Title:GUMC welcomes cluster of neuroplasticity faculty

In 2022, Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) launched a search for a group of new faculty members to join as a cohort to focus on interdisciplinary and interdepartmental research on neuroplasticity.

The positions were created around the theme Integrative Approaches to Neuroplasticity Across the Lifespan, which aligns with GUMC’s priorities.

Retired professor Mary Ann Dutton chaired the search committee for the cluster hire. Dutton led a faculty search committee that combed through 215 applications.

“We identified six candidates and successfully landed four, which is actually very good when you’re doing a national search because these are highly talented people who are applying to multiple institutions,” says Elliott Crooke (Parent’17), vice president for faculty and academic affairs, and professor in Department of Biochemistry and Molecular & Cellular Biology.

The four new faculty members—who were hired to work in pharmacology and physiology; biochemistry and molecular and cellular biology; neurology; and neuroscience—arrived at Georgetown by July 2024. All of them will focus on the neuroplasticity theme through research in their respective departments.

“We’re also setting up social and faculty development activities for them to connect with each other and our existing faculty,” adds Crooke.

Joan Orpella, assistant professor in the Department of Neuroscience, will research how different types of information are processed, interacted, and integrated to achieve everyday tasks such as speech, production, perception, and language learning.

Hong-yuan Chu, associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, will focus his research on neural circuit dysfunction associated with Parkinson’s pathology.

Tong (Tina) Liu, assistant professor in the Department of Neurology, will research visual plasticity in the context of epilepsy surgery and stroke recovery in humans.

Priyanka Joshi, assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular & Cellular Biology, will focus on biomolecular homeostasis of metabolites and proteins in aging and neurodegenerative diseases.

This new cluster hire approach comes as Georgetown’s Department of Neuroscience celebrates 25 years and Georgetown’s Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience celebrates 30 years. “Their lab renovations are completed and we are very excited to welcome this new team of researchers—all of whom are open to collaborations and working closely with our students,” says Anna T. Riegel, Vice President for Biomedical Research and Education and Celia Rudman Fisher Endowed Professor of Oncology and Pharmacology.