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
Who’s really good at asking “why?”
Flexing frontal lobes at Floyd Light SUN
Can music orchestrate emotional intelligence?
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
Lyubov Bachinskaya: Wait – what’s a neuron?
Post written by Portland State University undergraduate Lyubov Bachinskaya Spending time with others involved in NW Noggin was a great experience for me and helped validate the direction I want to go in my life. This is such an exciting option for undergraduates to explore and get involved in even…
Basal ganglia @ Beaumont!
“There are billions of neurons in our brains, but what are neurons? Just cells. The brain has no knowledge until connections are made between neurons. All that we know, all that we are, comes from the way our neurons are connected.” – Tim Berners-Lee We’ve had so many outreach events…
Jeff Leake wins Arte Laguna Prize!
Our own Jeff Leake, co-founder and Arts Coordinator for NW Noggin, an Instructor in University Studies and Psychology at Portland State University, a Teacher Advisory Council member for the Portland Art Museum and an accomplished artist and co-owner of Portland’s Gallery 114 has won a prestigious international art award known…
Michael Deveney: Little hands holding brains
Post by Michael Deveney, Noggin volunteer from Portland State University First of all, the OHSU Brain Fair at the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry (OMSI) was AWESOME! I had a blast and I look forward to helping more in the future. Thank you for this opportunity. LEARN MORE: Putting…
Putting the brains in Brain Fair!
We enthusiastically returned to one of the nation’s largest Brain Fairs on Saturday at the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry (OMSI) to continue our vigorous efforts at brain awareness with THREE long tables piled high with pipe cleaners, jars of ink, sketch pads, electrodes, Mindflex Duels, formalin-fixed human and other…
Hallucinations @ HeLa High
We love visiting with Susie Ridgeway, a Human Anatomy and Physiology teacher, and her curious students at Henrietta Lacks High School in in the Evergreen Public School system near PeaceHealth hospital in the suburbs of Vancouver. We’ve been dropping by with brains, art and our Noggin volunteers for several years… (We also…
Tres Escuelas en un Día!
Oregon is beautiful! One of the great advantages of leaving campus for outreach beyond the urban core is meeting extraordinary students, teachers and staff, and exploring stunning, often Tolkien-like landscapes of the Pacific Northwest… During this season of Brain Awareness, we’ve set ambitious outreach goals, and on a glorious March…
Black Art, School & Dreams: Exquisite corpse @ Velo
“It’s about reimagining icons and perceptions of what is beautiful—and who is beautiful.” –Elia Alba Come with me, now I need you (2007), by Mickalene Thomas Brains thrive and develop in distributed networks, linking rich nodes of cortical gray matter through propagating axonal threads. This process requires risks and consequences,…
Ten Ways to Support the Arts (& Science!)
“To be creative means to connect” –Nawal El Saadawi NW Noggin was thrilled and honored to receive an award on behalf of our extraordinary community outreach volunteers at the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) Juice breakfast ceremony at the Portland Art Museum! LEARN MORE: RACC Announces the 2018 Juice Honorees Juice is…
High energy Hosford: Tumors, music & drugs!
Another merry band of volunteer neuroscience educators arrived in southeast Portland this morning, eager to make art, show brains and answer questions from 6th graders at Hosford Middle School! We’re fast approaching Brain Awareness Week, an annual celebration of high energy (noradrenergic?) neuroscience outreach initiated by the Dana Foundation, a leading philanthropic organization that supports…
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?.