The Gillespie Museum’s March “Science Café” will feature Stetson University neuroscientist, Camille Tessitore King.

“To Sleep, Perchance to Remember” will address the complex biological intersection of sleep and memory. The presentation will focus on the neuroscientific research that highlights the negative impact a lack of sleep has on learning and memory.

“The inability to remember affects all of us,” explained King. “Understanding more fully sleep’s role in memory processing might lead to new approaches to help students learn more effectively and older people hold onto their memories as they age.”

She will speak Thursday, March 23, at 7 p.m. in the museum at 234 E. Michigan Ave. in DeLand.

Tessitore King, Chair and Professor of Psychology, received her undergraduate (B.A) and graduate (M.A. & Ph.D.) degrees in biological psychology from the University of Virginia and completed post-doctoral positions at the University of Michigan and the University of Florida.

King has published numerous articles on the effects of taste nerve degeneration and regeneration on neuronal activity and taste-related behaviors in rats as well as on the role of the taste cortex in taste behaviors. She has been a co-investigator on several grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, including one with her husband, Michael King, Professor of Biology at Stetson.

King has received the Hand Award for Excellence in Research; was honored for her outstanding work with undergraduates by a Faculty Advisor Research Grant from Psi Chi (the international honor society in psychology); and has also received Stetson’s prestigious McEniry Award for Teaching.

Her passion is teaching about the brain. In addition to her regular courses, she previously served as coordinator of the Betty Batson Bell Brain & Learning Lecture series and has plans to restart the series in 2017-18.  She is also passionate about cooking, and admits that she secretly hope to open a small restaurant one day.

“For years Professor King has guided the Gillespie Museum in its annual observance of Brain Awareness Week,” explains director Karen Cole, Ph.D.  “We’re eager for her lively and well-researched conversation about a critical issue for all of us.  And we have it on her authority that the dark chocolate so central our Science Café fare is an important brain food.”

This event is free to the public and offers cultural credit to Stetson University students. For more information on the Science Café series, contact Director Karen Cole at [email protected] or visit the museum website at www2.stetson.edu/gillespie.