Editorial 2011

Katie:
The year of 2010 was one of immense growth for us here at IMPULSE. We were very excited to welcome Furman University and St. Olaf College as new reviewer training sites. In addition, the University of the Free State, located in South Africa, became our first international reviewer training site, bringing our total to seven! This year IMPULSE members attended four neuroscience meetings across the globe. We started the year off with a record number of IMPULSE members gathering at SYNAPSE in Winston-Salem, NC. Our Executive Editor, Chase Francis, took IMPULSE to the Netherlands to present at FENS. I was lucky enough to be invited to Ohio Weslyan University to run a breakout session about IMPULSE as both an opportunity for undergraduate publishing and peer reviewing at the second annual mGluRs conference. And again a record number of representatives from USC, App State, Furman, and Middlebury met up at the Society for Neuroscience Conference in San Diego. This year our annual dinner for the current student members and faculty advisors was also attended by some of our fabulous alumni! While IMPULSE continues to grow, its potential to enhance undergraduate education continues to increase. As I enter my final semester as Editor-in-Chief I look back with fond memories and know that IMPULSE has provided me innumerable opportunities for learning and growth. I have found here not only great colleagues and mentors, but also friends that will last a lifetime. And as I pass the reins to Kate's capable hands, I am excited to watch as IMPULSE's bright future unfolds!

Kate:
IMPULSE is entering its eighth year of existence, an incredible feat for a journal with such humble beginnings. I believe that IMPULSE now plays an important role in the lives of undergraduate neuroscientists around the world and I am excited to be training for the role of Editor-in-Chief. IMPULSE has a total of thirty-four universities with reviewers on campus and seven reviewer training sites. In the coming year we will continue to attend neuroscience meetings, including SYNAPSE. at Wake Forest University and the Society for Neuroscience Conference in Washington, D.C. By reaching out at meetings IMPULSE is not only introducing more of the scientific community to its work but also introducing the IMPULSE reviewers to the professional world. We anticipate beginning a new program in the following months to research the effect that working with IMPULSE has on students, their writing skills, familiarity with the publishing process, and readiness for graduate work. By publishing quantitative data on the importance of IMPULSE in undergraduates' academic lives we should be able to expand IMPULSE further and send even more reviewers to neuroscience meetings. We are also pleased to announce that one of our USC reviewers, Matthew Fisher, has created an online tutorial for new student reviewers that is now posted on our website. The tutorial takes students through the review process – both the editors' and the reviewers' roles. We will use it in classes at Reviewer Training Sites to provide an introduction to the review process and as a source to refer to when editing and posting on the website. Once my training is complete, I hope to continue the excellent work of my predecessors. This will be another great year for IMPULSE and I am proud to be a part of it.