Marshall Scholarship finalist Michael Pitre studies the circuitry of the brain — and plans a future in neurosurgery
South Carolina Honors College student Michael Pitre likes to get up around 3 a.m. on Tuesday and Thursday mornings to make the two-hour drive to Folly Beach to surf at the Washout before heading back to Columbia and his 11:40 a.m. class. It’s a regimen that aligns nicely with the Marshall Scholar finalist’s jam-packed schedule that includes earning his BARSC-MD degree in just three years, working as an emergency medical technician, and researching the circuitry of the brain on his way to becoming a neurosurgeon.
He's also a McNair Scholar and a Goldwater Scholar. The West Sayville, New York, native says preparing for the Marshall Scholarship interview helped him crystalize what ties together the strands of his academic life: a fascination with electricity — especially in the brain — and the diseases caused by a breakdown of that system that rob people of their memories.
“It's basically the electrical circuitry of your brain degrading over time,” he says. “My academic passion lies in the electrical circuitry of the nervous system. Stem cell grafts aim to fix electrical pathways that are degenerated with disease.”
That idea — the possibility of rewiring the brain — has become the organizing principle of his undergraduate career.
“Our memories are really who we are,” he says. “Alzheimer’s disease is one of the scariest diseases out there. I want to help develop something that makes a difference.”
Family ethic of service
Pitre grew up admiring the stories his father, a longtime police officer, brought home — dramatic accounts of life-saving rescues and helping people in their worst moments. “I told him I wanted to be a police officer,” Pitre says. “He said absolutely not. He wanted my brother and me to go to college and do something better.”
So Pitre found another way to save lives. At 16, he began training as an EMT, taking night classes while still in high school and riding the ambulance on Saturday mornings. COVID-era staffing shortages led New York to reduce the minimum age requirement for EMT certification from 18 to 17, making him the youngest EMT in his hometown.
The work taught him more than emergency medicine. “As a 16-year-old, I struggled with normal interactions with patients,” he says. “Being an EMT forced me into patient contact every day. It changed me.”
He was drawn to USC by the BARSC-MD program’s direct path to medical school and by what he had heard about USC’s strong pre-med environment. He continued his EMT work, first during summers back home, then with Lexington County Emergency Medical Services, where he now works 24–36 hours a week while balancing classes and lab research.
“It’s not the stereotypical burnt-out EMT culture,” he says. “Everyone there is supportive. I love it.”
Diving into research
Pitre’s research life at USC is equally intense. He works in two labs, each exploring a different angle of neurological and physiological health.
At the School of Medicine Columbia, he studies the neurobiology of aging and Alzheimer’s disease with pharmacology, physiology and neuroscience professor Joseph McQuail. Using rat models, he investigates how a molecule called d-serine regulates NMDA receptors — crucial players in the brain’s ability to form memories.
“Levels of d-serine and the enzymes that synthesize and degrade it change with normal aging and with Alzheimer’s disease,” Pitre explains. “My project is about figuring out how those changes affect memory, and how we might reverse that.”
He also conducts data analysis at the Arnold School of Public Health’s FLEX Lab with Mark Sarzynski, studying how exercise influences the risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. His team’s findings confirm what many suspect — that regular aerobic exercise, even at moderate levels, significantly reduces the risk of heart attack and stroke. Still, generating the data matters.
“We found basically what you would expect — that exercise reduces your risk for heart attack or stroke,” he says. “But it doesn't have to necessarily be high intensity. Anything is good for you.
“It's really good to have the numbers behind it and to be able to create that public health message, because everybody has the idea that exercise is good for you, but it's hard to pinpoint exact studies that show that specifically.”
His dedication to research earned him a 2025 Goldwater Scholarship, one of the country’s top honors for undergraduates in STEM.
For future research, Pitre is looking at stem cell–based treatments for Parkinson’s disease.
“Some trials have used tissue transplanted into the brains of Parkinson’s patients,” Pitre says. “There’s been some success, but it’s difficult to control. Stem cells give you more ability to modulate the activity.”
Other approaches — gene therapy, deep-brain stimulation, induced pluripotent stem cells — also excite him. “They all tie back to neurosurgery,” he says. “And that’s where I want to be.”
After graduation, Pitre plans to attend USC’s School of Medicine, pursue an MD-Ph.D. and, ultimately, a residency in neurosurgery.
Mixing in play with work
Despite his packed schedule, Pitre insists he still has time for the things he enjoys, like Carolina football games, outside the lab and emergency medicine.
He took an Honors College experimental music class last year in which his professor loaned him a vintage alto saxophone that once belonged to the professor’s grandfather. The class culminated in a performance created with a Canadian composer.
Pitre keeps a journal and writes poetry, with one of his poems recently being accepted for publication by an online magazine.
And he surfs — often. “Tuesdays and Thursdays, I don’t have class until late morning,” he says. “So sometimes I get up before sunrise, drive to Folly Beach, surf for a bit, and make it back in time.”