UK College of Medicine student earns top award in national brain video contest
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LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 21, 2025) — Combining his passion for research and creativity, a University of Kentucky student is breaking barriers — literally and figuratively.
Joshua Moses, a graduate research assistant and second-year medical student in the Department of Physiology in the UK College of Medicine, is committed to both research and science communication. His engaging and educational video about the blood-brain barrier recently won the top award in a national contest held by BrainFacts.org and the Society for Neuroscience. The video highlights the blood-brain barrier’s essential role in maintaining the body’s balance or homeostasis.
“I’m exploring science communication in my own way, particularly through mass media,” said Moses. “When I started my Ph.D. program, I created the brand ‘The PhD Himbo,’ with the tagline, ‘I’m the male Elle Woods.’”
Moses noted that Elle Woods wasn’t the typical image of someone in law school and he deeply related to that as a person of color. However, the support he received from those around him encouraged him to persevere. When he entered his Ph.D. program, he made it his mission to inspire others, showing them that they too could succeed in science, even if they didn’t see many people who shared their background.
“I was studying the blood-brain barrier, the BBB, for an exam and I thought, ‘You already have it mapped out in your head, so why not turn it into music?’” he said. “I often create songs in my head to help remember different concepts. That’s how the BBB story came to be.”
Moses says he has always been both a right- and left-brain thinker. As a child, he attended science camps as well as theater and acting classes, including improv and background acting. His inspirations for science communication include Bill Nye, The Magic School Bus, Sid the Science Kid, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Dora the Explorer.
Driven by a desire to communicate science effectively, Moses focuses on finding ways to make scientific concepts accessible and engaging for people from all educational backgrounds with the goal of bridging the gap between science and the general public.
“I will say translating science has been one of the biggest challenges, finding the right words to convey accurate details while making the information accessible to different audiences,” said Moses. “In this video, I start with the structure of the BBB. Then, we go into the history and the research.”
Moses works in the lab of John Gensel, Ph.D., director of the Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center (SCoBIRC) and SCoBRIC Endowed Chair No. 5. Last summer, Gensel helped Moses find an internship through the Integrated Biomedical Sciences program focused on science communication. Through that internship, he worked on a three-part miniseries on SCoBIRC with the UK College of Medicine marketing communications team.
“I had my expertise, but they just expanded it so much, allowed me to just create in that space and grow as a content creator," he said. "It has been amazing.”
Moses is also passionate about providing opportunities for those who want to learn science but are apprehensive.
“I really want to give an opportunity to those people who may be a little intimidated,” he said. “I want to them know that the science that we do is for them, we want you to be able to understand and anyone can do it. That’s the impact that I want to have.”
As the state’s flagship, land-grant institution, the University of Kentucky exists to advance the Commonwealth. We do that by preparing the next generation of leaders — placing students at the heart of everything we do — and transforming the lives of Kentuckians through education, research and creative work, service and health care. We pride ourselves on being a catalyst for breakthroughs and a force for healing, a place where ingenuity unfolds. It's all made possible by our people — visionaries, disruptors and pioneers — who make up 200 academic programs, a $476.5 million research and development enterprise and a world-class medical center, all on one campus.