In 1968, Ron moved to North Carolina, where he established a neuroscience laboratory in the Research Department of the N.C. Department of Mental Health at Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh and was also a professor of Neurobiology at UNC, Chapel Hill. In 1983, he moved to Wake Forest University Medical School, where he established a new Ph.D Graduate Program in Neuroscience in 1992 and was its first director until his retirement in 2013 at the age of 75. His research on brain development was recognized nationally and internationally for which he received several awards, honors, and prizes and was invited to present more than 300 lectures at academic centers and conferences throughout the world.

Dr. Ungerleider was a giant in the field of neuroscience and dedicated her research career to studying the structure and function of the primate brain.  Her work over five decades spanned single cell recordings and anatomical tracings in monkeys to PET and fMRI studies in humans, from sensory processing in V1 to attentional modulation in prefrontal and parietal cortex, and from low-level visual perceptual learning to high-level social cognition.  She was most famous for her joint discovery with Dr. Mortimer Mishkin in the 1980s of the “what and where” visual pathways.

Joe dedicated his professional life to creating space and opportunity for underrepresented groups in science. Joe was the co-creator of the Summer Program in Neuroscience, Ethics, and Survival (SPINES), a month-long course, supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Dr. Leichnetz retired from the VCU Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology as Professor Emeritus in 2011, having taught neuroanatomy to medical and graduate students for 41 years, and doing neuroanatomical research on the control of eye movement in primates. Dr. Leichnetz was the Graduate Program Director in his department and Course Director of M-I Neurosciences for over 20 years. He was honored in 2004 with the Distinguished Mentor Award, having counseled numerous students through their career objectives in medicine.

Dr. Shipley was the Donald E. Wilson, MD, MACP Distinguished Professor, preeminent Neuroscientist, longtime Chair of the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, and Founding Director of the UMSOM Program in Neuroscience. Dr. Shipley joined the UMSOM faculty as Chair in 1994. He was one of the world’s leading experts on the neural organization of the region of the brain, called the olfactory bulb, that processes information about odors.