“I always had a curiosity for how things work,” Cazares Borbon said. “I’ve felt a deep connection with science. It just makes sense to me and scratches that itch in my mind of learning how things work.”

He will graduate this May from the şŁ˝ÇÂŰĚł of Arts & Sciences with degrees in computer science and neurobiology and plans to work as a software developer in his hometown of Tucson, Arizona. Cazares Borbon’s work as a research assistant in the with , an assistant professor of rehabilitation medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center, has also influenced his career interests.

“I would love to do software development for researchers to help people do research,” Cazares Borbon said.

His contributions to the DARN Lab were multifaceted and important, DeMarco said. 

“Emilio is an impressive trainee,” he said. “He quickly understands complicated concepts and systems, both technical and conceptual. He is quiet but also does not shy away from asking clarifying questions. His independence, dependability and willingness to work hard cannot be overstated.”

‘Intellectual Courage’

Cazares Borbon attended a Catholic, Lasallian college preparatory high school in Tucson that was part of the national Cristo Rey Network. His first introduction to Georgetown University was through the , a three-week college prep program for rising high school seniors from select schools, including those in the Cristo Rey Network.

It became a catalyst of Cazares Borbon’s interest in Georgetown. 

“I felt connected and welcomed even online,” he said. “I thought, if I feel this way online, imagine how it is in person.”

When he arrived on the Hilltop, Cazares Borbon immediately remarked on how green the campus was. Seeing Healy Hall reminded him of Hogwarts from Harry Potter.

In high school, his main extracurricular activity was robotics. He discovered computer science by programming the team’s robots for .

Originally, Cazares Borbon figured he would major in computer science with a biology minor at Georgetown. But after attending a lecture about neurons, he decided he wanted to learn more about how the brain works. That led him to the neurobiology major.

“I would describe Emilio as optimistically bold,” said , an assistant dean in the şŁ˝ÇÂŰĚł of Arts & Sciences. “I am always impressed by his genuine thoughtfulness and intellectual courage. I have known Emilio as someone always willing to venture into unfamiliar territory while consistently finding the constructive lesson in every outcome. …Our most enthusiastic conversations occur when he shares the connections he observes in the world between all his interests.”

, a professor of computer science, sees a “quiet confidence” in Cazares Borbon. “He is quite mature and measured,” Maloof said. “He is pursuing two rigorous courses of study, computer science and neurobiology, and I do not remember ever seeing him panicked or stressed because of what must be an arduous workload.”

Cazares Borbon is also a part of the (GSP), which supports first-generation and low-income students, and the (CSP), a decades-old program where first-generation students begin their Georgetown experience with a five-week summer program. Additionally, Cazares Borbon received support from the (RSSP), which is designed to expand opportunities for students from traditionally underserved communities pursuing studies in the sciences.

“Having a smaller experience of college before college fully started helped me grow as a person,” he said.

Trying New Things

Cazares Borbon enjoys trying new things.

Besides his classwork, he was involved in several organizations on campus. 

He danced and handled operations for (BFMG), a student-run dance ensemble dedicated to sharing traditional Mexican dance and culture. For the , he sang in the choir, was an altar server and helped with Spanish Masses.  This year, Cazares Borbon was the president of the Mexican advocacy club at Georgetown.

His friend even convinced him to become a volunteer tax preparer for , where Cazares Borbon has served on the board as president and treasurer, helping the organization grow to more than 200 volunteers.

When asked what he would share with his younger self, Cazares Borbon said, “trying new things really doesn’t hurt me.” That’s one of the main lessons he’s learned from his Georgetown education.

“Try new things out without worrying if you’re going to fail or not, because you’re probably going to succeed,” he said. “And then find friends that push you to do new things, because, sure, you can do new things on your own, but doing them with friends is so much better.”

Making Memories

Coming to DC from the Southwest meant new experiences for Cazares Borbon. Here are some of his favorites during his time on the Hilltop: 

Favorite spot on campus: The table next to the chemistry labs on the second floor of Regents Hall. Because that floor is the coldest floor in Regents and also the table has a good view of the Regents patio. That’s where I study before an exam.

Favorite class that you didn’t expect to love: The Dynamic Brain in Biology with Professor and Professor . They really taught me how to actually read research papers. In previous classes, we’ve read a lot of papers. We sometimes analyze the figures, but in the Dynamic Brain, we had to actually know what the researchers were talking about and what methods they used. This really opened my eyes that not everything researchers produce is good. You have to identify how you can make things better.

Favorite local restaurant and order: Recently my friends and I discovered actual good Mexican food at Tortas Y Tacos La Chiquita. It’s a 24-hour Mexican restaurant, and we go there at all kinds of hours of the day. It’s located in Arlington. We get the chicken nachos. 

Favorite event that you’ve attended: One of my favorite events at Georgetown would be the DĂ­a de los Muertos celebration this past fall, because it landed on a Sunday and we had a bilingual mass followed by the reception, which had the biggest attendance I’ve ever seen of any event in Georgetown. More than 300 people attended.

Favorite memory or moment on campus: My favorite memory on campus was my first snow storm or snow day, because I had never seen snow fall and stick. In Tucson, we do get snow, however, it literally melts as soon as it touches the ground. So that first day when it snowed, it was all fluffy and we could still walk on it. That was pretty special, because I had never experienced that before. 

(Top photo by Amy Cazares, C’24)

With graduation just around the corner, she’s thankful for the space and time over the past four years to explore the ways her disparate interests overlap and complement one another. 

“I’ve come to the realization that there is no limit to education,” said Douglas, a neurobiology major and fine arts minor. “Georgetown’s liberal arts education encouraged interdisciplinary action in whatever way I found fit. There were many moments when I felt like my arts education at Georgetown supported my neurobiology pursuits, whether that was tackling a lab issue from a new angle or creating out-of-the-box graphics for papers.”

Connecting the Academic to the Personal

The road to Douglas’ course of study began long before she arrived at Georgetown. After witnessing the effect that neurological disorders had on close friends and family, she began investigating the mechanics of the brain in high school.  

“I became consumed with reading textbooks and research articles to try to understand exactly what was happening to me and my family—where exactly had the magical electrician who wires our synapses together gone wrong? But I was frustrated by the answer: the electrician hadn’t left any instructions about what they had done,” Douglas said. 

An introductory neuroscience course in high school opened the door for Douglas to begin thinking systematically about the structure of the brain and mental health. 

“I was enamored with how the brain works but realized that we’d only scratched the surface of the electrician’s work in that class,” Douglas said. “The only option to learn more about this elusive electrical goop was to dive headfirst into understanding its very mechanics by majoring in neurobiology.”

At Georgetown, Douglas was able to explore the questions that had been nagging her, both in the classroom and in the laboratory. Since 2022, she has worked in , which studies the mechanisms of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders in rodents using molecular, physiological and behavioral techniques. 

“I loved getting to be hands-on with research, especially as I missed out on bench work during my freshman year because of the pandemic,” said Douglas. “I began research just as I entered my neurobiology gateway course and it was neat to be able to see what I learned in the classroom enhance my work in the lab.”

In the Ostroumov Lab, Douglas has collaborated with researchers examining the symptoms and treatment of Parkinson’s disease, the topic of her senior thesis. She has also worked in the Vanmeter/Raven Lab in the Center for Functional MRI, where she investigated the connection between brain iron levels and different psychiatric disorders.

“Anna is exceptionally dedicated to her research, she spends several hours in the lab every day, and she has helped to move our new Parkinson’s disease-related study forward to the point where federal NIH funding and publications can be obtained,” said , an assistant professor in the . “Anna possesses the motivation, curiosity and problem approaching skills that mark her as an exceptionally promising researcher.”

Pursuing Poignant Questions

In the classroom, Douglas found ample opportunities to pursue interesting research and ask poignant questions. 

“The professors in the neurobiology department truly want you to think like a proper scientist,” Douglas said. “In ’ class on synaptic transmission, she asked us to complete a large literature review on any topic we liked that was related to synaptic transmission and my group chose to do a review on psilocybin and depression.”

Douglas’ research group developed a hypothesis about how psilocybin could correct depression and initiate neurogenesis, which ultimately led to multiple presentations and a peer-reviewed publication. That research was recognized by the Provost Undergraduate Research Presentation Award and Douglas presented the team’s findings at the National Collegiate Research Conference at Harvard University in 2023.

While studying mental health through a scientific lens, Douglas found time to investigate similar themes through her artwork. Under the guidance of , a photographer and installation artist, Douglas explored ideas that sprouted while investigating neurobiology.

“Apart from focusing across disciplines, I also focused my undergraduate art work across mediums,” said Douglas. “This past semester, I had the chance to take an independent study with Professor Bocci in photography and I focused my theme on judgment, perception and collective memory, partially as a nod to my neurobiology studies but also to reflect on the support that I have had at Georgetown from friends, professors and mentors.” 

Douglas realized that the unique community of faculty and friends on the Hilltop had empowered her at every step of her academic journey. Her independent study with Bocci gave Douglas the time and space to reflect and thank all of those people in her life. She worked to take portraits of as many Hoyas as possible, printing those images onto transparent film and then manufacturing sculptures and installations using those images. 

“I am very grateful for my time at Georgetown and for those who have supported me along the way,” said Douglas. “I wanted to emphasize that thankfulness in my work while questioning what makes up our identity.”

For Douglas, her experiences in both fine art and neurobiology gave her an appreciation for the work that arises from individual passions. 

“Georgetown lets you take a hold of your education and form the path that you want to take, even if others may not initially see how it makes sense,” said Douglas. This has been immensely helpful in making me a more confident and empowered student.”

Fitting Everything In 

An accomplished academic, Douglas embodies Georgetown’s value of education for the whole person. She is a member of the United States Pony Club, receiving her “A” rating in 2020 — just one of four individuals across the country to do so that year. 

During her sophomore year, Douglas founded I Sex Ed, Unfiltered, a free sex education program for high school students. 

“We were a small group that initiated and led a free sex education program for high school students offering a direct point of communication between young people to freely discuss complex issues with a focus on intersectionality,” said Douglas. “We also built a custom, comprehensive and freely accessible curriculum while working with schools to implement permanent programs via virtual and in person formats.”

Douglas founded Hot Hoyas Walk, an athletic club that boasted 400 members in its first semester, and has also volunteered as a counselor with the Crisis Text Line. 

Emboldened by her time on the Hilltop, Douglas is excited to continue blending the arts and the sciences to better understand mental health. 

“Educating the whole person is something that I have come to embrace during my time at Georgetown,” Douglas said. “All of my professors have embodied and encouraged me to cross-pollinate my personal interests and academic studies. In my future educational endeavors, I will continue to do the same — this approach makes all forms of inquiry more rich and fruitful.”

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Working for Others

Daniele’s parents immigrated from Bracigliano, Italy to the United States in search of better career and educational opportunities not available to them in this small agricultural community. They settled down in Springfield, Massachusetts where Daniele was born. There, he grew up helping his parents by quickly learning English and assisting his father and mother with their responsibilities. 

This hard work ethic eventually lead him to Georgetown, where he decided to pursue his passion for studying the brain. Daniele said that his interest for neuroscience was rooted in his personal experiences of watching his mother battle depression and his grandmother’s diagnosis with Parkinson’s’ disease.

While at the university, Daniele studied Parkinson’s disease under the mentorship of , chair of the . The professor reflected on her time with Daniele, saying that he was a “rare combination of confident but humble.”

“Stefano was the ‘go to’ person in my laboratory and students gravitated to him – they knew that he either had the answer or more importantly knew how to get the answer,” Maguire-Zeiss says.  “They also knew that Stefano would take the time to listen to them and empower them to be independent scientists.”

Daniele was selected as an undergraduate Howard Hughes Research Scholar, was awarded the Excellence in Research Prize for his senior thesis, and received the Taylor-Weber Scholarship for the highest level of academic achievement in the .

He continued to conduct full-time research in the Maguire-Zeiss lab after graduating summa cum laude, eventually publishing his work on how immune cells of the brain become activated in Parkinson’s. Daniele says that he will always cherish his time on the hilltop as it was “the perfect environment for a young, naïve, and curious individual like me.”

“I knew very little of the academic world and the community welcomed me with open arms, while inspiring me to use my education in service of others,” Daniele says. “Its central tenet, cura personalis—“care for the whole person”—lives true throughout the campus, and was reaffirmed in my daily interactions with friends and colleagues. Much of who I am today is thanks to the patience, guidance, and support from my mentors and professors.”

About the Award

The Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship is awarded to 30 individuals each year. There were 2,211 applicants nationwide for the 2020 cohort, making it the most competitive year to date.

The fellowship was started to aid immigrants and the children of immigrants who have graduated from both high school and college with funding for post-baccalaureate education. This was the first selection cycle that individuals could apply regardless of their immigration status.

“At a time when all forms of immigration are under attack, it’s more important than ever to be celebrating the achievements and contributions of immigrants and refugees from across the world,” said Craig Harwood, who directs the Fellowship program. “Our country and universities are enriched by the ingenuity that comes from abroad. When we honor and invest in New Americans our nation is stronger—the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows are a perfect demonstration of that.”

In the 23 years since the fellowship was founded, several impressive individuals have been recipients of this award including former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, California Surgeon General Nadine Burke-Harris, Stanford AI leader Fei-Fei Li, Lieutenant Governor of Washington Cyrus Habib, composer Paola Prestini, computational biologist Pardis Sabeti and award-winning writer Kao Kalia Yang.

Daniele has shown that he has more than earned his place among them through his compassion, duty and curiosity. , associate dean in the şŁ˝ÇÂŰĚł, who mentored Daniele during his time at Georgetown, said that he knew Daniele was capable of great things, but what was most memorable about the fellow was not his academic excellence, but his character.

“Stefano’s “potential” always played second fiddle for me; he was just a great human being to be around,” Howard says. “He remembered things about you, cared about what you said, listened and laughed generously, and just seemed to enjoy being around others. That’s how I remember him, and what makes me so happy for his achievements now. If he was in the room, it was the right room to be in.”

Current Research

Stefano’s doctoral work focuses on developing the BrainEx technology and investigating its ability to restore circulation and cellular function in the brain multiple hours after death. His work has shown that the brain has an underappreciated resilience to prolonged interruptions in blood flow, laying the groundwork for future advancements in stroke and cardiac arrest research.

He is the National Italian-American Foundation Giargiari Medical Scholar, cofounder of the Harvey Cushing Neurosurgical Society, and a member of the 2020 Forbes 30 under 30 in the science category.

Fish Brain

Brown is a double neurobiology and economics major. With the help of his faculty mentor , he is assessing the behavior of zebrafish that have Autism Spectrum Disorder via electrophysiology recordings from certain parts of these fishes’ brains and spinal cords by studying action potentials in various parts of the brain and how they respond to stimuli. The protocol that Brown is developing is part of a larger Autism Behavior Maze project that tests socialization patterns and memory.

“Specifically, we want to examine if there is a difference between wildtype and autistic fish in terms of learning which way in the maze will lead them to a social reward,” says Brown. “This is not connected to my project in particular, but we may use the designs and techniques in my project to understand the results in the autistic experiments. 

A member of the at Georgetown, Brown started his research during the spring semester of his junior year.

The length of time dedicated to this project has allowed him to explore ways to improve the protocol. One such enhancement is the development of better technology to capture the electrical signals from the zebrafish.

“These fish are difficult to do electrophysiological experiments on because they are small, need a constant flow of water, and have delicate bodies that must be supported yet not crushed by the structure,” says Brown. “But the research we do with them is very important. Zebrafish are believed to have at least 70% of the DNA that humans do, they reproduce very quickly, and even exhibit very similar social behavior to people such as interaction and forming relationships. They also have similar neurocircuitry as the human brain.”

Making a Better Device

In order to create an improved device to study these zebrafish, Brown went to the , Georgetown’s one-stop-shop for any creative project, to build a structure that would hold the zebrafish without hurting them.

The Maker Hub, which is open to all Georgetown students, houses all types of quality equipment including a sewing loom, a bookbinding shop, Arduino boards, and most importantly for this project, 3-D printers. 

“Although the neurobiology lab has a Monoprice printer like the one at the Maker Hub, we have found the Maker Hub’s Ultimaker printers to be much more effective,” says Brown. “They also have two other types of 3D printers that are more precise and sophisticated than even the Ultimakers.”

Building Better Research

Due to the quality and efficiency of these machines, Brown has designed 15 different prototypes since September to perfect his model with the help of Maker Hub manager and adjunct professor .

“With the aid of this technology, we will look closely into areas like memory, learning, and sound perception,” says Brown.

Due to this new apparatus design, Brown and future researchers at Georgetown will be able to study important neurological functions in brains similar to our own which will ultimately contribute to a deeper understanding of our own physiology and humanity.

February 16, 2018 — Congratulations to Ayan Mandal (C’18), who has been awarded a to attend Cambridge University.

A double major in neurobiology and biological physics, Mandal plans to earn his Ph.D. in psychiatry while at Cambridge, before likely returning to the United States to attend medical school. He is the first Georgetown student or alum to be awarded the Gates Scholarship since Michael Meaney (C’12) in 2016.

A Long Island native, Mandal arrived on the Hilltop intending to study linguistics, and soon realized that his interests lay more in the neurological basis for language. He began working in the alongside of Georgetown University Medical Center; there, he applies computer science tools to medical issues like aphasia, or stroke-induced language deficits.

In 2017, Mandal became the first Georgetown student since 2014 to be awarded the Barry Goldwater Scholarship, one of the country’s most prestigious awards for students in mathematics, engineering, and the natural sciences. after the Goldwater win.

Beyond his laboratory work, Mandal participates in the Carroll Fellows Initiative and writes .

June 12, 2017 — This spring, neurobiology major Ayan Mandal (C’18) was awarded the , one of the country’s most prestigious awards for students studying mathematics, engineering and the natural sciences.

Each university is allowed to nominated up to four sophomores and juniors annually for the scholarship — Patrick Mulcahey (C’18) also earned an Honorable Mention this year — and around 300 students in total are chosen to receive it. Applicants are evaluated based largely on research experience and interest in pursuing a doctoral degree in the natural sciences, though grades, essays, and recommendations also factor in. Mandal is the first Georgetown student to receive the award since Sarah Waye (C’15) in 2014.

Mandal, a native of Rocky Point, N.Y., arrived on the Hilltop intending to study linguistics. Though he would end up choosing another route, he still credits Computational Corpus Linguistics class as instrumental in teaching him the importance of study design when conducting seemingly “objective” data science.

“When you’re doing data science, you have to be aware that you’re choosing how to count things,” Mandal said. “When you say ‘this is what we count as someone detecting an error,’ how we choose those definitions has an impact on what our results look like.”

After realizing he was more interested in the neurological side of language than the study of linguistics, Mandal chose to double major in neurobiology and biological physics. A self-taught programmer, he now applies computer science concepts to medical problems in Georgetown’s . Working alongside , he primarily studies aphasia, the language deficit that often occurs as a result of stroke-induced brain damage.

“We found that damage to frontal white matter tracts will negatively predict self-monitoring — people with damage to the white matter in their frontal lobes will have trouble detecting errors in their speech,” Mandal said.

The lab’s research is notable because neuroscientists have long disagreed on how people know when to correct themselves: Some thought there was a mechanism in the language center that allowed the brain to identify errors almost instantaneously after making them, while others suspected self-correction came from hearing one’s own erroneous speech.

The Cognitive Recovery Lab’s findings — specifically, that frontal lobe damage affects this process — endorse the former view. Mandal presented the lab’s findings last year at the Conference in San Diego.

“It’s a pretty cool finding, because that’s been a hotly debated topic in the literature,” Mandal said.

Mandal has also researched the brain’s white matter network on a larger scale, examining how damage to white matter affects cognition. In collaboration with researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, he studied the different neural networks necessary for naming an object via speech or in writing.

“Naming while speaking depends on a network of tracks within the left temporal lobe — that, we expected,” Mandal said. “But we also found that the network of tracks that we depend on while naming via writing extends into the right hemisphere as well.”

Mandal admits to occasionally feeling uncomfortable applying his entirely self-taught programming skills to medical research. But with practice has come confidence, and he expresses optimism about the future of machine learning in medicine — a future he thinks will turn much of the field on its head.

“We’ve had all these old diagnoses and ways we think that disorders should be defined,” Mandal said. “But I predict that a lot of this will be revamped in the coming decades. It’ll be more based on data collection and classification than on what older physicians traditionally thought. So I see potential for a lot of overlap between computer science and medicine, and I hope to be someone who helps bridge that gap.”

Since his freshman year, Mandal had thought he might pursue an M.D./Ph.D. in either neuroscience or biomedical engineering. But it was only over the past year that he realized it was his true calling, and the Goldwater Scholarship has helped solidify his confidence in this career path.

“Whenever you’re pursuing something as competitive as an M.D./Ph.D., there are going to be periods of self-doubt, where you’re asking ‘Am I really good enough to do this?’” Mandal said. “The Goldwater Scholarship has emboldened me, showing me that this is something I really am good at. I obviously think my work is valuable, but it’s good to hear that others see it the same way.”

Outside of his research, Mandal is a regular contributor to The Hoya, writing a and covering topics as diverse as LSD and Aristotle’s theory of the brain.

He’s also a member of the Carroll Fellows Initiative, Georgetown’s flagship program for academically talented and ambitious undergraduates. He credits his Carroll Fellows experience with helping him narrow his academic focus to neuroscience.

“It’s exciting — it’s a topic that people have been asking questions about for 2000 years, and we’re just now starting to really understand it,” Mandal said.