Dr. Dwayne D. Simmons Ph.D.
Biology Chair and Director of Baylor Transdisciplinary Research Undergraduate Experience program. He currently performs research on aging brain function related to hearing and balance, neurodegeneration, and neuro-immune responses. Most recently, his research focuses on the effects of Oncomodulin elicits on the regeneration of the spinal nerve following injury.
Q. Can you please state your name for me and what your position at Baylor is? A. Dwayne D. Simmons. I am a full professor and also chair of the Department of Biology. I hold the endowed chair of the Cornelia Marshall Smith endowed chair. And I also am a professor in Psych/Neuro. Q. Thank you so much for that little brief introduction. Can you please tell me what your experience has been in academia as a minority here at Baylor? A. Well, in general, probably being a minority here at Baylor is no different than being a minority at any of the other institutions that I have been a part of. And I did my undergraduate at Pepperdine in California. I did my graduate work at Harvard. I have had faculty positions at UCLA and also at the medical school of Washington University in St. Louis and now, here at Baylor. So that aspect of being a minority really has not changed in those various venues. As an underrepresented minority, I get asked to do a lot of things. Especially when I was at UCLA, I was pretty much asked to be on every single
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