Theodore Nelson

Assistant Professor of Health Studies
Age: 36
Hometown: Montrose, Colo.
Education: B.A. Colorado State University, Psychology; Ph.D. University of Maryland, Baltimore, Neuroscience
Area of Research: Neuroscience, specifically the science of taste
Time at Georgetown: 2 years
Courses Taught: Human biology lecture, human bio lab, genetics lab, molecular and cell biology labs and microbiology labs

What is the greatest challenge in your field today?
The greatest challenge right now is — so the exact mechanism for taste is fairly well understood, but understanding how that relates to what’s happening in the brain and learning and applying that all into food choices, so diet, how it all combines together, the specific mechanisms combine together with the brain influences behavior.

How did you narrow your focus of study?
I was in psychology and I took a sensation and perception course, which was by far my favorite course. And I was really interested in the idea of smell and associating that with memory, because smell is tightly linked to memory. And I looked for grad programs that were focused on taste and smell because usually those two are linked together. They work in similar ways, though not exactly the same ways. When I went to grad school I ended up in a taste lab instead of a smell lab and I spent many years working on the molecular mechanisms of taste, and then I did my post doc at a place called Monell Chemical Senses Center which is a big institute dedicated to taste and smell research. And I worked on a project that linked salt tastes. When I came here, what I really wanted to do was take that back to this idea of learning associated with taste. So I took some stuff from Monell with conditioned taste aversion and that’s kind of what I’m trying to do here.

What’s the greatest challenge you have in teaching?
The greatest challenge in teaching is reaching all of the students because of such diversity in the students and variability in how each of them learns. It’s hard to have one teaching style that works for everybody.

What would be your ideal course to teach?
So I actually get to teach a neuroscience course next spring which is great, I will love to do that, and it was part of my own desire to do that and making that happen. The other thing that I would be very interested in teaching is a course in sensation and perception.

What would you be doing in you weren’t in academia?
I would probably be a veterinarian.

What’s the most memorable encounter with a student?
Good encounter? Or bad encounter? I think the most rewarding aspect is working in the lab with research students working with me and that mentoring experience, one-on-one, students working in my own lab on projects I designed.

What drew you to Georgetown?
I have a lot of experience teaching labs before, and this department had an interest in someone who had taught these labs and had done that. And I really like the environment — specifically the NHS, it has a small liberal arts feel to it. And the department was a really good fit for me.

Now that you’re here, what’s your favorite thing about Georgetown?
It’s the students, I think the student population here is pretty awesome. They’re very polite, very interested, very engaged and a lot of fun to work with.

What do you wish more students would take away from your classes?
I think what matters more than the strict memorization of the facts is the idea of thinking through things in a scientific and analytical way, and that can be more important than any of the specific content throughout the course. The ability to analyze and think through problems.

Interview by Michelle Xu