Andrew Steele received his B.A. in Biology from the University of Chicago in 2001, where he worked with Dr. Un Jung Kang studying environmental toxins implicated in Parkinson’s disease. He went on to pursue graduate training at MIT, conducting his Ph.D. research in the laboratory of Prof. Susan Lindquist at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. His doctoral work focused on neurodegenerative diseases associated with protein misfolding, particularly prion disorders.
In 2008, Dr. Steele earned his Ph.D. and subsequently joined Caltech as a Broad Fellow in the Brain Circuitry Program, where he served as a group leader until 2013. During this time, his research shifted toward fundamental questions in systems neuroscience, including how circadian rhythms of activity are influenced by scheduled feeding. This line of inquiry led him back to the nigrostriatal circuitry implicated in Parkinson’s disease, bridging his early and later research interests.
Dr. Steele is currently a tenured Professor at Cal Poly Pomona, where his lab investigates the neural and circadian mechanisms underlying feeding behavior and metabolic disease. He is deeply committed to mentoring students and training the next generation of neuroscientists, sharing his enthusiasm for discovery-driven research.
