Hello, fellow neuro-enthusiasts!
Summer is always a time of reflection, and as we look back on the first year of the program, we are establishing this blog as a window into the evolution of USF’s second-newest major. I am eager to welcome our new and returning students to campus in the fall, but first, I would like to start our blogging journey with a look back on some highlights from the first year of the program.
The Neuroscience Major welcomed its first cohort of first-year students in the Fall of 2024. We sought to create a program that prepares students for a variety of careers in fields like research, medicine, technology, engineering, education, law, and policymaking. Students take foundational courses with Neuroscience professors and also benefit from an extended family of remarkable professors in departments like Biology, Psychology, Chemistry, Physics, Math, Computer Science, Data Science, and Philosophy. It has been exciting and satisfying to see how our students have chosen to customize their experiences and chart their own path through the major.
As I continue to work with the upper-division students in the neuroscience minor, I have delighted in discussions with students seeking research opportunities and finding a second home in laboratories at two key partner institutions: UC San Francisco and the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute. Students and recent alumni from the neuroscience minor have studied things like the memory formation circuitry in rodents, the sensitivities of humans learning to echolocate, and the head movements of patients with neurodegenerative disorders. I am so excited to see which new opportunities our students take on in these and other labs going forward.
In August of 2024, we welcomed the department’s first tenure-track faculty member, Dr. Narayan Sankaran. Narayan comes to USF from the Kavli Center for Ethics, Science, and the Public, and maintains connections with his associates there, at UC Berkeley, and at UC San Francisco. A cognitive and computational neuroscientist, his specializations in neuroethics and the human auditory system are a perfect match for our program and its unique mission. Look out for more updates as he gets ready to open the doors of the Auditory Neuroscience & Perception Lab this summer.
Photo credit: Olivia Fontenot, class of 2028
Also in August of 2024, our students began their coursework in neuroscience, taking Introduction to Neuroscience with me and conducting hands-on observations, dissections, experiments, and analyses with Professor Sankaran. For me, the highlight of the class is the capstone project, where students research a neuroscience-related topic of their choosing and produce informative and engaging zines (short, self-published magazines) to share with their family, friends, and future employers. Science communication has long been a passion of mine, and I am constantly looking for ways to bring student projects up to speed with the changing information landscape. As our students seek to “change the world from here,” I am continually impressed by their powers of communication, rhetorical awareness, and developing media literacy skills.
In lab, students dissected sheep brains, measured nervous system responses in an earthworm, peered at cells and embryos under the microscope, carefully measured learning curves, and stimulated their own muscle activity, among many other things. This semester, I was pleased to collaborate on the development of additional labs where students tested their memory, manipulated their motor systems, thought critically about tests for bias, and soon, will pitch their own ideas for brain-computer interfaces.
Photo credit: Olivia Fontenot, class of 2028
Last spring, I taught the program’s course in fulfillment of the Cultural Diversity requirement, a new interdisciplinary seminar-style course called Neurodiversity, Equity, and Ethics. In this course, students have continuously impressed me as we explored topics ranging from the fun and futuristic to deeply serious injustices and matters of public policy. We have examined the controversies of the Neurodiversity movement, encountered perspectives from mental health practitioners and disability justice advocates, considered the role to be played by neuroscience in a court of law, and so much more. I cannot wait to teach the class again next year. I also taught a one-unit course, Preparing for NeuroSuccess, a course aimed at supporting first-year neuroscience majors with academic skills and career exploration exercises. This course gave me an opportunity to tell our students so many things I wish I had known sooner in my neuroscience journey. We wrapped the course with career exploration posters that left me feeling inspired by our students’ ambition and drive.
I also continued the work of promoting neuroscience on campus by representing our program at a variety of events and spaces, a few of which I’ll highlight here. The first, a reprise of a panel I organized with the office of Anti-Racism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, was a panel on Neurodiversity and Resilience. In this panel, we discussed the challenges faced by neurodivergent college students and the things that faculty and staff can do to foster more inclusive learning environments. In October, I spoke to Quizlet employees on campus for their annual Back to School Day of Learning, and was happy for the chance to start conversations on the neuroscience of learning with the people involved in making a resource I use so often. In the spring, I was thrilled to participate in a roundtable discussion on AI and the Human Person as part of ETS’s excellent and now-annual GenAI Symposium.
2024 GenAI Symposium: Erin Brigham, Mark Graves, Sarah Hillenbrand, Chris Brooks
As we seek to ground the new neuroscience program in the tradition of neuroethics, I have been repeatedly blessed in my collaborations with Student Disability Services, the Lane Center, Educational Technology Services, CASA, Pre-health Advising, the Tracy Seeley Center for Teaching Excellence, and many other supportive groups from around campus. I am also just finishing my first year as advisor to the Club for Neuroscience Students, a group whose numbers and leadership have grown impressively. Next fall, this core group of students will propel our efforts to establish a chapter of Nu Rho Psi, the honor society for neuroscience students. I have grown so much as a thinker, constantly developing new perspectives and generating new ideas, thanks to these collaborations with other faculty, staff, and students. We are truly lucky to have so very much support around campus.
Photo credit: Olivia Fontenot, class of 2028
Outside of the classroom and my own activities around campus, we also hosted a few events this year to broaden students’ horizons and help deepen our connections to neuroscience and to one another. The program hosted our first-ever special guest lecture in February of this year, the trailblazing neuroscientist and neuroethicist Dr. Judy Illes. Illes is a professor of Neurology at the University of British Columbia and the Director of Neuroethics Canada, among other things. Her work inspires us to become better scientists and advocates, considering both the advances in new neurotechnologies and the ethics of including and honoring Indigenous perspectives. We have also hosted some casual events this year, aimed at bringing us closer together as a community. In October, we hosted a Bagel Chat event, followed by a Family Dinner in November and a Study Day event in May. We will reprise these cozy events next year, and will try to add one or two more opportunities for communal food and fun outside of class.
As I write this letter, our incoming first-year students are in the process of registering for their fall courses. Time has flown by, and it is hard to believe that soon our program will be triple its current size! It has been a joy to look back on our first year in this post, and I am already looking forward to welcoming our second group of neuroscience majors and new lab instructors this fall. If you are curious about neuroscience opportunities at USF, please get in touch! And watch this space as we get ready to share more updates and spotlight student achievements.
Dr. H
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