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The Grandmother of UR Neuroscience
How Carol Kellogg, PhD ('70), founded one of the first undergraduate programs in the country
As the year 1960 came to a close, then-president of the University of Rochester, Dr. C. W. deKiewiet, announced the establishment of the Center for Brain Research (CBR). He declared that “brain research is going to be one of the most important areas of basic science in the coming decade and one that promises major advances in mental health and medicine in general.”
Three years later, construction would begin on one of the earliest interdisciplinary neuroscience centers in the country. The CBR building housed 20 research and training laboratories, and in 1966 a young and bright Carol Kellogg walked onto campus for the first time as a student. It would be the beginning of her part in the storied history of the science we know today as neuroscience, at the University of Rochester.
“The secret of success is to be ready when opportunity knocks,” said Kellogg, PhD (’70), professor emeritus in Brain and Cognitive Sciences. In 1972, she found herself back at the University as an assistant professor in Psychology and CBR, following a postdoctoral fellowship in Sweden in the lab of Arvid Carlsson, PhD. Carlsson would win a Nobel Prize for his work that discovered dopamine.
“There was an explosion of neuroscience happening in the 1970s. At the beginning of the decade, we knew about three, maybe four, neurotransmitters in the brain. But within that decade, we would learn about hundreds more.”
Students’ innovation paves way for new major
The brain research boom was not lost on the undergraduate students at the University. Kellogg took note of this as a member of the committee that approves applications for independent majors. “Students on campus were try-ing to create a major in neuroscience or neurobiology, so they were taking the courses they could find. But there weren’t any real courses in neuroscience.” Before the decade was over, Kellogg submitted to add neuroscience as an undergraduate major at the University, and in 1979 it became official. From there, Kellogg, who was already teaching a neurochemistry course, began the neuroscience introductory course, and received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to begin a lab course.
The undergraduate Neuroscience program would be first listed in the University’s 1979-80 bulletin. Kellogg says the support of Garth Thomas, PhD, director of the CBR at the time, helped get the program up and running.
“The Center for Brain Research was sort of the catalyst for neuroscience at Rochester,” said Kellogg, who was the first chairperson of the Committee on Neuroscience. Wayne Hoss, PhD, assistant professor of CBR, Harry Whitaker, PhD, professor of Psychology and Neurology, Jerry Schwartzbaum, PhD, professor of Psychology, and Don Gash, PhD, assistant professor of Anatomy and Brain Research, were the inaugural faculty of the program, Robert Kreilick, PhD, professor of Chemistry, was on the steering committee, and William O’Neill, PhD, was brought in by the CBR to help teach in the undergraduate program. Following official state approval in 1980, the program graduated 11 students.
Behind CBR was Robert Doty, PhD, a formative neuroscientist whose research contributed to the understanding of the separate functions of the brain’s cerebral hemispheres. He spent his career at the University and would go on to help create the Society for Neuroscience, the largest professional society for brain and nervous system research in the world.
“It was exciting, but it was also just a struggle to keep your head above water. It was kind of overwhelming in the beginning. Trying to start labs, keep the research going, keep the funding going, teach and start a whole new major,” said Kellogg.
Through the 1980s, the program continued to thrive, and science evolved. The study of cognitive processes and their neural underpinnings was accelerating, and a Cognitive Sciences Conference was held at the University in the summer of 1982. By 1985, Ernie and Kathy Nordeen, PhD moved to the University as faculty in Psychology and would eventually move to the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department.
“I think that one of the things unique about Rochester is that undergraduates have the Medical Center sitting right across the street,” said Ernie Nordeen, PhD, professor emeritus of Brain and Cognitive Sciences (BCS) who would become Kellogg’s successor as director of the undergraduate neuroscience program. “This greatly expands the opportunities for undergraduate students to do laboratory research. In addition to opportunities in BCS, students often choose laboratories in the Medical Center to pursue research.”
Students like Sean Ianchulev, MD, MPH, BS (’95), the current director of the Ophthalmic Innovation and Technology Program at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai, came to the University from Bulgaria in 1991 with $200 in his pocket. “The kind of work that was going on was very cutting edge, very meticulous and thoughtful,” said Ianchulev, who credits his academic and medical trajectory to the neuroscience program, and particularly Carol Kellogg and Peter Lennie, PhD, the founding chair of BCS and Jay Last Distinguished University Professor Emeritus, Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Center for Visual Science. “Her [Kellogg’s] approach was kind of a quiet, thoughtful leader who really pressure tested your thinking in a very deliberate way. She left a phenomenal impact that encouraged me to go into neuroscience. I eventually realized the part I really liked about neuroscience was ophthalmology.”
Keeping up with an evolving field
By the mid-1990s, a divide in research interests was becoming increasingly obvious among faculty, particularly in the Psychology department, so the University approved a new department, known today as Brain and Cognitive Sciences.
“Around 1995 we realized that interests in the department were diverging, and it probably made sense to think about forming a department among the natural science faculty within Psychology,” said Nordeen. “That included about 14 of us who were interested in understanding higher-level cognitive processes like language, perception, learning, and memory, from the point of view of underlying brain function."
During that time, Renee Miller, BS (’97), PhD (’05), professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, would become a student in the undergraduate neuroscience program. Under the mentorship of Kellogg, she would navigate her way toward research, and eventually emerge with a PhD in Neuroscience from the School of Medicine and Dentistry. Today, Miller is the director of the same undergraduate program she completed, and although the classes have evolved, the collaboration with the Medical Center continues.
“I’m very conscious about creating value for our students and their families, and teaching classes in a way that gives them skills that they can’t get from reading a book or taking a simpler version of a class,” said Miller, who introduced a new course in 2020 called Acquired Brain Disorders that puts students in lectures with Medical Center faculty and physicians where they listen to case studies and then shadow positions, ideally one in surgery and one in clinic. The students then must complete simulated cases based on actual patients and navigate scenarios in a real-time virtual environment. “I’ve been impressed with the willingness of those faculty to give their time to the undergraduate students, both in shadowing and teaching.”
The tradition of following students' interests continues nearly 45 years after Kellogg first took note of their desire for a neuroscience major. Greg DeAngelis, PhD, George Eastman professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Neuroscience, Biomedical Engineering, and Center for Visual Science, who was the department chair until 2019, has seen this as the type of courses offered to undergraduate neuroscience students have shifted during his tenure. “Students vote with their feet, and it is pretty clear that in addition to neurobiology courses, they want course work that connects content to the bigger picture, health, health issues, and political issues,” said DeAngelis, who acknowledges the success of the program has been the faculty’s ability to adjust and change curriculum and create a culture of teaching from faculty to faculty. “It is like you are being mentored to be a good mentor. Kathy and Ernie Nordeen really taught me a lot about how the program worked. They and other faculty care deeply about the undergraduate mission and have really taken faculty under their wing and handed down responsibilities.”
The undergraduate neuroscience program is an example of the innovation of education at the University, fostering a decades-long relationship with Medical Center faculty and providing a solid foundation for a pre-med or research track student. “We’re not just having career academics teaching our students, and you really could not do that if you didn’t have the strong historical links between the two campuses,” said Duje Tadin, PhD, interim Dean of the School of Arts & Sciences, and former chair of BCS. “To me, this is a really great example of coordinating our medical and educational mission and giving students a unique training experience.”
