B.S. University of Notre Dame, 1996
Ph.D. Harvard University, 2001
Post-Doctoral, Molecular Neurogenetics Unit, MGH, Boston, 2001-2003

I am a neuro-developmental biologist/geneticist interested in neurological disease. As an assistant professor at the College of Charleston I currently run an NIH funded research program that has supported 14 undergraduates over the past 4 years. Most of those students have presented their work at the Society for Neuroscience and/or the regional SYNAPSE meeting.

I joined FUN through my participation in the SOMAS program. My desire to become more involved in the FUN community was sparked by my attending the PKAL/FUN neuroscience education workshop that was held at Macalester College. Following that meeting I was part of a curriculum development committee that successfully designed, proposed, and implemented a new interdisciplinary minor in neuroscience that is jointly run by the Biology and Psychology Departments. During my tenure as a FUN councilor, I have helped review the last two rounds of FUN student travel grants and I am currently helping with the organization of the upcoming FUN poster session in San Diego. In addition, I represented FUN with Eric Wiertelak running a workshop on neuroscience curriculum development at the most recent PKAL National Assembly. Finally, I have supported our southeast regional undergraduate neuroscience network by actively participating in the SYNAPSE symposium at Davidson College. I am currently one of the organizers for the next SYNAPSE symposium that will be held at the College of Charleston in 2008 and 2009.

I received a B.S. in Chemistry (University of Detroit) and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry (Wayne State University, School of Medicine). I have been at the University of Detroit Mercy (UDM) for my entire career and, currently, I am a Professor of Biochemistry. Two sabbaticals allowed me to be a Visiting Research Investigator in Neurology at the University of Michigan and a Guest Researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health. My current research deals with the distribution in brain of the three alpha subunit isoforms of the sodium/potassium ATPase. This work is carried out with the help of talented undergraduate students, some of whom have been recipients of FUN travel awards.

Our Department focuses on undergraduate education and I thoroughly enjoy working with undergraduate students. My teaching obligations include a senior seminar course that has a strong neurochemistry unit in which the students read review and journal articles from the current literature. As a prerequisite for graduation, UDM requires students to participate in a course that focuses on societal issues. Therefore, students in this course also discuss the societal concerns related to the research articles that they read.

M.A. International Institute of Education, Rome, Italy
M.D./Ph.D. University of Navarra, Spain

I joined FUN in 2000, and from then on I have participated actively in the FUN Social / Poster Session held during the Society for Neuroscience Meeting.

Since 1999 I have supervised 28 students in my laboratory, 15 of them undergraduates, and I have published 9 peer-reviewed papers with 10 students’ as coauthors, of which 6 were undergraduates at the time the work was performed. Some of my students have presented their work at the SfN/FUN Session, and been selected as recipients for the Travel award. With the growing recognition of the importance of undergraduate research, increasing support for the undergraduate participation in this and similar venues is clearly a high priority.

In June 2001, I was fortunate to participate in a meeting organized by the Project Kaleidoscope and the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience at Trinity College, in Hartford (CT). That workshop on “Undergraduate Neuroscience Education: from the Enchanted Loom to the World Wide Web” was a turning point in my career, as I discovered the scientific and educational possibilities of building Neuroscience Programs at the undergraduate level. I believe FUN should actively support the development of these and similar events, particularly regional forums.

Over the past few years, I have been an active member of FUN. I have contributed to the organization’s journal and to Project Kaleidoscope/FUN workshops and students in my lab and I have taken advantage of FUN symposia to present our research findings. In addition, I have been active in soliciting funding from sustaining members. I am seeking your support 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 our efforts by seeking ways to enhance sponsor contributions, faculty membership, and visibility of the organization. I would particularly encourage expanding the membership base to include more faculty from comprehensive and overseas institutions and strengthening the organization’s ties with non-scientist students and faculty. In addition, I would encourage seeking ways for FUN to lend support to regional initiatives that could provide experiences for the bulk of students unable to attend national meetings. I was a member of the team that launched the MidBrains regional undergraduate neuroscience conference, and I think it might be useful to discuss how FUN could aid in the development and promotion of this and similar regional meetings.

I am a member of the Neurosciences Program and the Psychology Department at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. I earned a Ph.D. from Rutgers University, and I conducted post-doctoral research at Yale University and at UCSF. I teach introductory psychology and lab-based courses in our neuroscience and psychology curricula. In addition, I mentor a number of talented undergraduate research students. Work in our lab is investigating how muscarinic signaling mechanisms modulate ventral striatal neuronal activity and influence behaviors dependent on ventral striatal circuitry. Thanks for considering my candidacy.

Meg Kirkpatrick
Councilor

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Meg Kirkpatrick - Nominee for Councilor
Department of Psychology and Psychobiolgy Program
Wheaton College
Norton, Massachusetts

I received my A.B from Smith College in 1993 and my Ph.D. from Dartmouth in 1999. I spent three years as a postdoctoral fellow at University of Massachusetts Amherst in the Center for Neuroendocrine Studies. I am now an Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department and the Psychobiology Program at Wheaton College in Massachusetts.

The majority of courses I teach focus on issues in Neuroscience (Brain, Mind and Behavior; Drugs and Behavior; Psychobiology of Sex and Gender; Laboratory in Behavioral Neuroscience). I enjoy teaching these courses to interested majors but I am also thrilled that these courses have become attractive to many non-majors. It is an exciting opportunity to introduce the field to students normally intimidated by these and other science course. I have always been active in mentoring undergraduate student research, even as a graduate student. My research group usually has 3-4 students and I have prioritized including students in research posters and presentations.

I’m Associate Professor of Neuroscience in the Dept. of Biomedical Sciences at Virginia Tech’s veterinary college. I received my B.A. in Psychology from SUNY Stony Brook where my interest in neuroscience was sparked by a particular faculty member. I received my Ph.D. in Biopsychology from CUNY Graduate School and was an NIH Post-Doctoral Fellow in Neuroanatomy/Neurophysiology at Rutgers Medical School. Ironically, at Virginia Tech, I filled a position vacated by the faculty member who inspired my undergraduate interest in neuroscience. This made me realize the importance of a rich exposure to undergraduate neuroscience in shaping the careers of future neuroscientists.

I invested much time attempting development of an undergraduate neuroscience program at Virginia Tech. Given the continuing expansion of neuroscience research and strides in understanding and treating neural disorders, it’s critical Virginia Tech contribute to educating future neuroscientists. This would enhance the university’s life sciences reputation and provide excellent opportunities/experiences in interdisciplinary education, and in research, for undergraduates. In addition to teaching courses in neurobiology and neurochemistry, I’ve contributed to undergraduate neuroscience research projects for students in engineering, biology, chemistry and minority summer programs. I’ve also provided opportunities for undergraduates in my current Parkinson's disease research.

I entered the field of neuroscience late in my career, after a B.A. in Physics from Williams College and a marine ecology-based Ph. D. in Biology from Stanford. My postdoctoral fellowship in the chemosensory ecology of crustaceans at the University of California, Berkeley prompted me to teach myself neuroscience. My appointment to a tenure-track position at Denison University, with teaching responsibilities in animal physiology and neurophysiology, revved that self-education into overdrive.

I relied heavily on JUNE and other neuroscience web resources to create my first neurophysiology course. I have now successfully taught neuroscience at nearly all undergraduate levels, from a “response to stimuli” unit as part of our introductory biology and neuroscience courses to an advanced neurophysiology lecture and lab course. Last summer I ran a research-based “brain boot camp” focused on the neuroscience of decision-making. Next spring I will offer a non-majors class called “Sex, Gender, and the Brain”. I also mentor and advise research students, who work with me on crayfish olfactory biomechanics. Qualified students become coauthors and copresentors.

Because I initially depended so heavily on resources like JUNE, I now feel strong motivation to develop and contribute resources back to the community that helped me. I published in JUNE a lab I created for advanced neurophysiology. I also contributed to the mission of FUN by joining a PKAL workshop on undergraduate neuroscience education and by participating in an electrophysiology workshop sponsored in part by FUN. In addition, two colleagues and I conceived, raised funds for and ran a Denison-based GLCA conference on teaching undergraduate neuroscience.

As a councilor, I would like to foster the continued development of the learning community created by FUN. I would like to create a website to share syllabi, movies, undergraduate research, and other teaching items that do not fall under JUNE’s purview.

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Seth Ramus - Nominee for Councilor
Psychology and Neuroscience
Bowdoin College
Brunswick, Maine

I am an assistant professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Bowdoin College, where I am currently working with seven undergraduate research students. My own career in research began when I was an undergraduate at Berkeley, where I was lucky enough to stumble into one of the few laboratories that really supported and encouraged undergraduate students. This rich experience was pivotal for me, and important enough that it shaped my own career choices to work at an institution that values and supports young scientists. I completed my graduate work in Neurosciences at UCSD, where I studied the medial temporal lobe memory system in nonhuman primates, and I turned to rodent models of learning for my post-doctoral work. Currently, my lab focuses on the role of the hippocampus in episodic memory, and in neurophysiological studies of hippocampal-neocortal interactions during long-term memory tasks.

During my five years at Bowdoin, my students have regularly presented their work at SfN, FUN, and other national meetings. I have recently published a paper with student co-authors, and we are currently preparing 2 additional manuscripts. I have drawn heavily on support from FUN and its affiliates, participating in FUN sponsored events, and in 2005 I received a SOMAS award. I have also published an article in JUNE on integrating real science into the classroom by setting up inter-institutional collaborations. As my experience with undergraduate research at Berkeley encouraged me to set up an equally rich experience in my own laboratory, my experiences with FUN have encouraged me to want to reach out to serve others in kind. In particular, I have become involved with issues of recruiting and retaining minorities and women in the sciences, both as a member of PKAL’s F21, and by developing student programs on my own campus. As a FUN councilor I would want to continue enriching undergraduate research experiences, especially among underrepresented groups.

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. During my graduate years 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. Currently, I am developing an undergraduate neuroscience program at the University of Portland.

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. I have been active in Nu Rho Psi (the new national honor society for Neuroscience) and have just been awarded an NSF grant to develop service learning opportunities in Neuroscience.

I have been a member of FUN for several years and my participation in the FUN/PKAL program on neuroscience curricula and the IFEL tour course on electrophysiology sponsored by FUN have fueled my desire to serve the organization as a councilor. I have found many benefits from these programs, both in the information gathered and the interactions had with faculty from other institutions. I would like to contribute to the design and implementation of other programs that would foster skills and collaborations that can be used in the design of neuroscience programs and of neuroscience courses. I have served as a reviewer for a chapter application for Nu Rho Psi, the undergraduate neuroscience honor society and will soon submit an application to house a chapter at OWU. I have also published in the Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education.

Thank you for your consideration of my candidacy. I would welcome the opportunity to contribute to the work of FUN.

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Jared Young - Nominee for Councilor
Mills College
Oakland, California

I have a great passion for quality undergraduate neuroscience teaching and research. I love engaging students in the classroom, and mentoring students individually in the research laboratory and during office hours. I also enjoy working with colleagues to improve the Departmental and College-wide curriculum and services. I hope for the opportunity to work with faculty and students to enhance the effectiveness of FUN. 

I am an Assistant Professor at Mills College , a small (~ 930 undergrads) women’s college in Oakland, CA. Here I have the privilege of working with women of great diversity. In our incoming class this year, 49% of students self identify as women of color, and 30% are first generation to college. I have experienced the great benefit that this diversity has for the educational experience of all students, and hope to encourage increasing diversity within FUN and the neuroscience community.

I hold a BA in Molecular and Cell Biology from Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from UCSD. My graduate research was on signal transduction in plant stomatal guard cells . . . but wait, they actually have quite a bit in common with neurons. A closet neuroscientist as a grad student, I took the opportunity to focus on Neuroscience as a faculty member, initiating a research program on learned behaviors in C. elegans. This research is conducted solely with undergrads. I resurrected our Neurobiology course and am a primary advisor for our Biopsychology major.