm	Poster session C - All School of Graduate Studies students this session	PHAB A, B, C & D
4:00pm – 5:30pm	Annual Graduate Day Lecture	Alumni Auditorium, EB
6:00 pm	Annual Research Day Dinner Reservation Form	Taci’s Beyti Turkish Restaurant, 1953 Coney Island Avenue.

To add the complete ARD 2025 agenda to your calendar , click link and open downloaded .ics file.

SGS awards a limited number of prizes and travel fellowships to its students for the best presentations, as determined by judges. The Joe Ma and Sophie Su prizes will be awarded for two platform session presentations and one poster presentation. Additionally, poster session prizes are awarded to Graduate Studies presentations by the School of Graduate Studies.

We look forward to all presentations of Downstate's science.

Poster Printing Information

We understand that for many Annual Research Day participants, it is their first time participating in a research symposium and presenting a poster. Please read this section carefully to avoid last-minute headaches. We have made this Poster Printing Information section to help poster presenters understand the involved logistics and printing options available.

General Logistics.

The poster board size dictates the maximum size of printed posters, which is a max. 40" top to bottom x 60" wide . Poster templates for some sizes are available.
Discuss your poster design with your research mentor well in advance (i.e. 3 months before Annual Research Day). Finalize your design at least 1 (one) week before any printing deadline.
Participants are informed whether their poster is accepted within ~2 weeks ahead of Annual Research Day (like many other research conferences). Participants who wait until notice of their acceptance before designing and printing their poster will experience stress in time management. For this reason we recommend you finalize your poster design well ahead of any printing deadline.
Every applicant is responsible for producing their own poster.
Please discuss payment with your research mentor. Typically, labs or departments will pay the cost of printing. The Downstate in-house rate is $100 for 48"x36". For your convenience we have listed more affordable external printing options below.
The School of Graduate Studies (SGS) is unable to pay for any participant's printing - including SGS students and postdocs.
Dr. Justine Lottermoser has no control over in-house or external printing. Please direct questions about pricing, payment, and timeline to your printer of choice.
We will have pins and velcro on the Annual Research Day to attach your posters to our boards.

Downstate in-house printing. If you opt to print your poster in-house with the SUNY Downstate Office of New Media Services for the 2025 Annual Research Day, you will need to submit your poster by 5:00pm EST on March 5^th 2025. Unfortunately, late submissions cannot be accommodated.

Submit your poster for in-house printing via the poster submission form
The Downstate in-house rate is $100 for 48"x36". For your convenience we have listed more affordable external printing options below.
Poster templates are available. The standard size of 48" x 36" is preferred for ease of printing, but any of the templates is fine

For more information and questions about pricing, see the general poster info webpage

External printing alternatives. Please be aware that external printers will also have varying turnaround times. Same-day or next day printing is hard to find and costly. Please plan your printing accordingly. Be careful what you send to outside printers. The in-house people will proofread (a little), but any outside printer will just print what you give them.

You will have to inquire what their printing time-line is:

- PhDposters
- posternerd (about $40 for 36"x48")
- megaprint
- FedEx
- Kinkos

Low-budget printing option: Using a regular printer, print out your poster pdf file on Letter sized paper via the tile option in Adobe. Click here for guidance