Steve Ramirez’s students may think that when they come to his class, they are the ones learning and he is the one teaching. After all, the College of Arts & Sciences assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences is a renowned neuroscience researcher and a leading expert on the science of memory.

“Wisdom is a two-way street when it comes to age,” says Ramirez (CAS’10). “We have to learn from our students as well. When we remind ourselves that students are people too, we listen.”

That listen-first approach is what helped earn Ramirez BU’s top teaching award in 2021, the Metcalf Cup and Prize for Excellence in Teaching. It’s also made him a popular mentor at the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP). Just ask Michelle Surets (CAS’23), who is assisting Ramirez with several memory-related endeavors in his lab, including a novel approach to modeling Alzheimer’s disease, which she presented at the UROP symposium in the fall of 2021. “Instead of using the standard transgenic model, we aim to create a more realistic progression through the chronic hyperactivation of a neuron population, which mimics the early stages of Alzheimer’s,” she says.

But her work in the lab went far beyond engrams, Surets says. “I was able to witness firsthand how much of themselves researchers pour into their projects, putting countless hours into refining their experiments. Steve has been an invaluable role model to myself and the other students. His endless enthusiasm and the ease with which he can find common ground with anybody is something I seek to emulate in my conversations with others.”

Not surprisingly, that admiration goes both ways.

“Michelle is basically an honorary graduate student in the lab, given her range of expertise in hands-on systems neuroscience, and is also a social nexus who brings the lab together under a healthy and positive vibe,” Ramirez says. “The lab, and by extension neuroscience, is unbelievably lucky to have her in it. Perhaps above all, I’ve learned just how sturdy the shoulders are of this generation’s neuroscientists, on which we all are very lucky to stand.”