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Vote now for new FUN officers. Ballots will be accepted by electronic mail until 12 midnight (PST) Wednesday, September 27, 2006. | VOTER ELIGIBILITY AND BALLOT INFORMATION | |
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STATEMENTS
from nominees running for FUN Office are listed below. (Nominations for President-elect, Treasurer, and Councilor were closed on June 30, 2006.) Responsibilities for each office
are described in the FUN Bylaws. Current officers
are listed on the FUN Officers and Committees page.
VOTER ELIGIBILITY AND BALLOT INFORMATION:
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Nominees (2) for President-elect:
| Wendy Hill
| Bruce Johnson
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Wendy Hill - Nominee for President-elect
I received my B.A. from Douglass College at Rutgers University and my Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Washington. I am currently the Rappolt Professor of Neuroscience at Lafayette College. My research focuses on the neural and evolutionary mechanisms mediating the social behaviors of animals. I teach courses in Physiological Psychology, Psychopharmacology, Animal Behavior, and Advanced Neuroscience. During my 17 years as a faculty member, I have mentored more than 100 students in my laboratory and have been honored to receive teaching and research awards from Lafayette College. In addition, I was selected the 1999 Pennsylvania Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and was recently awarded a James McKeen Catell Fellowship. I have been instrumental in creating Lafayette’s Neuroscience Program and served as Chair for eight years, during which time I was successful in acquiring funds to support pedagogical initiatives. I have been an active member of FUN and recently completed a term as Councilor (2003-2005). I would be honored to serve as President and welcome the opportunity to work towards fulfilling FUN’s mission to advance and support undergraduate education in neuroscience. I look forward to actively engaging the membership of FUN so that we develop creative ways 1) to increase FUN’s visibility and impact on the national level, 2) to promote and strengthen our flagship journal JUNE and the NEURON and SYNAPSE conferences, and 3) to help meet the needs of faculty, especially junior faculty, involved in teaching and doing research on neuroscience with undergraduates.| TOP OF PAGE | HOME | PRESIDENT-ELECT | TREASURER | LIST OF COUNCILORS | |
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Bruce Johnson President-elect |
Bruce Johnson - Nominee for President-elect
B.A. Florida State University I have been an active FUN member since the early days of our organization, contributing, for example, as a workshop presenter for all the FUN/PKAL meetings, as a FUN Councilor, and as a founding and continuing member of the JUNE editorial board. As a neuroscience educator and research neurophysiologist, I’ve focused my teaching on laboratory resources to help undergraduates understand cellular and molecular principles of nervous system function. At Cornell I teach an undergraduate laboratory course entitled Principles of Neurophysiology. The material in this course developed “Crawdad: a CD-ROM lab manual for Neurophysiology”, co-authored with Ron Hoy and Bob Wyttenbach. Other related, undergraduate teaching activities include director of an HHMI funded laboratory techniques course, co-director of Neurobiology of Animal Behavior at the Shoals Marine Laboratory; co-organizer of teaching laboratory workshops for faculty in the NSF-sponsored Crawdad workshops and for the recent Introduction to FUN Electrophysiology Labs workshop. I have also taught neuroscience laboratory courses for graduate students in a Fulbright sponsored course at the University of Copenhagen, and in the Neural Systems and Behavior course at the Marine Biological Laboratory. I continue to develop student laboratory exercises with NSF funding for the Neuron Connection, as co-PI with Carol Ann Paul and Julio Ramirez. My research investigates the cellular and synaptic mechanisms of motor network plasticity. As President of FUN, I would continue to strengthen our commitment to the student travel awards and to JUNE, and encourage FUN’s sponsorship of faculty development workshops. My other priorities are to increase research university and corporate sponsorship of FUN activities, and to promote student and faculty minority representation in FUN.| TOP OF PAGE | HOME | PRESIDENT-ELECT | TREASURER | LIST OF COUNCILORS | |
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Gayle Brosnan-Watters Treasurer |
Gayle Brosnan-Watters - Nominee for Treasurer
Department of Psychology Slippery Rock University, PA When I became treasurer in 2002, FUN had 35 dues paying members. By 2004 it was 229, and 150 people have already paid this year. I have worked hard to increase the number of members who pay dues. I have been responsible for investing the endowments received from the Grass Foundation, and by investing that with funds earned at last year’s SfN meeting and since then, we have earned enough money in 12 months to fund at least three travel awards. I worked with the executive committee to raise the dues to $35 per year, thus allowing FUN to fund more travel awards, pay for increased SfN expenses, fund the Journal for Neuroscience Education budget, help fund at least one workshop for FUN members, and to begin to take fiscal responsibility for our web site previously funded by BEEMNET. I keep a spreadsheet of paid individual, organizational, and sustaining members. I also maintain our checking and Money Market accounts, keep records of our on line receipts and pay all expenses incurred during the year. During my terms, I applied for and received a FUN AMEX card, which allows better record keeping. Because of increased income, I was responsible for filing FUN’s first-ever income tax return. I implemented a spreadsheet form of record keeping so that the next treasurer will be better able to take the reins. If elected, I plan to move the membership records to an Access data base. I would like to work to convert the rest of the 600 people associated with FUN to dues-paying members so that our dues will cover our meeting expenses, leaving the rest of our income to fund even more travel awards, JUNE, our Website, and future workshops, thus meeting all the goals of Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience. | TOP OF PAGE | HOME | PRESIDENT-ELECT | TREASURER | LIST OF COUNCILORS | |
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Carol Ann Paul Treasurer |
Carol Ann Paul - Nominee for Treasurer
Department of Biological Sciences Wellesley College, MA Carol Ann Paul is a Senior Instructor in Biological Laboratory at Wellesley College where she has taught since 1983. Born in Northern Ireland, she graduated from Keele University, Staffordshire, England. She came to the United States in 1970 where she developed a career in laboratory instruction, teaching at Williams College for 8 years, and Harvard University for 3 years prior to coming to Wellesley College.
Carol Ann specializes in the creation, development and implementation of laboratory programs, especially in Neuroscience and Physiology. This led to the publication in 1997 of Discovering Neurons: The Experimental Basis of Neuroscience. In 2002 she was awarded an NSF CCLI-EMD grant, with Bruce Johnson and Julio Ramirez to create a web based collection of neuroscience laboratories called The Neuron Connection. She has been actively involved in FUN since its inception, has presented posters many times in the Teaching of Neuroscience section at SFN meetings, has presented labs at all of the PKAL Neuroscience workshops and is on the editorial board of JUNE. This past July she was one of four instructors teaching an Introduction to Electrophysiology workshop at Bowdoin College. Carol Ann is well qualified to be treasurer of FUN since she has been a bookkeeper as a back-up job in her early years, is currently the treasurer for the family business and loves to do analyses on Excel.| TOP OF PAGE | HOME | PRESIDENT-ELECT | TREASURER | LIST OF COUNCILORS | |
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Ilsun White - Nominee for Treasurer
Department of Psychology Morehead State University, KY http://people2.moreheadstate.edu/fs/i.white/ I received a PhD in Behavioral neuroscience at Indiana University, Bloomington, and received postdoctoral training at the NIH. I was a senior scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Switzerland. My husband and I joined the Psychology Department at Morehead State University in Fall 2001. Through teaching and research I introduce students to various topics in neuroscience. I teach Physiological Psychology, Drugs and Behavior, Independent Research, and Introductory Psychology. My research focuses on the involvement of the mesolimbic system in higher order learning, such as shifting of context-appropriate rules. I am also interested in the involvement of the mesolimbic dopamine system in mental disorders and drug abuse. I employ a rodent model that combines behavioral, neuropharmacological, and neurophysiological (single-cell recording) approaches to investigate behavioral processes. I have also begun working on human EEG/ERP recordings to investigate human application of the animal model. Morehead State is an undergraduate institution located in Eastern Kentucky. There has been a significant growth in students’ interest in neuroscience in the past five years. This is thrilling. I have been involved in FUN since 2003, served as a councilor and learned about effective ways to involve students in neuroscience and enhance their awareness of it. I am applying for the treasurer position to learn more and contribute to neuroscience education in our region. This is a particularly exciting time to join and be actively involved in FUN. | TOP OF PAGE | HOME | PRESIDENT-ELECT | TREASURER | LIST OF COUNCILORS | |
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Nominees (7) for Councilor:
(Vote for 3)
| Ron Bayline | Graham Cousens | William Grisham | Leslie Sargent Jones | | Deborah O'Dell | Jeff Smith | Jan Thornton | |
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Ronald Bayline Councilor |
Ronald Bayline - Nominee for Councilor
Biology and Neuroscience Washington and Jefferson College, Washington PA I have been an Assistant Professor of Biology and Neuroscience at Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, PA, a national liberal arts college near Pittsburgh, since 2001. My previous academic experience includes graduate study at Cornell University (Ph.D. in Neurobiology and Behavior, 1998), Visiting Assistant Professor at Pomona College (1997-1998), and Postdoctoral Research Associate at The University of Arizona (1998-2001). Since arriving at W&J in the fall of 2001, I have served as the chair of the neuroscience program, working with faculty members in biology, physics, and psychology to develop a new interdisciplinary neuroscience minor. I previously served as a FUN councilor from 2002-2004, helping to organize the FUN poster session. In my research, I investigate the regulation of muscle development by motor neurons and hormones in an insect model system, the moth Manduca sexta . I have been a strong advocate for undergraduate research, sponsoring three student presentations at the FUN poster session over the past two years. I look forward to continuing to work with FUN. | TOP OF PAGE | HOME | PRESIDENT-ELECT | TREASURER | LIST OF COUNCILORS | |
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Graham Cousens Councilor |
Graham Cousens - Nominee for Councilor
Department of Psychology Macalester College, St. Paul MN Over the past few years, I have been an active member of FUN. I have contributed to the organization’s journal and to recent PKAL/FUN workshop activities, and students in my lab and I have taken advantage of FUN symposia to present our research findings. These experiences have been rewarding, but they’ve also been influential in shaping my thoughts about my role as an educator, both at my institution and as a member of the neuroscience community. I am seeking election as councilor because I appreciate the important role FUN has played in promoting neuroscience education at the undergraduate level and because I would like to make more substantive contributions to this effort. As councilor, I would support strengthening existing programs promoting the teaching and learning of neuroscience by seeking ways to enhance sponsor contributions, faculty membership, and visibility of the organization. In addition, I would support expansion of FUN activities to stimulate student discussion of public policy issues related to neuroscience. Organizing mini-symposia addressing issues such as the science divide between industrialized and developing nations and the potential of stem cell research in combating disease would be an effective way for us to stimulate broad interest in neuroscience, contribute to the intellectual development of our students, and strengthen the organization’s ties with non-scientist students and faculty. I am an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Macalester College. I earned a Ph.D. from Rutgers University, and I served as a post-doctoral fellow at Yale School of Medicine and at UCSF. I teach introductory psychology, lab-based courses in cognitive neuroscience and learning theory, and a tutorial in neurophysiology. In addition, I mentor a number of talented undergraduate research students. Work in our lab is investigating the role of neuropeptides in regulating ethanol self-administration and ventral striatal neural activity associated with goal-directed behavior. | TOP OF PAGE | HOME | PRESIDENT-ELECT | TREASURER | LIST OF COUNCILORS | |
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William Grisham - Nominee for Councilor
Psychology - Behavioral Neuroscience University of California, Los Angeles My graduate training at Bryn Mawr College (Ph.D.) and University of Nebraska at Omaha (M.A.) focused on comparative psychology, neuroscience, and hormones and behavior. My current research on the neural basis of birdsong is the outgrowth of this training. I consistently involve undergraduates in my research and have published in refereed journals with undergraduate coauthors and presented their work at SfN meetings. I have published in the Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education (JUNE) with undergraduate coauthors and received JUNE’s Editor’s Choice Award for Outstanding Neuroscience Laboratory Education Article. I currently serve on the editorial board of JUNE. I teach undergraduates on a full-time basis at UCLA, and I am very committed to undergraduate neuroscience education. I presently teach 18 sections of lab courses per year, serving nearly 300 students. Since starting at UCLA in 1996, I have received four teaching awards, including the UCLA Academic Senate Distinguished Lecturer Award and the Brian P. Copenhaver Award for Innovation in Teaching with Technology. I have been a Councilor of FUN for the past two years, serving on the Travel Awards Committee and the Finance Committee, as well as working the booth at SfN. I feel deeply indebted to FUN/PKAL for offering workshops on the teaching of neuroscience. My participation in these workshops has given me valuable hands-on experience in teaching new and exciting laboratory modules. I am also grateful to FUN for providing JUNE, which has also provided me with valuable teaching ideas. I would like to repay my debt of gratitude by serving as a Councilor for another two years, focusing on avenues of faculty development, including JUNE.| TOP OF PAGE | HOME | PRESIDENT-ELECT | TREASURER | LIST OF COUNCILORS | |
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Deborah A. O'Dell - Nominee for Councilor
I received my PhD in Cellular and Developmental Biology from SUNY Stony Brook, and completed a post-doc in Neurophysiology from the Cambridge University, UK. My research examines the cellular basis of behavior, as well as growth and function in the nervous system. Being the only neurobiologist in my department , I have taught neurobiology to both biology and psychology undergraduates since 1992. I enjoy mentoring undergraduate research students in research projects ranging from neurochemistry, neuronal development, neurodegeneration, to the cellular basis of learning and behavior. A number of my students have gone onto graduate school in the Neurosciences. My students have presented their findings at meetings of the Society for Neuroscience, (including the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience session), Virginia Academy of Science and SYNAPSE. I am also a member of the International Brain Research Organization and the International Society for Neuroethology, and am currently section Vice Chair for the "Biology including Microbiology" section of the Virginia Academy of Science. I have been a member of FUN since 1994, and have found it to be a very supportive and encouraging experience. I would like to contribute back to FUN to support the development of neuroscience at the undergraduate level and support undergraduate faculty in the same way that FUN has supported me. | TOP OF PAGE | HOME | PRESIDENT-ELECT | SECRETARY | LIST OF COUNCILORS | |
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Leslie Sargent Jones Councilor |
Leslie Sargent Jones - Nominee for Councilor
Honors College University of South Carolina, Columbia My educational background is Psychology (A.B., Bryn Mawr, ’74) and Neuroscience (Ph.D., Anatomy, Northwestern, ’81; Postdoc Pharmacology/Physiology, Duke, ’85), and my research area has been plasticity, working on behavioral models initially, focusing on cellular correlates later. In recent years, I moved from bench science to working with undergraduates as an Associate Dean in the Honors College at the University of South Carolina. In our small college of 1200, within a University of ~14,000, I teach Introduction to Neuroscience and other neuroscience-related courses. I have been involved in helping to develop a Neuroscience Minor, while promoting research opportunities in all disciplines for undergraduates. The most exciting initiative I have been involved in is working with a group of students to start a neuroscience journal for undergraduates. We created IMPULSE (http://impulse.schc.sc.edu ) because we felt that an outlet was needed for undergraduates and their mentors world-wide to publish research results. This journal, which is hosted at the USC Honors College but is not the official publication of any organization, helps undergraduates see the continuity between their undergraduate research and their future. The journal provides experiences in authorship, reviewing, and editing to interested undergraduate-age students around the world. I also offer a course on Scientific Publishing in Neuroscience, which is required for students joining the review team locally (see http://www.funjournal.org / Vol. 4, Issue 2). Being the Faculty Advisor for these talented students and helping to produce a journal that can serve the needs of F.U.N. members and their students is very rewarding; my hope is that this journal can become an international bridge among future neuroscientists, helping FUN achieve some of its broadest goals. After four years as a FUN member, I would like to contribute to the growing role of FUN in neuroscience education and research. | TOP OF PAGE | HOME | PRESIDENT-ELECT | TREASURER | LIST OF COUNCILORS | |
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Jeff Smith Councilor |
Jeff Smith - Nominee for Councilor
Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences University of Portland - Portland, Oregon I am currently an assistant professor of Psychology and Biology at the University of Portland in Oregon. My Bachelor's degree in psychology was awarded by Georgia College in 1993. Following, I earned my Ph.D. from Emory University in Atlanta Georgia, specializing in behavioral neuroscience. Under the guidance of my advisor, Donald Stein, I developed and expanded my interests in recovery from traumatic brain injury and neuroplasticity. Since beginning my academic career I have worked diligently to support undergraduate neuroscience. My first seven years were spent developing the undergraduate Neuroscience program and laboratories at Mount Union College, supervising over twenty undergraduate theses, several of which have been presented at regional or national meetings and/or are in the process of being published. In recent years, I have been involved in the national chapter of Psi Chi (a national honor society for psychology) serving as a regional councilor for the last few years. I have received distinctions for providing novel opportunities for female undergraduate scientists, for exemplary teaching, and I was also recently named the Midwestern region Psi Chi advisor of the year. I have served as a NSF Panelist (DUE), a panelist for the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation, and ad hoc reviewer for several neuroscience journals. As a FUN councilor, I would like to help the national organization to continue to grow and expand. Two ways that I would like to help in this growth are through the expansion of the mission of our organization to include opportunities for our members to experience neuroscience through different cultures (through support of the development of novel " REU-like" study abroad programs) and to also help expand FUN's involvement in educating those in our communities to the breadth and diversity of the discipline of neuroscience (through community education and outreach programs). | TOP OF PAGE | HOME | PRESIDENT-ELECT | TREASURER | LIST OF COUNCILORS | |
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Jan Thornton Councilor |
Jan Thornton- Nominee for Councilor
Departments of Neuroscience and Biology Oberlin College, Oberlin Ohio I have been a faculty member at Oberlin College since 1990 and a FUN member since 1993. For the Oberlin Neuroscience Dept (Yes, we have an actual Neuro Dept!) I teach a nonmajors course on Science and the Mind, and courses on Hormones, Brain, and Behavior; Neuroendocrine Research Methods; and Behavioral Neuroscience. I received my BS from Portland State University. It was there that I got a chance to do research as an undergraduate and learned how valuable an experience it is for undergraduates. I earned a PhD in Psychology from University of Wisconsin-Madison. My current research examines the effects of gonadal hormones on learning and memory. At Oberlin I generally have 4-6 undergraduate researchers working with me each year. Students and I regularly present at scientific meetings and students are co-authors on published papers. In the past I have organized a national conference on integrating research-like experiences into courses and a series of workshops on the teaching of undergraduate neuroscience. I have been a department chair and am a member of Project Kaleidoscope’s Faculty for the 21st Century. I have attended and helped host FUN-sponsored Neuroscience workshops. As a FUN Councilor I would bring my energy, experience, and organizational skills to help with projects. In particular I would like to help develop mentoring of junior faculty members. I also think the FUN-sponsored workshops have been extremely valuable and would like to help them continue. It would be nice to begin to develop more links to international neuroscience programs. Of course I would like to help FUN continue to help colleges/universities develop undergraduate neuroscience majors. There are many exciting things to be done. I would like to help FUN realize some of them.| TOP OF PAGE | HOME | PRESIDENT-ELECT | TREASURER | LIST OF COUNCILORS | |
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