Prominent Neuroscientist to Become GW’s First Vice President for Research

By Julia Parmley

A renowned expert on the visual system, Leo M. Chalupa studies the connections and complexities of brain and nerve development. But he now has his own eyes on GW, where he will become the University’s first vice president for research on April 1.

“I’m excited and ready for the opportunity to enhance the University’s research presence,” says Dr. Chalupa, calling GW the right challenge at the right time.

“Dr. Chalupa is an accomplished scientist and administrator who brings a wealth of experience and strategic vision to this important new position,” says GW President Steven Knapp. “He has the skills and insight needed to work across the University’s many disciplines, building our research infrastructure and advancing GW’s reputation as an internationally recognized research institution.”

Dr. Chalupa is a distinguished professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology and chair of neurobiology, physiology, and behavior in the College of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Davis. At UC Davis, Dr. Chalupa researches visual system development, the part of the central nervous system that allows for sight, and how brain functions change in response to natural growth or disorders. Nothing is more interesting, he says, than discovering why the brain is the way it is.

“The brain is the most complicated organ in the world,” he says. “There are 18 different areas of our cortex that process vision, more than what is devoted to language. We know a lot, but our ignorance about how disorders are formed and can be corrected is still quite vast.”

Dr. Chalupa first arrived at UC Davis as an assistant professor in 1975, and since then has secured grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health, Japan’s Society for the Promotion of Science, the Human Frontiers Science Program, the Fogarty Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He has also co-edited three books, authored more than 150 journal articles, and received the title of “distin¬guished professor,” which is given to less than 1 percent of the university’s faculty.

Dr. Chalupa and his research team have made several significant discoveries about the visual system, including that millions of nerve cells produced in the visual system in early development are lost when the brain reaches full maturity and that early connections formed between areas in the visual system are less precise than those formed at maturity.

At UC Davis, Dr. Chalupa has served as interim dean of the College of Biological Sciences and has tripled the faculty count and quadrupled the funding as director of the UC Davis Center for Neuroscience, which he founded in 1992. He also has created three other centers at UC Davis: the Mind and Brain Center, the Brain Imaging Center, and the Center for Visual Sciences. Dr. Chalupa estimates he travels more than 100,000 miles a year to give lectures and conduct research all around the world, including Italy, France, Australia, Turkey, Israel, and Japan.

“Science is an international business,” says Dr. Chalupa. “Traveling allows me to collaborate with research partners around the world and have a little fun too.”

Dr. Chalupa graduated from Queens College with a bachelor’s degree in physiological psychology in 1966, earned his doctorate in neuro¬psychology at the City University of New York in 1970, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Brain Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1975.

As GW vice president for research, Dr. Chalupa will foster collaboration between the academic and medical areas of the University and augment research initiatives at the Virginia Campus. He also plans to train faculty in grant writing and increase partnerships with national research laboratories and institutes.

“With two decades of experience reviewing federal and nonfederal grants, Dr. Chalupa has developed a keen sense of how the academic and federal government research communities function,” says Donald R. Lehman, executive vice president for academic affairs and George Gamow professor of theoretical physics at GW. “He will be a valuable addition to GW’s senior management team and play a critical role in accomplishing the goals of the University’s Strategic Plan for Academic Excellence.”

Dr. Chalupa says he will miss the “idyllic” town of Davis, where a local street is named after his wife, Tanya, in honor of her advocacy for child car safety seat laws in the 1980s. But Dr. Chalupa says he is looking forward to moving into the condo they own in downtown Washington and scouting out new places to play his weekly tennis matches and hike. He also will be near his daughter, Alexandra, who works as director of vice-chairs for the Democratic National Committee. His other daughter, Andrea, is a journalist in New York.

“I’ve always loved Washington, D.C., and would visit when I was growing up in New York,” says Dr. Chalupa. “One special memory was when my eighth-grade class came down to D.C. and a friend and I walked up to the top of the Washington Monument.

“I’m thrilled about this opportunity,” he says. “GW already has an outstanding reputation, and I am confident things will continue to move in the right direction. It’s going to be fun. I’m a big believer in having fun and being effective.”

Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu