Welcome to the Department of Neuroscience!
To Discover, Challenge, & Inspire
Our overarching goal is to improve brain health through discovery research. We focus on brain disorders that become increasingly worse as people age, like Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, response to infections, depression, seizures, and recovery from a head injury. These disorders often affect memory, the ability to communicate, movement, and general mental well-being. We seek to understand what underlies these disorders to discover early detection methods and new therapies to improve health.
Kathy Maguire-Zeiss, PhD, Chair & Professor, Department of Neuroscience
The Department of Neuroscience values diversity. We oppose systemic racism and biases in all dimensions of race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic background, politics, and health status.
A statement from the Neuroscience PhD program (IPN) is here. Comments on how we can improve our inclusivity? Please share them with us. You may find the following resources helpful.
MS in Integrative Neuroscience
Fall 2027 Admissions
January 15 – Early Application – apply early to waive the application fee!
May 15 – Priority Application
July 1 – Final Deadline
Associated Programs
Featured Stories
Inaugural Vicini Dissertation Award Winner Michel Fallah Seeks to Answer the “Why’s of Brain Disease”
Michel Fallah (G’25, M’27) credits recently retired professor Stefano Vicini with helping her to find a focus in biomedical research: Using electrophysiology, the measurement of neurons’ electrical activity, to try to unravel the mysteries underlying neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s disease.
Brainhack DC Teams Design New Tools for Neuroscience Data
Georgetown neuroscientists joined DC-area collaborators and National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) researchers on April 16–17, 2026, for Brainhack DC 2026, a two-day hackathon focused on advancing data collection, analysis, and sharing. Organized by IPN doctoral students Chloe Casagrande (G’27) and Peyton Subia (G’28, M’30), the event brought together participants to pitch ideas and collaborate on projects aligned with the theme “From Mice to (Hu)man,” including data dashboards, neural simulations, and MRI database accessibility.
Heart of the Harvey Performers Explore ‘the Art of Medicine and the Medicine of Art’
Georgetown students and faculty gathered on April 17, 2026, in the W. Proctor Harvey Clinical Teaching Amphitheater for the Heart of the Harvey performing arts showcase. Featuring actors, poets, musicians, and dancers, the event explored “the art of medicine and the medicine of art,” highlighting the human side of care, illness, and healing. Organized by neuroscience professor Bill Rebeck, the showcase fostered reflection, creativity, and community across the medical center.
Max Riesenhuber, PhD & Xiong Jiang, PhD receive Vicennial Medals for 20 years of service: 2024
Department of Neuroscience faculty receive Vicennial Medals
William Macci (L’24) and Sparsha Muralidhara (G’23) aim to improve digital access and address internet inequities across the District: April 2024
Georgetown University graduate students William Macci (L’24) and Sparsha Muralidhara (G’23) brought home the Public Policy Challenge $3,000 grand prize for their proposal EQuality-DC, which aimed to connect families to accessible and affordable resources.
Zac Colon & Michel Fallah (both IPN Neuroscience) tie for first place in oral presentations at Student Research Day 2023: October 20, 2023
IPN Neuroscience Students tie for 1st Place in Oral Presentations at Student Research Day: Zac Colon (G’25), “Implications of aging on inflammation, perineuronal nets, and parvalbumin interneurons” & Michel Fallah (G’25), “Basal ganglia inhibition of the rostral and caudal pedunculopontine nucleus”
Researchers Discuss Cognitive Function and Aging at 2nd Annual Healthy Aging Symposium: July 28, 2023
Michael Ullman, PhD, Professor of Neuroscience, presented his research at Georgetown’s second annual Healthy Aging Symposium. He said, “said that some cognitive functions remain stable or improve in aging people, dispelling a popular myth related to cognition and aging.”
Golden Apple Awards 2023: Celebrating the GUSOM Community: April 1, 2023
Mark Burns, PhD, Professor of Neuroscience, Receives a Golden Apple Award. Georgetown University School of Medicine faculty, students and staff were honored during the annual Golden Apple Awards ceremony, held April 1 in the Georgetown University Intercultural Center Auditorium & Galleria.
Bill Rebeck, PhD receives Vicennial Gold Medal Award: March 2023
During the Spring Faculty Convocation, Bill Rebeck, PhD, was presented the Vicennial Gold Medal Award by Georgetown President John J. DeGioia. This award is granted to University faculty and academic staff in recognition of twenty years of full-time service to the University.
Kathleen Maguire-Zeiss, PhD receives the Karen Gale Outstanding Achievement Award: Feb 3, 2023
GGWIM Recognizes Exceptional Women Faculty Members – At the Georgetown Women in Medicine (GWIM) Awards Ceremony and Reception, attendees honored women faculty members who have dedicated themselves to mentorship, research, education and service throughout the medical center.
Melanie Collier – 2023 Ignatian Hoya Scholarship Recipient: 2023
My interest in neuroscience was driven by my overall interest in biology and psychology. Naturally my interest in the human body and my interest in the mind led me to: neuroscience.
Integrative Neuroscience Student Wins McCourt Public Policy Challenge
M.S. in Integrative Neuroscience student Sparsha Muralidhara was a winner in the McCourt School of Public Policy’s 2023 Georgetown Public Policy Challenge. Muralidhara worked with law student William Macci on their proposal, E-QualityDC, which empowers D.C. public schools to bridge the digital divide for at-risk students, connecting families to accessible and affordable resources.
PhD student in Neuroscience receives NIH Award: August 2020
Nahdia Jones, a 5th-year Ph.D. candidate in the IPN, is the recipient of the F99/K00, also known as the Blueprint Diversity Specialized Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Advancement in Neuroscience (D-SPAN).
Exposure to Environmental PCBs Impairs Brain Function in Mice, says the study’s lead researcher, Mondona McCann, PhD in Neuroscience: October 2019
“Our findings to date show strong connections between these toxins and the health of astrocytes. They also contribute to our understanding of how crucial these astrocytes are to maintaining brain functioning,” says McCann, who is conducting her research in the lab of Kathleen Maguire-Zeiss, PhD, chair of Georgetown’s Department of Neuroscience.
Dr. Italo Mocchetti Receiving the President’s Award for Distinguished Scholar-Teacher: October 23, 2019
The ceremony will be held on October 23, 2019, at 5:00 PM in Gaston Hall during the Fall Faculty Convocation. This award commends faculty who were nominated by their students and faculty peers for outstanding service to our community and to the Academy as exemplary scholar-teachers, embodying Georgetown’s mission as a student-centered research University.
Kathleen Maguire-Zeiss Named New Chair of the Department of Neuroscience
As the newly named chair of the Department of Neuroscience, Kathy Maguire-Zeiss, PhD, will help lead the initiative to grow Georgetown’s neuroscience research.
MS in Integrative Neuroscience
The Department of Neuroscience offers a rigorous program leading to the MS degree in Integrative Neuroscience. The MS program is designed for completion in two full-time consecutive semesters. The curriculum includes an extensive integrated overview of neuroscience, statistics, experimental design, and technical approaches.
Bayer Extols the Virtues of “Showing Up and Doing Your Job”
From her formative years as a self-described “Army brat” and a first-generation college graduate, Barbara M. Bayer, PhD, has focused on showing up and doing her job.
Alzheimer’s Risk Genes Linked to Changes in Young, Healthy Brains
Conventional wisdom might indicate that bigger brains and enhanced memory performance in youth should help protect against the cognitive declines seen decades later in Alzheimer’s disease. Yet for two Georgetown University scientists, recent research appears to suggest the opposite.
Boys with High-Functioning Autism Show Surprising Strength in Language
“We had not expected this interesting finding,” says Michael Ullman, director of the Brain and Language Laboratory at Georgetown University Medical Center and senior author of the study that found boys with high-functioning autism could process a key grammar task faster than boys without autism.