Georgetown College. Georgetown University.

By Dayo Akinwande

Dr. Joe Neale has a sterling resume to show for his years at Georgetown University. As a professor of Biology at Georgetown College for the past three decades, including a stint as chair of the Department of Biology from 1990 to 2000, he has been named Washington, D.C., Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, received the first College Dean’s award for Teaching Excellence and the University’s Career Research Achievement Award, and been appointed as the Paduano Distinguished Professor. Of all his achievements, he especially treasures teaching Introductory Biology I to science majors and premedical students and being director of the Georgetown-Hughes Undergraduate Research Scholars program. Dr. Neale launched the latter program, which is funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), in 1994.

The Hughes program is a reflection of Dr. Neale’s passion for research, which he traces back to his years as an undergraduate student at Georgetown. Bound for graduation in 1966 and preparing his senior thesis in the lab of mentor and then-chair of the Department of Biology, Dr. George Chapman, he realized how “exciting it was to explore the unknown in science.”

Recalling that time with a radiant smile, Dr. Neale says, “I thought to myself, this is really fun and someone will actually pay me to do this for the rest of my life!”

It is a path that led Dr. Neale to earn his Ph.D. from Georgetown in 1970, and to spend nearly his entire career at Georgetown College (aside from a seven-year stint at the University of Michigan and the National Institutes of Health for his post-doctoral studies). His neurobiology research program has been continuously funded by the NIH since 1978. Dr. Neale’s research group pioneered the study of a brain peptide known as N-acetylaspartylglutamate (NAAG). The group, which always includes several undergraduate students, has demonstrated that not only is NAAG a neurotransmitter, it is the third most prevalent overall in the nervous system. With his lab currently at the forefront on such research, Dr. Neale has focused on what he has learned about NAAG to develop novel pharmaceuticals to enhance the action of NAAG in the nervous system with the aim of treating inflammatory pain and schizophrenia (see related video).

In founding the Hughes program, a four-year long undergraduate course of study, Dr. Neale sought to increase student engagement in biomedical research at Georgetown. Each year, he appoints as Hughes Scholars 10 first-year biology majors who are interested in careers in research. During the summers following their freshman, sophomore, and junior years, Hughes Scholars stay on campus for 10 weeks to pursue research under the mentorship of faculty in the Department of Biology and Georgetown’s Medical Center. The Hughes Scholars also are engaged in a research-oriented course each summer and meet for group dinners several times each semester during the academic year.

“The idea behind the dinners is to just hang out and talk with each other,” Dr. Neale explains.

Such events are part of his goal to create and nurture what Dr. Neale refers to as a research family with camaraderie similar to that which occurs among members of a sports team.

“Each Hughes Scholar has a research mentor and I serve as their faculty advisor, the go-to person for all sorts of questions and discussions. In concert with their research mentor, we nurture their love of science and their career aspirations,” says Dr. Neale, recalling when he was “turned on” to his career in his undergraduate years by Professor Chapman. “I have typically one or two e-mails or visits each day from Hughes Scholars. I establish a close relationship with them, and that fosters a sense of my commitment to each of them.”

Of course, the Georgetown-Hughes program would not be possible without funding from the HHMI. This institute, established from the estate of the aviation pioneer Howard Hughes, recently awarded another four-year grant of $1.8 million to the program, which helps cover housing and the stipends that are provided to the scholars during the summer. Moreover, Georgetown’s Hughes program is not limited to undergraduate research. Working with Washington, D.C.’s public school system, the program supports the academic development and personal growth of students from an at-risk middle school to promote their interest in higher education. This outreach component of the grant from the HHMI is directed by Thomas Bullock and Charlene Brown-McKenzie via Georgetown’s Center for Minority Educational Affairs. Students join the program—it entails attending Saturday classes during the academic year and daily classes for five weeks each summer—in 7th grade and continue through their senior year of high school and into college, taking courses in science, mathematics, English, and Spanish.

“In D.C., less than 50 percent of middle school students would graduate from high school,” says Dr. Neale, “while 100 percent of our students graduate.” Additionally, 96 percent of the students who completed the program have entered college.

The success of this Hughes-funded outreach program parallels that of the Georgetown-Hughes Undergraduate Research Scholars. Past Hughes Scholars have gained acceptance to many of the country's most highly esteemed M.D., Ph.D., and combined M.D./Ph.D. programs. The last decade saw close to 100 Hughes Scholars graduating, with a 90 percent undergraduate retention rate in biology that sharply contrasts with the much higher attrition rates for science students in the United States. Many of these students have won prestigious scholarships and awards, including the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and the Churchill Scholarship for postgraduate study at the University of Cambridge in England. Moreover, in a 2007 report on the Hughes program by an independent education assessment expert, Dr. Neale was ranked as the “best aspect” of the program by half of past scholar respondents. Such findings are consistent with Dr. Neale’s long-term record as teacher, mentor, and director of undergraduate studies in Biology.

“A main ingredient to teaching and research is attitude,” says Dr. Neale, his face beaming with the power of such words. “Students are excellent barometers of an instructor’s enthusiasm for the fascination that is science.” It is a lesson he knows all too well—in a life of service to Georgetown College and its students that has spanned more than three decades.

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