Dr. Leah Chase, who is director of the neuroscience program at HopeCollege, has been elected to the governing board of the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN).

Established in the early 1990s, FUN is a national professional organization dedicated to neuroscience teaching and research, and has approximately 700 members.  In addition to providing an array of resources for faculty, FUN holds an annual meeting each fall for faculty and students, both to share information about neuroscience education and to feature undergraduate research, and has organized a variety of symposia to enable faculty to discuss, develop and refine neuroscience education.

FUN's leadership includes a total of six councilors as well as a president, president-elect, past president, secretary and treasurer.  Chase's two-year term as a councilor began this month.

Chase is an associate professor of biology and chemistry, and has been a member of the Hope faculty since 2000.  She has led the development of the college's neuroscience program, which became a minor in 2004.

Prior to joining the Hope faculty, she conducted postdoctoral training at the University of Minnesota, where she had completed her doctorate in biochemistry in 1999.  She has received a variety of external grants in support of her research and development of the neuroscience program, including eight years of continuous support from the Campbell Foundation and an award from the National Science Foundation in 2002 to create the college's laboratory course in neuroscience.  Hope named her a Towsley Research Scholar, a four-year award, in 2003.  Among other professional activity, she is a member of the Society for Neuroscience, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Sigma Xi.

The college's interdisciplinary minor in neuroscience includes a series of courses in neuroscience specifically as well as additional coursework chosen from among the departments of biology, chemistry, English, mathematics, philosophy, psychology and nursing.  The minor includes participating in original research as part of the capstone neuroscience research course.