Dr. Michelle Olsen ’99

Originally from San Diego, Dr. Michelle Olsen ’99, made the move with her family to the Rogue Valley then started her collegiate experience at Rogue Community College (RCC) in Medford. “I took my first chemistry course at RCC and absolutely fell in love with the subject. I knew from there I wanted to be a chemistry major,” she said.

At SOU, she jumped into her major with enthusiasm as a non-traditional student while working full time at Bella Union in Jacksonville. She even purchased a home during this period. She had a fabulous professor at the time, Thomas Keevil, who motivated her and helped open the world of biochemistry. “Dr. Keevil is the reason why I stayed focused on science. His biochemistry course was inspiring and he worked with me throughout the academic year and summers in the laboratory, giving me the leeway and autonomy to make discoveries on my own. He didn’t give me answers,” said Olsen. With only 20 majors offered in the chemistry program at that time, she felt that the intimate, small class sizes and one on one attention from professors, helped launch her towards a career in science. And though working full time, she was named the Outstanding Senior Woman in the Department of Chemistry, American Association of University Women at SOU, 1998-99. A true testament to her work ethic and passion for the study of biochemistry.

Her senior year at SOU she started looking for graduate programs and decided on the University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB), where she launched her doctorate program into the study of neuroscience. After earning her PhD, she stayed on at UAB, first as a postdoctoral fellow and then establishing her own laboratory and was a faculty member there for six years. “While I was at UAB, I was recruited to Virginia Tech in Blacksburg to start and grow the neuroscience program and develop their neuroscience PhD program. “It’s been rewarding to get in on the ground floor and work with other faculty to grow a program from scratch,” said Olsen.

At Virginia Tech, she has received a Dean’s Faculty Fellow Award in 2021 in the College of Science, and an Excellence in Teaching Award in 2022 in the School of Neuroscience. She has been instrumental in the growth and development of the School of Neuroscience which has grown to 850 majors with 25 faculty and the launch of the PhD program there in 2020. Paying it forward from her experience as a biochemistry major at SOU, she is passionate about building research opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate students. “I’ve taken those life changing lessons from SOU as an undergrad and applied them into my current teaching and research at Virginia Tech. Opportunities for our students are critically important. We want to give them the best opportunity to flourish here on campus so that they can help develop into tomorrow’s neuroscience leaders,” said Olsen

She became the Director of the School of Neuroscience at Virginia Tech in 2023 and in 2024, she was named the ID Wilson Chair of the School. Olsen is now in her ninth year at Virginia Tech and is an internationally recognized expert in astrocyte biology as it relates to diseases such as epilepsy and Alzheimer’s. She has made multiple discoveries of previously unanswered neurobiology challenges and she has published more than 40 articles as a Virginia Tech faculty member and contributed to more than $16 million in external research grants with over $6 million coming to her own laboratory. And she has done all of this crucial teaching and research while raising four children with her husband.

“I fell in love with Chemistry and, specifically, biochemistry while a student at SOU. The size of our program was a distinct advantage for those of us interested in research because I had the opportunity and access to equipment and resources I may never have had if I was in a program with hundreds of students. Dr. Thomas Keevil worked with me over the course of two summers and two academic years to develop laboratory and critical thinking skills. His mentoring style allowed me to develop confidence and independence in the laboratory and shaped my scientific career.”

Read more:  School of Neuroscience at Virginia Tech