Where is NW Noggin?
Our innovative graduate and undergraduate art and neuroscience volunteers are Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) Juice award-winning developing experts in science communication, synapsing for science, and teaching in schools, theaters, museums, urban and rural communities, homeless youth centers, breweries, correctional facilities, Congress and bike shop pubs! For more information see NOGGIN BLOGGIN.NW Noggin is a locally sourced, 501(c)(3) ALL-VOLUNTEER shoestring nonprofit organization. Your tax-deductible contribution supports the purchase of sheep brains, pipe cleaners, electrodes and clay for innovative, arts-integrated outreach, and helps send volunteers from local universities (including Portland State University, OHSU, and other area institutions) to public school classrooms, conferences and free community events.
DONATE HERE!
LEARN MORE: Community Neuroscience: How to Build an Outreach Organization
NW Noggin: Art + Brains
Community Neuroscience: Interview with Dana!
An axe to the head
COVID in the Classroom
Join us in Chile in *2027*!
In 2027 we'll return to Valparaíso, Chile, home of the Humboldt squid! 🦑⚡️🧠🎨😃 Just like in 2025, and 2023, we'll explore how neurons carry information, and how research in Chile (involving the squid’s giant fused axons) informed our understanding of the electrical signaling that links our experiences to the world. We’ll visit laboratories to examine the rich history and exciting present of research at the Universidad de Chile en Valparaíso, make art (including arpilleras, woven depictions of experience that help people express challenging memories and preserve them for accountability), and contribute to community engagement with Ciencia al Tiro, a local STEAM (STEM + Arts) outreach nonprofit.
LEARN MORE: LAS NEURONAS SON BACANES. LEARN MORE: Valparaiso - Arte y Cerebros en Chile LEARN MORE: ARTS AND BRAINS IN CHILE
Do high-rises endanger your health?
Post by Dasha Gernega, an undergraduate pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and an Interdisciplinary Neuroscience minor at Portland State University. I’ve been at PSU for about four years now so I’m a senior getting ready to graduate. I feel like I’ve consumed an extensive amount of knowledge on development…
Do I breathe correctly?
By Taiki Grover, an undergraduate in Speech & Hearing Sciences pursuing a minor in Interdisciplinary Neuroscience at Portland State University. Taiki is also a research intern at BreatheWorks, a speech and myofunctional therapy clinic in Lake Oswego, Oregon. “Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your…
Inside the MIND (lab)
Post and images by Oscar Moreno, undergraduate in Biology and Interdisciplinary Neuroscience at Portland State University. Oscar is an intern in Dr. Rebekah Huber’s MIND Lab at Oregon Health & Science University. Exploring Sleep, Cognition, and Youth Well-Being Mind Lab logo Created by Lab Member Jaqueline Dwyer In the beginning…
Your Arm, My Brain. Teamwork!
Post by Ana Borders, undergraduate in Speech and Hearing Sciences, who is pursuing an Interdisciplinary Neuroscience minor at Portland State University. Can you imagine being able to control somebody else’s movements directly with your brain…where they lose all control of their own arm, and control is instead handed to you?…
How Many Brains Are There?
Post by Vivi Sierra, an undergraduate studying Psychology and minoring in Interdisciplinary Neuroscience at Portland State University. Vivi is curious to explore how environmental interactions affect how our bodies and brains perceive the world. When I started visiting schools with Northwest Noggin I was nervous. Speaking with people tends to…
When KNEW meets NEW
The Neuroscience of Multigenerational Networks Ginger Lee Owens, is a new mom and Portland State University Honors College undergraduate studying Biology and Interdisciplinary Neuroscience. Her passion for child development grew more profound the moment she learned she was expecting. Determined to nurture her daughter’s brain development “from gestation to graduation,”…
Teaching is not a career for me
Post by Jessica Vilaysanh, undergraduate at Portland State University, who graduates this December with a Bachelor’s of Science in Psychology, Social Science, and Liberal Studies. They are also triple minoring in Women’s Studies, Interdisciplinary Neuroscience, and Civic Leadership. After their gap year, where they hopefully get their Yu-Gi-Oh Worlds Championship…
Placemaking @ Portland State
How did you get to work or school today? Do you always travel the same route? Do you walk, bike or drive along consistent roadways, taking familiar turns by well-known landmarks? Is your path so regular and dependable that you barely register the details as you make your way in?…
Memoria, Arte y Cerebros en Chile!
STAY TUNED: We’ll return to Chile for another art and neuroscience program in June and July of 2027 (~15 students max)! Participation meets the outreach requirement for the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience minor at Portland State University. In 2025 we returned south, as weones del norte, to the gorgeous, compelling, art and…
Safe Places in Unsafe Times
Neuroprotection for Children in War Post by Jennifer Logan, a Honors undergraduate studying the intersection of psychological resilience and ethnobotany. She is double majoring in Psychology and Indigenous Nations Studies, with a minor in Interdisciplinary Neuroscience and Indigenous Traditional Ecological and Cultural Knowledge at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon.…
What is outreach like?
“I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back.” ―Maya Angelou
Our Northwest Noggin undergraduate and graduate outreach volunteers are enthusiastic and informed, and regularly let knowledge serve by going places, making art, exploring brain research, sharing stories and listening to community questions and interests in urban and rural K-12 public schools, coffee shops, museums, correctional facilities, houseless youth nonprofits, research conferences, Congress and more! LEARN MORE @ What is outreach like?.