Julio J. Ramirez Award for Distinguished Career Contributions to Education and Training in Psychology Citation “For creating a national infrastructure to support education and training in behavioral neuroscience and biological psy chology, for playing a seminal role in creating an under graduate neuroscience education journal, and for creating a nationally recognized mentoring program for junior faculty in the neurosciences, particularly with underrepresented groups. Julio J. Ramirez has advanced the frontiers of integrating teaching and research and of interdisciplinary study and has set a lofty standard in research training with undergraduates. Through his example and support, he en gages and inspires students of every cultural background and aptitude, according them the great respect of demand ing excellence from them.”
Biography Bom and raised in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Julio J. Ramirez during his youth was often mystified as to why his parents chose to emigrate from the palm trees of Cuba to the northeastern comer of an often-snowy landscape in the United States of America. His mother Elia and father Julio Pastor each left Cuba in the 1940s in search of the oppor tunities available to immigrants arriving on America’s shores. Both Elia and Julio Pastor found jobs in the United States when the nation was in need of factory workers to
784
support the war effort and the postwar rebuilding effort. The jobs were plentiful in Bridgeport, and Elia’s sister Joaquina had already found work at a factory there. Six years after arriving on American soil, Elia married Julio Pastor, and their beautiful daughter Ely Sofia was bom in 1947. Eight years later, a son was bom on December 25, 1955. Over the objections of his father, who wanted to name him Fidel Castro Ramirez, his mother had him chris tened Julio Jesus. The mid-1950s were turbulent and dangerous times in Cuba. The young and charismatic leader Fidel Castro had promised hope for a prosperous and just future for the island nation, which had suffered under the dictatorship and corruption of Fulgencio Batista. Although he had a young family who prospered in the United States, Julio Pastor decided to join Castro’s guerrilla forces and returned to Cuba to fight in the Cuban Revolution when his infant son was about a year old. Julio Pastor’s decision to return to Cuba marked a turning point in the life of Elia and her two children. Left with few financial resources but armed with a wealth of emotional strength, Elia dedicated herself to raising her two children in her adopted country. She asked her mother to care for Julio while she worked in a neigh boring city and Ely attended school there. After several months, Elia and her two children moved into Evergreen Garden Apartments, a housing project where the children’s abuelita [grandma] lived. Despite the Salk vaccine’s avail ability in 1958, poliomyelitis had still not been eradicated in the impoverished areas in Bridgeport. When Julio was about two years old, the devastating news was delivered to his mother that her son was stricken with polio, and he soon lost the normal use of his left leg. Unfortunately, the Cuban Revolution yet again disrupted the life of this family when Julio’s abuelita returned to Cuba with several family mem bers to support Castro’s efforts to establish his regime on the island. Elia’s resolve to lift her children out of poverty and to return her son to good health framed the life of the family for the next two decades. Ramirez is forever grateful for the unconditional love and support his mother Elia and sister Ely provided him throughout these years. Ramirez attended a nearby Catholic grammar school, St. Stephen’s, where he got a solid foundation in reading, writing, and arithmetic. One glaring absence in his educa tion, however, was exposure to science. He was captivated by the “Man-in-Space Program” and the sense of scientific adventure generated by the space program during the 1960s. Ramirez and his mother often walked through tough West End neighborhoods to the Sanborn Branch Library in Bridgeport so he could lose himself in science books of all kinds. Fearing that he and his classmates would graduate from St. Stephen’s with little education in science, in 1969 he persuaded his eighth-grade teacher, Sister Mary Norbert, to allow him to teach several classes on America’s quest to
November 2014 • American Psychologist © 2014 American Psychological Association 0003-066X/14/$ 12.00 Vol. 69, No. 8, 784-787 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0037951
land a man on the moon. The kids in his neighborhood nicknamed him “the professor” when they heard about his educational exploits. He discovered that teaching science was rewarding and tremendous fun. Little did he know that his love affair with learning, science, and teaching would lead him out of the inner-city projects of Bridgeport to the hal lowed halls of the Academy. During the summer that Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon, Elia made the decision to move her family out of the projects to the East End of Bridgeport to the safer neigh borhood where her sister Joaquina lived. Ramirez attended Kolbe High School, an inner-city high school run by Fran ciscans and known for its rigorous curriculum. The teachers at Kolbe challenged him intellectually and encouraged him to explore his leadership skills. After graduating as salutatorian and Kolbe Man of the Year, Ramirez was ready to venture out of Bridgeport to an excellent Jesuit university just a few miles from his home, Fairfield University, where he could study yet live at home to support his mother. Fairfield University introduced Ramirez to the joy of scientific exploration in psychology. He was fortunate to have extraordinary psychology professors who each exposed him to the wonders of human and animal behavior: Ronald Salafia and John (Jack) Boitano in what was then known as physiological psychology, Elizabeth Gardner in cognitive psychology, Dorothea Braginsky in social psychology, and John McCarthy in clinical psychology. As an undergraduate at Fairfield, Ramirez had his first exposure to scientific dis covery when he collaborated with Ronald Salafia in explo rations of the neurobiological basis of classical conditioning in rabbits. His work with Salafia provided him with a model of how best to educate undergraduate science students: im mersion in scientific exploration. Although Ramirez could not financially afford to spend his summers conducting re search with Salafia, he managed to spend a good portion of his junior and senior years in the lab with Salafia and his lab team, Nicholas (Nick) Chiaia and F. Lee Stem. Ramirez spent his summers during the college years working in a variety of anti-poverty programs that were funded by the Comprehensive Employment Training Act and Action for Bridgeport Community Development. During his years as a young teen in the programs and then as a counselor during college, he was awakened to the transformational power of mentoring. As a first-generation college graduate, when confronted with the inevitability of having to leave his family, he chose to attend a graduate school that was within a two-hour drive of Bridgeport. Fortunately, he was admitted to Clark Univer sity in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he could study with the brilliant and iconoclastic Donald Stein, who was in the habit of challenging the status quo in physiological psychol ogy. With Stein’s guidance, Ramirez began his studies of the lesion-induced neuroplasticity of the hippocampal formation in rats. The discovery during the late 1960s and early 1970s November 2014 • American Psychologist
that the brain has the capacity to structurally and functionally reorganize itself in response to injury captured his imagina tion and has energized his work ever since. Importantly, Stein also supported one of Ramirez’s greatest aspirations, to be come a college professor at a liberal arts college with the hope of transforming lives as he himself had been trans formed in college. Rather than demand that Ramirez follow in his footsteps as a researcher at a research university, Stein encouraged Ramirez to pursue his passion for teaching. Since Stein was himself a gifted teacher, Ramirez had a remarkable role model from whom he could learn the craft. Because the Clark University Psychology Department required all its graduate students to get experience as teaching apprentices, Ramirez was able to hone his skills during the entirety of graduate school. In the early 1980s, after completing his work at Clark, Ramirez was able to flourish as a teacher at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University in Minnesota. His desire to conduct research, however, remained unquenched, so he collaborated with colleagues during the summers with generous support from Oswald Steward at the University of Virginia, where Steward’s passion for research was infec tious and energized everyone who had the privilege of work ing with him. In 1985, Ramirez spent a remarkable year studying with the eminent neuroscientists Gerald Schneider and Sonal Jhaveri in the Psychology Department at the Mas sachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he studied the development of the visual system of hamsters. Upon completing his postdoctoral studies at MIT, Ramirez secured a position at Davidson College, where he has been since 1986. Working with outstanding faculty in the Departments of Psychology and Biology, Ramirez was in strumental in fashioning the neuroscience program at David son College, which is one of the college’s most successful interdisciplinary programs. During the last 28 years at Da vidson, Ramirez has had the distinct privilege of mentoring over 130 students who have worked in his laboratory in their quest to discover the functional significance of lesion-in duced hippocampal neuroplasticity. He and his undergradu ate students have published numerous papers and presented posters at undergraduate and professional conferences. The vast majority of his students have gone on to earn doctoral degrees in psychology, neuroscience, medicine, dentistry, or veterinary medicine. Several are now themselves professors at institutions such as Bucknell University, the College of Charleston, Coppin State University, Johns Hopkins Univer sity, the University of California, Davis, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University. Others have gone on to fulfilling and productive careers working at distinguished institutions such as the National Institutes of Health and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Many former stu dents went on to successful careers in private practice or industry as well. 785
The lessons forged over his early life (the importance of community, mentorship, and intellectual immersion) framed Ramirez’s subsequent work as a professional. In 1991, along with Sally Frutiger at Denison University, Stephen George at Amherst College, and Dennison Smith at Oberlin College, Ramirez founded the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN; www.funfaculty.org), an organization dedicated to pro moting and enhancing undergraduate education in the neurosci ences, and he served as its president until 1994. With FUN, Ramirez sought to create a home for faculty devoted to under graduate neuroscience education and research where they could share their experiences and aspirations. To provide a vehicle for disseminating innovations in undergraduate neuroscience edu cation, Ramirez partnered with Barbara Lorn at Davidson Col lege to launch the Journal o f Undergraduate Neuroscience Education (the flagship journal of FUN; www.funjoumal.org) and served as its senior editor for five years. He was convinced that junior faculty in neuroscience at predominantly undergrad uate institutions (PUIs) would benefit from additional support in their professional development in terms of mentoring under graduate students, launching research careers at PUIs with un dergraduates as young colleagues, and learning to integrate teaching and research. So, he created and maintained a national mentoring program from 2004 through 2012 with generous support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the How ard Hughes Medical Institute, FUN, and the White House. The SOMAS (Support of Mentors and their Students in the Neuro sciences) program was designated a 2005 NSF “Nugget” as an exemplar for human resource development in the STEM (sci ence, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines. The program annually awarded four to six grants of $8,000 to $10,000 per grant to support a junior faculty member to conduct summer research with an undergraduate at the SOMAS award ee’s home institution (a total of 42 grants were made). Two chief goals of the program were to enhance the mentoring skills of junior faculty and to provide summer research funds to students who might not otherwise have had the opportunity to immerse themselves in the scientific enterprise. The funding supported summer stipends for the awardee and the student, a room and board allowance for the student, and a travel and supply budget. The awardees and their students were required to attend the joint annual meetings of the Society for Neuroscience and FUN, where the students presented their summer research outcomes at the Annual FUN Undergraduate Poster Session. Over the years, Ramirez’s contributions to science and sci ence education have been recognized by a number of organiza tions. His awards include the 1989 North Carolina Professor of the Year Award and the National Gold Medal Professor of the Year Award from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education; the inaugural 2000 Fellow Award from the Council on Undergraduate Research; the 2001 Synthes Award for Res ident Research on Brain and Craniofacial Injury from the Con gress of Neurological Surgeons; the inaugural 2001 Career Achievement Award from FUN; the 2003 TIAA-CREF Honor
786
ary Distinguished Professor Award from the Southern Confer ence; the 2004 Director’s Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars from the National Science Foundation; the 2009 Pres idential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring from the White House; the 2011 Award for Education in Neuroscience from the Society for Neurosci ence; the 2011 Distinguished Mentor Award from FUN; and the 2012 Hunter-Hamilton Love of Teaching Award from Davidson College. Ramirez is also a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychological Association, the Arts & Science Council of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, the Association for Psychological Science, the Council on Undergraduate Research, and the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience. He is currently an editorial board member of the Journal o f Undergraduate Neuroscience Educa tion and of Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience. He is also a trustee of the Discovery Place science center in Charlotte, North Carolina, and has served on its board for 10 years, during which time he helped to launch Discovery Place KIDS, a chil dren’s museum in Huntersville, North Carolina. Perhaps the most exciting, enriching, and rewarding ad ventures Ramirez has experienced in his life are those occur ring daily with his wife Annie and their energetic teenage children, Elia and Julian. The joys experienced with his family, whether joining them in singing choruses from Broadway musicals, watching Elia slice through the water in her swim meets, or seeing Julian rowing with all his strength in an eight-man shell, are innumerable and exceed anything he could ever have dreamed of as a boy growing up in the projects of Bridgeport, Connecticut. S e le c te d B i b l io g r a p h y Crowley, S., Fuller, D., Law, W., McKeon, D., Ramirez, J. J., Trujillo, K. A., & Widerman, E. (2004). Improving the climate in research and scientific training environments for members of underrepresented minor ities. The Neuroscientist, 10, 26-30. doi:10.1177/1073858403260304 Ferguson, K., Masur, S„ Olson, L., Ramirez, J. J., Robyn, E., & Schmaling, K. (2007). Enhancing the culture of research ethics on university cam puses. Journal of Academic Ethics, 5, 189-198. doi:10.1007/sl0805-0079033-9 Hardwick, J. C., Kerchner, M., Lom, B., Ramirez, J. J., & Wiertelak, E. P. (2006). From faculty for undergraduate neuroscience: Encouraging inno vation in undergraduate neuroscience education by supporting student research and faculty development. CBE Life Sciences Education, 5, 86-90. doi:10.1187/cbe.05-10-0120 Ramirez, J. J. (1992). Neuroscience in an undergraduate psychology de partment. CUR [Council on Undergraduate Research] Newsletter, 4, 26-31. Ramirez, J. J. (1997). Undergraduate neuroscience education: A model for interdisciplinary study. The Neuroscientist, S, 166—168. doi: 10.1177/ 107385849700300309 Ramirez, J. J. (Ed.). (1998). Occasional paper on neuroscience: Proceed ings from the PKAL Workshop on Interdisciplinary Connections. Wash ington, DC: Project Kaleidoscope. Retrieved from http://www.pkal.org/ documents/OccasionalPaperOnNeuroscience.cfm Ramirez, J. J. (2000). A passion for learning and exploring neuroscience. CUR Quarterly, 21(2), 77-79. Ramirez, J. J. (2003). Attaining goals through partnerships. JUNE: Journal o f Undergraduate Neuroscience Education, 2(1), E1-E2.
November 2014 • American Psychologist
Ramirez, J. J. (Ed.). (2003). Neuroscience portfolio [Project Kaleidoscope emerging Vol. TV on institutional transformation]. Retrieved from http:// www.pkal.org/documents/NeurosciencePortfolio.cfm Ramirez, J. J. (2005). There’s a pony in here somewhere! Reflections on integrating teaching and research at predominantly undergraduate insti tutions. JUNE: Journal o f Undergraduate Neuroscience Education, 4( 1), E6-E10. Ramirez, J. J. (2007). Editorial: Neuroscience and the liberal arts. JUNE: Journal o f Undergraduate Neuroscience Education, 5(2), E7. Ramirez, J. J. (2010). Promoting supportive environments for transforma tive research at predominately undergraduate institutions. In K. Karukstis & N. Hensel (Eds.), Transformative research at predominately under graduate institutions (pp. 13-20). Washington, DC: Council on Under graduate Research. Ramirez, J. J. (2012). The intentional mentor: Effective mentorship of undergraduate science students. JUNE: Journal o f Undergraduate Neu roscience Education, 11(1), A55-A63. Ramirez, J. J., Aanonsen, L., Dunbar, G., Hill, W., Paul, C. A., Smith, D., & Workshop Participants. (1998). Undergraduate education in the neu rosciences: Four blueprints. In J. J. Ramirez (Ed.), Occasional paper on neuroscience: Proceedings from the PKAL Workshop on Interdisciplin ary Connections (pp. 27-33). Washington, DC: Project Kaleidoscope.
November 2014 • American Psychologist
Ramirez, J. J., Caldwell, J. L., Majure, M., Wessner, D. R., Klein, R. L., Meyer, E. M., & King, M. A. (2003). Adeno-associated virus vector expressing nerve growth factor enhances cholinergic axonal sprouting after cortical injury in rats. The Journal o f Neuroscience, 23, 2797-2803. Ramirez, J. J., McQuilkin, M., Carrigan, T., MacDonald, K., & Kelley, M. S. (1996). Progressive entorhinal cortex lesions accelerate hippocam pal sprouting and spare spatial memory in rats. Proceedings o f the N ational A cadem y o f Sciences, USA, 93, 15512-15517. doi: 10.1073/pnas.93.26.15512 Ramirez, J. J., & Normansell, L. (2003). A decade o f FUN: The first ten years o f the Faculty fo r Undergraduate Neuroscience [Essay for Project Kaleidoscope]. Retrieved from http://www.pkal.org/documents/FacultyUndergradNeuroscience.cfm Ramirez, J. J„ & Tonidandel, S. (2009). SOMAS-URM: The evolution of a mentoring and summer research program. JUNE: Journal o f Undergrad uate Neuroscience Education, S(l), A69-A72. Wiertelak, E. P., & Ramirez, J. J. (2008). Undergraduate neuroscience education: Blueprints for the 21st century. JUNE: Journal o f Undergrad uate Neuroscience Education, 6(2), A34-A39. Wiertelak, E. P., Ramirez, J. J., & Yates, J. R. (2011). The Faculty fo r Undergraduate Neuroscience: Learning lessons since 1991. Retrieved from Association of American Colleges and Universities website: http:// www.aacu.org/pkal/documents/FUN.pdf
787
Copyright of American Psychologist is the property of American Psychological Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
Biography Bom and raised in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Julio J. Ramirez during his youth was often mystified as to why his parents chose to emigrate from the palm trees of Cuba to the northeastern comer of an often-snowy landscape in the United States of America. His mother Elia and father Julio Pastor each left Cuba in the 1940s in search of the oppor tunities available to immigrants arriving on America’s shores. Both Elia and Julio Pastor found jobs in the United States when the nation was in need of factory workers to
784
support the war effort and the postwar rebuilding effort. The jobs were plentiful in Bridgeport, and Elia’s sister Joaquina had already found work at a factory there. Six years after arriving on American soil, Elia married Julio Pastor, and their beautiful daughter Ely Sofia was bom in 1947. Eight years later, a son was bom on December 25, 1955. Over the objections of his father, who wanted to name him Fidel Castro Ramirez, his mother had him chris tened Julio Jesus. The mid-1950s were turbulent and dangerous times in Cuba. The young and charismatic leader Fidel Castro had promised hope for a prosperous and just future for the island nation, which had suffered under the dictatorship and corruption of Fulgencio Batista. Although he had a young family who prospered in the United States, Julio Pastor decided to join Castro’s guerrilla forces and returned to Cuba to fight in the Cuban Revolution when his infant son was about a year old. Julio Pastor’s decision to return to Cuba marked a turning point in the life of Elia and her two children. Left with few financial resources but armed with a wealth of emotional strength, Elia dedicated herself to raising her two children in her adopted country. She asked her mother to care for Julio while she worked in a neigh boring city and Ely attended school there. After several months, Elia and her two children moved into Evergreen Garden Apartments, a housing project where the children’s abuelita [grandma] lived. Despite the Salk vaccine’s avail ability in 1958, poliomyelitis had still not been eradicated in the impoverished areas in Bridgeport. When Julio was about two years old, the devastating news was delivered to his mother that her son was stricken with polio, and he soon lost the normal use of his left leg. Unfortunately, the Cuban Revolution yet again disrupted the life of this family when Julio’s abuelita returned to Cuba with several family mem bers to support Castro’s efforts to establish his regime on the island. Elia’s resolve to lift her children out of poverty and to return her son to good health framed the life of the family for the next two decades. Ramirez is forever grateful for the unconditional love and support his mother Elia and sister Ely provided him throughout these years. Ramirez attended a nearby Catholic grammar school, St. Stephen’s, where he got a solid foundation in reading, writing, and arithmetic. One glaring absence in his educa tion, however, was exposure to science. He was captivated by the “Man-in-Space Program” and the sense of scientific adventure generated by the space program during the 1960s. Ramirez and his mother often walked through tough West End neighborhoods to the Sanborn Branch Library in Bridgeport so he could lose himself in science books of all kinds. Fearing that he and his classmates would graduate from St. Stephen’s with little education in science, in 1969 he persuaded his eighth-grade teacher, Sister Mary Norbert, to allow him to teach several classes on America’s quest to
November 2014 • American Psychologist © 2014 American Psychological Association 0003-066X/14/$ 12.00 Vol. 69, No. 8, 784-787 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0037951
land a man on the moon. The kids in his neighborhood nicknamed him “the professor” when they heard about his educational exploits. He discovered that teaching science was rewarding and tremendous fun. Little did he know that his love affair with learning, science, and teaching would lead him out of the inner-city projects of Bridgeport to the hal lowed halls of the Academy. During the summer that Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon, Elia made the decision to move her family out of the projects to the East End of Bridgeport to the safer neigh borhood where her sister Joaquina lived. Ramirez attended Kolbe High School, an inner-city high school run by Fran ciscans and known for its rigorous curriculum. The teachers at Kolbe challenged him intellectually and encouraged him to explore his leadership skills. After graduating as salutatorian and Kolbe Man of the Year, Ramirez was ready to venture out of Bridgeport to an excellent Jesuit university just a few miles from his home, Fairfield University, where he could study yet live at home to support his mother. Fairfield University introduced Ramirez to the joy of scientific exploration in psychology. He was fortunate to have extraordinary psychology professors who each exposed him to the wonders of human and animal behavior: Ronald Salafia and John (Jack) Boitano in what was then known as physiological psychology, Elizabeth Gardner in cognitive psychology, Dorothea Braginsky in social psychology, and John McCarthy in clinical psychology. As an undergraduate at Fairfield, Ramirez had his first exposure to scientific dis covery when he collaborated with Ronald Salafia in explo rations of the neurobiological basis of classical conditioning in rabbits. His work with Salafia provided him with a model of how best to educate undergraduate science students: im mersion in scientific exploration. Although Ramirez could not financially afford to spend his summers conducting re search with Salafia, he managed to spend a good portion of his junior and senior years in the lab with Salafia and his lab team, Nicholas (Nick) Chiaia and F. Lee Stem. Ramirez spent his summers during the college years working in a variety of anti-poverty programs that were funded by the Comprehensive Employment Training Act and Action for Bridgeport Community Development. During his years as a young teen in the programs and then as a counselor during college, he was awakened to the transformational power of mentoring. As a first-generation college graduate, when confronted with the inevitability of having to leave his family, he chose to attend a graduate school that was within a two-hour drive of Bridgeport. Fortunately, he was admitted to Clark Univer sity in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he could study with the brilliant and iconoclastic Donald Stein, who was in the habit of challenging the status quo in physiological psychol ogy. With Stein’s guidance, Ramirez began his studies of the lesion-induced neuroplasticity of the hippocampal formation in rats. The discovery during the late 1960s and early 1970s November 2014 • American Psychologist
that the brain has the capacity to structurally and functionally reorganize itself in response to injury captured his imagina tion and has energized his work ever since. Importantly, Stein also supported one of Ramirez’s greatest aspirations, to be come a college professor at a liberal arts college with the hope of transforming lives as he himself had been trans formed in college. Rather than demand that Ramirez follow in his footsteps as a researcher at a research university, Stein encouraged Ramirez to pursue his passion for teaching. Since Stein was himself a gifted teacher, Ramirez had a remarkable role model from whom he could learn the craft. Because the Clark University Psychology Department required all its graduate students to get experience as teaching apprentices, Ramirez was able to hone his skills during the entirety of graduate school. In the early 1980s, after completing his work at Clark, Ramirez was able to flourish as a teacher at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University in Minnesota. His desire to conduct research, however, remained unquenched, so he collaborated with colleagues during the summers with generous support from Oswald Steward at the University of Virginia, where Steward’s passion for research was infec tious and energized everyone who had the privilege of work ing with him. In 1985, Ramirez spent a remarkable year studying with the eminent neuroscientists Gerald Schneider and Sonal Jhaveri in the Psychology Department at the Mas sachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he studied the development of the visual system of hamsters. Upon completing his postdoctoral studies at MIT, Ramirez secured a position at Davidson College, where he has been since 1986. Working with outstanding faculty in the Departments of Psychology and Biology, Ramirez was in strumental in fashioning the neuroscience program at David son College, which is one of the college’s most successful interdisciplinary programs. During the last 28 years at Da vidson, Ramirez has had the distinct privilege of mentoring over 130 students who have worked in his laboratory in their quest to discover the functional significance of lesion-in duced hippocampal neuroplasticity. He and his undergradu ate students have published numerous papers and presented posters at undergraduate and professional conferences. The vast majority of his students have gone on to earn doctoral degrees in psychology, neuroscience, medicine, dentistry, or veterinary medicine. Several are now themselves professors at institutions such as Bucknell University, the College of Charleston, Coppin State University, Johns Hopkins Univer sity, the University of California, Davis, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University. Others have gone on to fulfilling and productive careers working at distinguished institutions such as the National Institutes of Health and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Many former stu dents went on to successful careers in private practice or industry as well. 785
The lessons forged over his early life (the importance of community, mentorship, and intellectual immersion) framed Ramirez’s subsequent work as a professional. In 1991, along with Sally Frutiger at Denison University, Stephen George at Amherst College, and Dennison Smith at Oberlin College, Ramirez founded the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN; www.funfaculty.org), an organization dedicated to pro moting and enhancing undergraduate education in the neurosci ences, and he served as its president until 1994. With FUN, Ramirez sought to create a home for faculty devoted to under graduate neuroscience education and research where they could share their experiences and aspirations. To provide a vehicle for disseminating innovations in undergraduate neuroscience edu cation, Ramirez partnered with Barbara Lorn at Davidson Col lege to launch the Journal o f Undergraduate Neuroscience Education (the flagship journal of FUN; www.funjoumal.org) and served as its senior editor for five years. He was convinced that junior faculty in neuroscience at predominantly undergrad uate institutions (PUIs) would benefit from additional support in their professional development in terms of mentoring under graduate students, launching research careers at PUIs with un dergraduates as young colleagues, and learning to integrate teaching and research. So, he created and maintained a national mentoring program from 2004 through 2012 with generous support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the How ard Hughes Medical Institute, FUN, and the White House. The SOMAS (Support of Mentors and their Students in the Neuro sciences) program was designated a 2005 NSF “Nugget” as an exemplar for human resource development in the STEM (sci ence, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines. The program annually awarded four to six grants of $8,000 to $10,000 per grant to support a junior faculty member to conduct summer research with an undergraduate at the SOMAS award ee’s home institution (a total of 42 grants were made). Two chief goals of the program were to enhance the mentoring skills of junior faculty and to provide summer research funds to students who might not otherwise have had the opportunity to immerse themselves in the scientific enterprise. The funding supported summer stipends for the awardee and the student, a room and board allowance for the student, and a travel and supply budget. The awardees and their students were required to attend the joint annual meetings of the Society for Neuroscience and FUN, where the students presented their summer research outcomes at the Annual FUN Undergraduate Poster Session. Over the years, Ramirez’s contributions to science and sci ence education have been recognized by a number of organiza tions. His awards include the 1989 North Carolina Professor of the Year Award and the National Gold Medal Professor of the Year Award from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education; the inaugural 2000 Fellow Award from the Council on Undergraduate Research; the 2001 Synthes Award for Res ident Research on Brain and Craniofacial Injury from the Con gress of Neurological Surgeons; the inaugural 2001 Career Achievement Award from FUN; the 2003 TIAA-CREF Honor
786
ary Distinguished Professor Award from the Southern Confer ence; the 2004 Director’s Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars from the National Science Foundation; the 2009 Pres idential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring from the White House; the 2011 Award for Education in Neuroscience from the Society for Neurosci ence; the 2011 Distinguished Mentor Award from FUN; and the 2012 Hunter-Hamilton Love of Teaching Award from Davidson College. Ramirez is also a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychological Association, the Arts & Science Council of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, the Association for Psychological Science, the Council on Undergraduate Research, and the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience. He is currently an editorial board member of the Journal o f Undergraduate Neuroscience Educa tion and of Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience. He is also a trustee of the Discovery Place science center in Charlotte, North Carolina, and has served on its board for 10 years, during which time he helped to launch Discovery Place KIDS, a chil dren’s museum in Huntersville, North Carolina. Perhaps the most exciting, enriching, and rewarding ad ventures Ramirez has experienced in his life are those occur ring daily with his wife Annie and their energetic teenage children, Elia and Julian. The joys experienced with his family, whether joining them in singing choruses from Broadway musicals, watching Elia slice through the water in her swim meets, or seeing Julian rowing with all his strength in an eight-man shell, are innumerable and exceed anything he could ever have dreamed of as a boy growing up in the projects of Bridgeport, Connecticut. S e le c te d B i b l io g r a p h y Crowley, S., Fuller, D., Law, W., McKeon, D., Ramirez, J. J., Trujillo, K. A., & Widerman, E. (2004). Improving the climate in research and scientific training environments for members of underrepresented minor ities. The Neuroscientist, 10, 26-30. doi:10.1177/1073858403260304 Ferguson, K., Masur, S„ Olson, L., Ramirez, J. J., Robyn, E., & Schmaling, K. (2007). Enhancing the culture of research ethics on university cam puses. Journal of Academic Ethics, 5, 189-198. doi:10.1007/sl0805-0079033-9 Hardwick, J. C., Kerchner, M., Lom, B., Ramirez, J. J., & Wiertelak, E. P. (2006). From faculty for undergraduate neuroscience: Encouraging inno vation in undergraduate neuroscience education by supporting student research and faculty development. CBE Life Sciences Education, 5, 86-90. doi:10.1187/cbe.05-10-0120 Ramirez, J. J. (1992). Neuroscience in an undergraduate psychology de partment. CUR [Council on Undergraduate Research] Newsletter, 4, 26-31. Ramirez, J. J. (1997). Undergraduate neuroscience education: A model for interdisciplinary study. The Neuroscientist, S, 166—168. doi: 10.1177/ 107385849700300309 Ramirez, J. J. (Ed.). (1998). Occasional paper on neuroscience: Proceed ings from the PKAL Workshop on Interdisciplinary Connections. Wash ington, DC: Project Kaleidoscope. Retrieved from http://www.pkal.org/ documents/OccasionalPaperOnNeuroscience.cfm Ramirez, J. J. (2000). A passion for learning and exploring neuroscience. CUR Quarterly, 21(2), 77-79. Ramirez, J. J. (2003). Attaining goals through partnerships. JUNE: Journal o f Undergraduate Neuroscience Education, 2(1), E1-E2.
November 2014 • American Psychologist
Ramirez, J. J. (Ed.). (2003). Neuroscience portfolio [Project Kaleidoscope emerging Vol. TV on institutional transformation]. Retrieved from http:// www.pkal.org/documents/NeurosciencePortfolio.cfm Ramirez, J. J. (2005). There’s a pony in here somewhere! Reflections on integrating teaching and research at predominantly undergraduate insti tutions. JUNE: Journal o f Undergraduate Neuroscience Education, 4( 1), E6-E10. Ramirez, J. J. (2007). Editorial: Neuroscience and the liberal arts. JUNE: Journal o f Undergraduate Neuroscience Education, 5(2), E7. Ramirez, J. J. (2010). Promoting supportive environments for transforma tive research at predominately undergraduate institutions. In K. Karukstis & N. Hensel (Eds.), Transformative research at predominately under graduate institutions (pp. 13-20). Washington, DC: Council on Under graduate Research. Ramirez, J. J. (2012). The intentional mentor: Effective mentorship of undergraduate science students. JUNE: Journal o f Undergraduate Neu roscience Education, 11(1), A55-A63. Ramirez, J. J., Aanonsen, L., Dunbar, G., Hill, W., Paul, C. A., Smith, D., & Workshop Participants. (1998). Undergraduate education in the neu rosciences: Four blueprints. In J. J. Ramirez (Ed.), Occasional paper on neuroscience: Proceedings from the PKAL Workshop on Interdisciplin ary Connections (pp. 27-33). Washington, DC: Project Kaleidoscope.
November 2014 • American Psychologist
Ramirez, J. J., Caldwell, J. L., Majure, M., Wessner, D. R., Klein, R. L., Meyer, E. M., & King, M. A. (2003). Adeno-associated virus vector expressing nerve growth factor enhances cholinergic axonal sprouting after cortical injury in rats. The Journal o f Neuroscience, 23, 2797-2803. Ramirez, J. J., McQuilkin, M., Carrigan, T., MacDonald, K., & Kelley, M. S. (1996). Progressive entorhinal cortex lesions accelerate hippocam pal sprouting and spare spatial memory in rats. Proceedings o f the N ational A cadem y o f Sciences, USA, 93, 15512-15517. doi: 10.1073/pnas.93.26.15512 Ramirez, J. J., & Normansell, L. (2003). A decade o f FUN: The first ten years o f the Faculty fo r Undergraduate Neuroscience [Essay for Project Kaleidoscope]. Retrieved from http://www.pkal.org/documents/FacultyUndergradNeuroscience.cfm Ramirez, J. J„ & Tonidandel, S. (2009). SOMAS-URM: The evolution of a mentoring and summer research program. JUNE: Journal o f Undergrad uate Neuroscience Education, S(l), A69-A72. Wiertelak, E. P., & Ramirez, J. J. (2008). Undergraduate neuroscience education: Blueprints for the 21st century. JUNE: Journal o f Undergrad uate Neuroscience Education, 6(2), A34-A39. Wiertelak, E. P., Ramirez, J. J., & Yates, J. R. (2011). The Faculty fo r Undergraduate Neuroscience: Learning lessons since 1991. Retrieved from Association of American Colleges and Universities website: http:// www.aacu.org/pkal/documents/FUN.pdf
787
Copyright of American Psychologist is the property of American Psychological Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
