Cracking the glass floor
Researcher Marissa Scavuzzo pursues advances in neuroscience, while pulling the next generation into the discovery process
Fluorescent lights hummed above Marissa Scavuzzo, PhD, as she observed live gut tissue under a microscope—one of the many windows into the hidden world of glial cells. Her lab—among the first within Case Western Reserve University’s Institute for Glial Sciences—explores these often-overlooked cells and their powerful roles in everything from digestion to diseases of the nervous systems, including Alzheimer’s and autism spectrum disorders.
Once a week, the School of Medicine assistant professor swaps her lab coat for a backpack of pipettes and petri dishes and heads across town to a Cleveland Metropolitan School District classroom, where—through Rise Up, the nonprofit she co-created—Scavuzzo helps teenagers design hands-on experiments on topics ranging from vaping to brain injuries. The dual settings capture Scavuzzo’s mission: push the neuroscience field forward while pulling the next generation into the discovery process.
Initially a postdoctoral protégé of institute director Paul Tesar, PhD (CWRU ’03)—and now his faculty colleague—Scavuzzo has her own lab focusing on the enteric nervous system, the “brain in your gut.” Her early promise earned two prestigious honors: a Howard Hughes Medical Institute fellowship and the international 2023 Eppendorf & Science Prize for Neurobiology.
And in April, she was one of just 10 researchers nationally to receive a 2025 Hartwell Foundation Individual Biomedical Research Award.
Tesar spotted her potential long before the accolades. One morning, a FedEx envelope—not the usual email—landed on his desk. Inside was Scavuzzo’s postdoc application and a handwritten letter explaining why she wanted to join his lab. The gesture, he said, told him she was “determined, creative and driven to succeed.” Years later, he said she has turned that determination into a lab culture that is, in his words, “magnetic—everyone feels valued and individually seen.
“She inspires people to believe in themselves, and that translates to a rare combination of extreme productivity and happiness,” said Tesar, the Dr. Donald and Ruth Weber Goodman Professor of Innovative Therapeutics in the medical school’s Department of Genetics and Genome Sciences. “Honestly, even I want to join Marissa’s lab. She sets a standard for leadership and passionate mentorship that energizes our entire institute.”
Breaking barriers
The qualities that now define her leadership—creativity and deep curiosity—were already clear in her undergraduate years. She discovered then that research let her chase questions no textbook could answer: “The ability to follow my curiosity, to ask my own questions, and to then actually design and carry out ways to find answers was life‑changing,” she said.
Yet, the rush of discovery was tempered by a sobering realization: Many teens never hear that PhD programs actually pay their students. That single piece of insider knowledge, she realized, can influence who even steps onto the path of science, a structural inequity she calls the “glass floor.”
Scavuzzo and her husband, Andrew Scavuzzo, wanted to help dismantle that barrier—and would have become involved in schools wherever they lived. They came to Cleveland because of Tesar’s rigorous, cutting-edge research and the commitment to community engagement that he and the university share.
In 2019, the Scavuzzos teamed up with Tesar to launch Rise Up: Northeast Ohio, which brings 110 volunteer scientists from CWRU, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland State University and local industry into two Cleveland high schools. The volunteers log 2,000 classroom hours annually and guide students through a “Life as a Scientist” curriculum: brainstorm a question, write a grant, run the experiment, publish the results. Andrew Scavuzzo is executive director.
“Our volunteers span career stages, institutes and research topics,” Marissa Scavuzzo said. “The student projects are entirely tailored to the questions the kids ask, meaning they are always different and diverse. Every day when a volunteer comes into the classroom, they have to think on their feet.”
Biggest influence: Caffeine
On my playlist: Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker for my 3-year-old
Occupational hazard: My shoes almost always have holes in them from overuse
Morning ritual: I like to start the day with my family, and have also gotten into running [just over 6 miles] from Ohio City to the lab as my commute.
Learning without limits
One class spun fruit flies in lab equipment to simulate football concussions; another smoked them with a cocktail smoker to probe vaping hazards. A mock National Institutes of Health panel ranked student proposals, and the top projects received “funding” in the form of supplies.
Such hands-on, high‑energy science starts with its co‑founder. Andrew said Marissa meets students where they are—and makes complex science clear and exciting.
Teachers see the same effect. Kate Perhay, a former instructor at Lincoln‑West School of Science and Health and now on the Rise Up board, recalled the time a timid student wondered if marijuana research was off‑limits.
“Marissa lit up and said, ‘That’s a great question—what do you want to know?’ The whole room buzzed; suddenly no topic felt out of bounds.” When scientists treat those questions as real research problems, Perhay said, “engagement peaks.”
From idea to impact
Rise Up can quantify the change it’s working toward: 180 students completed Rise Up’s “Life as a Scientist” last year; 13 of them earned paid summer internships in university labs, and surveys show students leave the program with a stronger sense of belonging in science. But the real impact comes into focus in individual stories.
“I strongly believe that you always have time for the things that matter to you.” —Marissa Scavuzzo
In the spring, the Rise Up team attended a high school graduation for former students, including one who had said his dream was to someday study zoology. He always emphasized “someday”—like it was a far-off goal, just out of reach.
“He graduated salutatorian, was named a 2025 Governor’s Merit Scholarship awardee and is attending college on a full ride to study zoology,” Marissa Scavuzzo said. “He realized after Rise Up that science is where he belongs. His ‘someday’ starts now.”
Moments like that fuel her drive, even when her days stretch across research, mentorship and nonprofit leadership—a balancing act that might seem impossible. But not to Marissa Scavuzzo.
“I strongly believe that you always have time for the things that matter to you,” she said. Her enthusiasm is contagious; half the staff at the Institute for Glial Sciences now volunteers with Rise Up, blurring the line between campus and community—and growth plans are ambitious. The team hopes to add internship slots, extend the curriculum to additional Cleveland schools and secure multi‑year funding that matches the program’s scale.
Boundaries blurred
Of course, running parallel worlds of cutting‑edge neuroscience and high‑school discovery can lead to unexpected scenes at home. During spring break, Marissa Scavuzzo needed to chill a classroom ant colony before transferring it to its formicarium—leaving only one safe spot.
“It was surreal to see a tube of live ants wedged between our carton of milk and vegetables,” she said, amused that her toddler’s snacks briefly shared shelf space with research subjects.
Tomorrow she’ll be back in her lab, coaxing answers from gut cells. Later in the week, she’ll trade the microscope for a Cleveland classroom, guiding students as they test their own questions.
The “glass floor” she once noticed now has a widening crack—and she intends to keep that gap open for every curious mind that follows.
Photographs by Da’Shaunae Marisa