
Alo Basu, Ph.D.
Director of the Neuroscience Program & Associate Professor of Neuroscience
College of the Holy Cross
Alo Basu is a behavioral neurobiologist interested in inclusive, integrative STEM education for undergraduates.
Over the past five years, she has spearheaded the development of an inclusive neuroscience program and its integrative core curriculum, building a multi-disciplinary team to design multiple integrative neuroscience courses using principles of inclusive pedagogy: Introduction to Neuroscience, Neuroethology with Physics, and an Advanced Seminar in Neuroscience. She has also examined the content and culture of introductory/gateway STEM courses through an immersive study of introductory biology, chemistry, mathematics, and physics courses as a basis for these and other curriculum development efforts. Basu is an active member of the neuroscience education community, serving on the Education Committee of the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN) and recently completing a two-year term as a Councilor on the Executive Board of that organization. She was a co-organizer of the FUN 2020 Summer Virtual Meeting, through which over 300 participants discussed diversity, equity, and inclusion in neuroscience education, best practices for remote teaching, and online laboratory exercises. Basu completed undergraduate degrees in Brain & Cognitive Sciences and Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. in Neurobiology at Harvard University. She is Director of the Neuroscience Program and an Associate Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology at the College of the Holy Cross (https://www.holycross.edu/academics/programs/psychology/faculty/alo-c-basu). Her research laboratory is focused on understanding experience-dependent neuroplasticity and the interplay of environmental and genetic factors in the neurobiology of learning and memory.