Pharmacology & Physiology Student is Georgetown’s First HHMI Gilliam Fellow

In July 2024, Pharmacology & Physiology doctoral student Lindsey Russ became Georgetown University’s first recipient of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Gilliam Fellowship, which “invests in graduate trainees who are committed to advancing equity and inclusion in science and empowers them as future science leaders.”

Russ joins 49 other graduate students from across the country in Gilliam’s 19th cohort since the program launched in 2004. She will receive up to three years of financial support for her dissertation research on brainstem function, as well as leadership training and professional development opportunities.

“It’s honestly an incredible honor to be selected as a Gilliam Fellow, especially Georgetown’s first,” Russ said. “That’s a huge accomplishment for us in the lab and for Georgetown as a whole, so I’m hoping to pave the way for some other students in the future. … This program specifically provides underrepresented scientists like myself the opportunity to be the change in science that we want to see, to create the representation that we wanted to see growing up.”

A native of Raleigh, North Carolina, and first-generation college student, Russ pursued research opportunities in neurodegeneration throughout her undergraduate studies at North Carolina State University. She explored the effects of cyanotoxin exposure on the development of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in a campus lab, and interned at Columbia University with a focus on retinal degeneration.

At Georgetown, Russ, a Patrick Healy Graduate Fellow, joined Rebekah Evans’ lab. There, she is investigating the normal function and effects of exercise on the pedunculopontine nucleus (PPN), a brainstem structure involved in movement which is affected by Parkinson’s disease. Russ uses whole-cell patch-clamp electrophysiology and optogenetic techniques to activate and measure the electrical activity of PPN cells from mouse models.

Evans, an assistant professor in the Department of Neuroscience, worked with Russ on the Gilliam application. The fellowship accepts student-mentor pairs; as Russ’ mentor, Evans will receive training and support in further strengthening the academic community in her lab and beyond. Evans said she plans to use Gilliam funding in support of student feedback surveys; the Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience’s equity, diversity and inclusion committee; and webinars and other events for students.

BGE spoke with Russ and Evans about their research and how the Gilliam Fellowship will help them to advance their work.

BGE: Lindsey, how did you get to where you are today – conducting brain research as a doctoral student?

Lindsey Russ: A lot of my research experience thus far has been kind of catered towards neurodegeneration. … Seeing family members plagued with these diseases, like Alzheimer’s and dementia … kind of fueled my interest, because I’ve seen it happen. So I was more interested in, how can we combat this, how can I help uncover the mechanisms behind how these diseases develop? How does the brain degenerate?

[The Pharmacology & Physiology Ph.D. program] has a really heavy interest in neuropharmacology, and so I really wanted to understand or eventually be able to hopefully aid in some type of drug development [for] these neurodegenerative diseases.

BGE: What brought the two of you together as researchers?

Rebekah Evans: I interviewed [Lindsey] when she was applying for the program, and I thought she was amazing then, I was so excited for her to come!

Lindsey Russ: We do three rotations [in the Ph.D. program], and so I rotated in Dr. Evans’ lab in the fall of 2022. … I think a huge part about choosing your lab is just the environment. I think Dr. Evans definitely has the type of mentorship that I thrive under, and then also the lab environment here, it’s a very welcoming culture, it’s a very collaborative lab environment, so I’ve gotten a lot of help from my lab technicians and the upper graduate students.

On top of that, also being able to do the research that I want to do and that I’m interested in, and learning these challenging but also very rewarding techniques like electrophysiology, so it was just a great fit for me overall.

BGE: What motivated you to apply for the Gilliam Fellowship?

Lindsey Russ: Dr. Evans and I have weekly meetings, so we talk about professional development, where I can present my research, funding opportunities – things like that. I think Dr. Evans had brought [the fellowship] up in one of our meetings and was saying there’s a call for applicants, so I did my own research and I was automatically so ecstatic to be applying and even be considered for the opportunity.

Rebekah Evans: We’ve always been discussing what experiments are good to do … but it’s actually really a nice exercise to write a grant at this stage, because it forces you to solidify those plans a little bit more, and to justify them. So even though it can be a lot of work, it’s something that really can be useful, aside from just literally getting the grant.

Lindsey Russ: I hadn’t really written many grants prior to one of the courses that we had, so it was definitely a very tedious process. But like Dr. Evans said, it’s very helpful for also writing out what you plan to do. … It was a good opportunity for me to do it and actually be successful, so it feels kind of like a little pat on the back.

BGE: What does it mean to you to be named a Gilliam Fellow?

Lindsey Russ: It’s honestly an incredible honor to be selected as a Gilliam Fellow, especially Georgetown’s first. That’s a huge accomplishment for us in the lab and for Georgetown as a whole, so I’m hoping to pave the way for some other students in the future.

Just in reading [the fellowship’s] mission statement, all of their core values revolve around … generating that inclusivity and equity in science. So, being a Black, first-generation woman in STEM, I want to amplify that representation in science, so I thought it just aligned perfectly with my core values and beliefs.

In general, I’m really excited about this program because I think both community and representation are vital to success in higher education, especially for minority students. … The truth is, the further you get in higher education, the less I see people that look like me, and that’s just the reality of it. But this program specifically provides underrepresented scientists like myself the opportunity to be the change in science that we want to see, to create the representation that we wanted to see growing up.

BGE: Lindsey, what’s next for you after your doctoral studies?

Lindsey Russ: I think a lot of the distrust that’s been happening lately revolving around science is because of this lack of representation and lack of effective science communication. And so I’m hoping to bridge that gap as an emerging scientific leader.

I don’t know exactly what I want to do. I know whatever I do do, whether that be industry or science policy or having my own lab … I want to make sure that’s a huge part of it, is conducting that outreach and making sure that I can bridge that gap between the communities that seem to be breeding some of this overall distrust a lot of people have in science.

This article was originally published by the Georgetown University Medical Center. Please follow the link to read the full story.