Aaron Welsch
Associate Professor of Biology/Neuroscience InstructionProfessor Aaron Welsch ’10 is passionate about teaching neuroscience/biology in a
way that challenges students to not just memorize facts and concepts, but also analyze
how concepts are related and interact with each other. He teaches sections of Introduction
to Neuroscience and is the lab instructor for Intro to Neuroscience; Neuroanatomy
and Neurophysiology; Human Physiology; and Neurochemistry and Disease. He has been
teaching at Hope since 2018.
During his graduate training Professor Welsch conducted research over a six-year period
on the role of an androgen receptors in brain function, using Cre/IoxP technology
and molecular techniques to selectively knock the androgen receptor out of specified
tissue types and to analyze the outcomes.
His grad school training and professional activities also have been focused on teaching science effectively. He mentored Michigan State University undergraduate research assistants in the lab in which he was conducting his research, and developed neuroscience-themed activities and projects for 7th and 9th-graders attending a Michigan State University STEM summer camp. That inspired a similar program launched at Hope in 2021 as part of the Explore Hope summer camp series; Hope neuroscience students partner with him to teach teens about the brain, using hands-on activities, in the week-long program for local 8th-to-11th graders. During Brain Awareness Week each spring, in an on-campus open house for families and in visits to local schools, with Hope students he encourages kids to think about how they could see themselves interacting with science and explore the things the brain can control.
AREAS OF Expertise
- Hormones and behavior
- Neuroscience curriculum development
EDUCATION
- M.S., neuroscience, Michigan State University, 2017
- B.S., chemistry, èƵ, 2010
Thesis
- “Timing Is Everything: Hormonal Control of the Developing SNB in Mice,” with C. L.
Jordan and S. M. Breedlove, Michigan State University master’s thesis, 2017
Outside the College
As a Hope student, Professor Welsch was a varsity swimmer, but today he prefers golf.
He
coaches his two young kid's soccer and swimming programs. His wife, Anna ’11, majored
at
nursing at èƵ and is a nurse practitioner at a Holland medical practice.
616.395.7637
welsch@hope.eduA. Paul Schaap Science Center Room 1049 35 East 12th Street Holland, MI 49423