News

A recent study from the chemistry lab of professor Craig Anderson was published with several Bardians as coauthors. “Bard students working during the Bard Summer Research Institute and during the semester months have been involved in these projects for a number of years and this is a continuation of last year's publication,” said Anderson. “Luminescent  metal compounds have applications in a variety of fields such as chemical sensors and light-emitting diodes. We studied the interaction of these metal compounds with light to determine their photophysical properties. These properties are of importance both for understanding fundamental structure-function relationships, and  because of their potential applications in devices like displays.”

The paper’s coauthors include Belle Coffey ’21, Lily Clough ’23, Daphne D. Bartkus ’23, Ian C. McClellan ’21, Matthew W. Greenberg ’15 (Bard visiting assistant professor of chemistry), and Christopher N. LaFratta (Bard associate professor of chemistry). 

Craig Anderson is the Wallace Benjamin Flint and L. May Hawver Professor of Chemistry and Director of Undergraduate Research in the Division of Science, Mathematics, and Computing at Bard.

Two Bard College students have been awarded highly competitive Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships by the U.S. Department of State. Art history and Italian studies major Francesca Houran ’23 has been awarded $5,000 towards her studies at the University of Trento in Italy, where she will be the first to participate in a newly established tuition exchange program with Bard. “Through studying abroad, I hope to further my knowledge of the hermaphrodite within the context of the Italian Renaissance and how it influences the gender binary in contemporary Italy. I am also excited to explore the ascending, vertically-oriented architecture of museums, churches, and monuments that prompts climbing and physical ascension as a symbol of conquest and hierarchy,” says Houran. “My overarching goal is to build a foundation for a career in ethical museum curation and nuanced communication of histories surrounding gender, race, and colonialism—a goal that traveling through the Gilman Scholarship will make possible for me as a low-income college student.”

Biology major and premed student Emma Tilley ’23 has been awarded $4,500 to study via Bard’s tuition exchange at the University College Roosevelt in the Netherlands. “I am grateful for the Gilman scholarship and excited for the opportunity to travel abroad and learn more about international healthcare systems and the ways that Covid has impacted nations differently. My additional focus is to continue working on promoting inclusion in STEM on a global scale,” says Tilley.

Gilman Scholars receive up to $5,000, or up to $8,000 if also a recipient of the Gilman Critical Need Language Award, to apply toward their study abroad or internship program costs. Since the program’s establishment in 2001, over 1,350 U.S. institutions have sent more than 34,000 Gilman Scholars of diverse backgrounds to 155 countries around the globe. The program has successfully broadened U.S. participation in study abroad, while emphasizing countries and regions where fewer Americans traditionally study. 

As Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said, “People-to-people exchanges bring our world closer together and convey the best of America to the world, especially to its young people.”

The late Congressman Gilman, for whom the scholarship is named, served in the House of Representatives for 30 years and chaired the House Foreign Relations Committee. When honored with the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Medal in 2002, he said, “Living and learning in a vastly different environment of another nation not only exposes our students to alternate views but adds an enriching social and cultural experience. It also provides our students with the opportunity to return home with a deeper understanding of their place in the world, encouraging them to be a contributor, rather than a spectator in the international community.”

The Gilman Program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and is supported in its implementation by the Institute of International Education (IIE). To learn more, visit: gilmanscholarship.org.

McDonald’s business, so heavily reliant on beef, is “fundamentally at odds with the Earth’s integrity,” says Gidon Eshel, environmental and urban studies research professor, in an interview with the Guardian. The company, which has announced sustainability initiatives in recent years, would need to commit to dramatically reducing the amount of beef it serves, according to climate experts. Food systems account for one-third of greenhouse gas emissions, according to a recent study, which experts argue calls for immediate and substantive action. “No fig leaf, however persuasive or covering it is, can change that fact,” Eshel says.

Full Story in the Guardian

As we enter the holiday season, many are wondering how best to keep safe while visiting family and friends during the ongoing pandemic. Juliet Morrison ’03, member of the Board of Trustees and assistant professor in the microbiology and plant pathology department at University of California Riverside, spoke with the New York Times about practical masking tips, the efficacy of vaccines, and what the future might hold with respect to COVID prevention and care.

“When animals are misguided by evolved behavioural cues to preferentially make mistakes, they are caught in an evolutionary trap,” write Associate Professor of Biology Bruce Robertson, Devin C. Fraleigh ’18, and Jackson Barratt Heitmann ’18 in a newly published scientific paper. “Aquatic insects rely heavily on polarized light cues to locate bodies of water necessary for oviposition and mating. However, where artificial objects (e.g. asphalt, buildings) are at least as effective at polarizing light as natural water bodies, aquatic insects may instead prefer to oviposit on those surfaces where their eggs fail to hatch.”

Published in Animal Behavior, their paper “Ultraviolet polarized light pollution and evolutionary traps for aquatic insects” surveyed the natural and artificial environment to understand the properties of objects that can polarize natural and artificial sources of UV light. They conducted a field experiment to test the importance of UV polarized light in guiding habitat selection behaviour in six families of aquatic insects. The results highlight a quantitatively new type of ecological light pollution capable of creating evolutionary traps for polarotactic insects at night, or even during the day. 

Kate Belin BA ’04, MAT ’05, who teaches at Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School in the Bronx, is one of two winners of the 2021 Math for America (MƒA) Muller Award for Professional Influence in Education. This honor is given to two New York City public school teachers who, during their tenure as MƒA Master Teachers, have influenced the teaching profession in exceptional ways.

“Belin brings a creative approach to pedagogy and has dramatically improved math education at their school and beyond. She is being recognized for bringing her deep understanding of mathematics to all students and taking a leadership role to improve education and educational equity everywhere and for everyone,” writes MƒA. 
 
“I am beyond grateful to MƒA for this recognition and for providing a space for teachers to come together as learners and leaders. This award also recognizes the work of the entire Fannie Lou community which has always understood that teaching is political,” said Belin. “We aren’t simply teaching subjects. We are teaching to fight injustices. Our job is to be activists and organizers in collaboration with our students—to mobilize youth for any issues that exist in their community, country, or world, and work together to make it better.”
 
Belin was recognized for her impact on the teaching profession and awarded $20,000 during a virtual MƒA award ceremony on Monday, October 18. In addition, $5,000 was awarded to the school or organization of their nominator. Belin was nominated by representatives from the Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School.

Kate Belin has taught mathematics at Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School for the past 17 years, transforming the mathematics curriculum of the school and mentoring student teachers. She was a recipient of the 2011 Sloan Award for Excellence in Teaching Science in Mathematics and was a Fulbright Distinguished Awards Teaching Fellow to Botswana in 2016. Belin earned their B.A. in Mathematics and M.A.T. at Bard College and has been an adjunct professor at City College of New York, Bard College, and the Bard Prison Initiative.

Associate Professor of Mathematics Lauren L. Rose has been selected as one of 13 scholars to join the Fifth Class of Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) Fellows. These individuals are extraordinary researchers, mentors, and educators whose commitment to supporting and growing women across the mathematical sciences is praised by their students and colleagues. 

Rose is being honored: “For broad efforts in the professional development of women in mathematics, especially undergraduate women; for her commitment to involving people from diverse communities in mathematics, through Math Circles and outreach in prisons; and for her creative contributions to the AWM including the We Speak Series and the Card Project,” states the AWM committee.

“I am very happy to announce the 2022 list of new AWM Fellows. We recognize these individuals for their exceptional dedication to increasing the success and visibility of women in mathematics,” wrote Kathryn Leonard, AWM President. The AWM 2022 Fellows will be recognized during the AWM reception held in January. 

The Executive Committee of the Association for Women in Mathematics established the AWM Fellows Program to recognize individuals who have demonstrated a sustained commitment to the support and advancement of women in the mathematical sciences. The Fellows epitomize the mission of the AWM, which is to promote equitable opportunities and support for women and girls in the mathematical sciences.

Bard College is pleased to announce the appointment of groundbreaking computer scientist Valerie Barr as the Margaret Hamilton Distinguished Professor of Computer Science in the Division of Science, Mathematics, and Computing, and Director of the Bard Network Computing Initiative. She begins in fall of 2022.
 
“Professor Barr is a national leader in efforts to broaden participation in computing even as she champions innovative approaches to connecting computer science with a wide array of intellectual disciplines,” said Vice President and Dean of the College Deirdre d’Albertis. “Over the course of her career she has demonstrated tremendous creativity as an institution builder. Valerie Barr’s appointment will strengthen Bard’s commitment to the study of computing within the liberal arts and amplify these efforts throughout the Bard network.”
 
“I am deeply honored to be offered the Margaret Hamilton Professorship, which recognizes the numerous contributions Hamilton made to the practice and processes of large-scale software development,” said Barr. “I am also excited to join the Bard faculty. I have watched the growth of the Bard Network for many years, and am pleased to become part of this innovative and exciting institution,” she said. “A key question I hope to explore is what do all students, not just computer science students, need to know about computing in order to actively critique and challenge the current pace and impact of technological change? My many conversations with Bard faculty convinced me that Bard, with its rich array of interdisciplinary programs, many of which reach across the Bard Network, will provide a wonderful arena in which to explore this question.”
 
Valerie Barr comes to Bard from Mount Holyoke College, where she is currently the Jean E. Sammet Prof. of Computer Science. She recently completed four years as chair of Mount Holyoke’s Computer Science department, and is also cochair of the Data Science program. 
 
In addition to teaching, Barr has distinguished herself in curriculum development and computing education, leading directly to the creation of interdisciplinary programs with a goal of changing the demographics of computer science. Her research projects have been funded repeatedly and extensively over the past two decades by the National Science Foundation. She is past-chair of the Association for Computing Machinery Council on Women in Computing, and has served as a program officer for the National Science Foundation. She is a member of the Liberal Arts Computer Science Consortium.
 
Barr’s research interests include computer science education, particularly new curricula that will engage diverse groups of students in the liberal arts setting; working collaboratively with colleagues in other disciplines to apply computing to problems in their fields; reanalyzing degree attainment data to better identify and understand long standing trends in the areas of gender, race, and ethnicity; and in software testing, particularly as applied to various kinds of artificial intelligence and language processing systems. 
 
Prior to Mount Holyoke College, Barr was on the faculty of Union College, where she served as Director of Interdisciplinary Programs, and Hofstra University. She has also taught at Pratt Institute and Rutgers. She received her master’s degree from New York University and Ph.D. from Rutgers. 
 
The Margaret Hamilton Distinguished Professorship of Computer Science was established by Bard College President Leon Botstein in honor of trailblazing computer scientist Margaret Hamilton, who led the NASA software team for the Apollo program’s first moon landing. Hamilton is an honorary degree recipient of Bard, as well as a parent and grandparent of Bard alumni/ae.

Research Professor Gidon Eshel, who teaches primarily in the Environmental and Urban Studies Program at Bard College, has coauthored a paper in Nature that provides the most comprehensive estimate to date of the environmental performance of blue food (fish and other aquatic foods) and for the first time, compares stressors across the diversity of farmed and wild aquatic species. The study reveals which species are already performing well in terms of emissions, freshwater and land use, and identifies opportunities for further reducing environmental footprints.

Read the Paper in Nature
Nature Story on Blue Foods
Learn More about Blue Food Assessment

“Our rich and complex emotional lives are a defining feature of what makes us human. Experiencing the full breadth of human emotion is often healthy and adaptive for our species, but there are times when we may be motivated to change, or regulate, our emotions in the service of other goals we may be pursuing,” says Richard Lopez, assistant professor of psychology, who also directs the Regulation of Everyday Affect, Craving, and Health (REACH) Lab at Bard.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the global importance—and challenge—of understanding the ecology of infectious diseases, especially in regard to the impact biodiversity has on the transmission of zoonotic diseases. A new paper in Ecology Letters coauthored by Bard Biology Professor Felicia Keesing and Rick Ostfeld, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, argues that one key to improving this understanding is more rigorous and creative study of dilution effects, which occur when the diversity of an ecological community reduces the transmission of disease. Dilution effects have been used for decades to manage the transmission of parasites and pathogens in plants, animals, and people.

“The impacts of diversity on the emergence and transmission of pathogens have never been more relevant,” write Keesing and Ostfeld in their paper, “Dilution effects in disease ecology.” “Over the last 20 years, attention has focused on whether the patterns that can be made to happen—when someone chooses which organisms are present in a system—ever happen naturally, as diversity changes under natural conditions, This is a particularly important question because diversity within natural ecosystems is changing rapidly in response to human impacts such as habitat fragmentation, overexploitation, pollution and climate change.”

In their paper, Keesing and Ostfeld discuss how and where dilution effects have been used to manage infectious diseases. “We explore the ecological mechanisms that underlie these effects, and then turn to more recent questions—whether dilution effects occur in natural communities, and if so, whether these effects are impacted by changes to natural biodiversity,” they write. “We review the evidence for when and how frequently natural dilution effects occur, outline some of the challenges of studying them and describe common mis-applications of the concepts, as well as important outstanding questions.”

Keesing and Ostfeld write that analyses reveal that natural dilution effects are common, but studying them remains challenging “due to limitations on the ability of researchers to manipulate many disease systems experimentally, difficulties of acquiring data on host quality and confusion about what should and should not be considered a dilution effect.” Important questions for future research, they write, include: “Does the pattern of variation in host quality vary in predictable ways for different metrics (e.g. reservoir competence, vector preference) and across types of disease systems? How do interactions within hosts affect dilution effects in multi-pathogen systems? How common are positive relationships between ecological resilience and host quality? What are the shapes of these relationships when they do occur, and what are their underlying causes? What are the best metrics for measuring transmission across disease systems? What are the characteristics of natural disease systems that show dilution effects and those that do not, and what does this suggest about whether we might apply our understanding of dilution effects to manage diseases in nature?”

Keesing and Ostfeld conclude that there is much to learn about the relationship between biodiversity change and the emergence of pathogens, and that more study of dilution effects will be essential. “Important questions include how biodiversity, and its loss, affect the emergence of pathogens of non-human hosts; how we can effectively determine whether hosts can actually transmit pathogens, as opposed to simply becoming infected with them and how to manage our behavior and use of landscapes to minimize spillover events,” they write. “Acknowledging what we have learned about dilution effects in nature over the past 20 years is critically important, as is understanding their similarities and differences to the dilution effects that operate in managed disease systems like agricultural fields.”

To read the full paper in Ecology Letters, click here.

This research was supported by a National Science Foundation Grant OPUS 1948419 to Keesing.

Felicia Keesing, David and Rosalie Rose Distinguished Professor of Science, Mathematics, and Computing, has been on the Bard faculty since 2000. She has a B.S. from Stanford University and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Since 1995, she has studied how African savannas function when the large, charismatic animals like elephants, buffaloes, zebras, and giraffes disappear. She also studies how interactions among species influence the probability that humans will be exposed to infectious diseases. Keesing also studies Lyme disease, another tick-borne disease. She is particularly interested in how species diversity affects disease transmission. More recently, she has focused on science literacy for college students, and she led the re-design of Bard College’s Citizen Science program. Keesing has received research grants from the National Science Foundation, National Geographic Society, National Institutes of Health, Environmental Protection Agency, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, among others. She has been awarded the United States Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2000). She is the coeditor of Infectious Disease Ecology: Effects of Ecosystems on Disease and of Disease on Ecosystems (2008) and has contributed to such publications as Nature, Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Ecology Letters, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Proceedings of the Royal Society, Ecology, BioScience, Conservation Biology, and Trends in Ecology & Evolution, among others.(9.8.21)

Bard College is pleased to announce that Clara Sousa-Silva has been appointed to a tenure track faculty position in the Physics Program. Sousa-Silva will join the faculty of the College in spring 2022 as a full-time assistant professor of physics in the Division of Science, Mathematics, and Computing. Sousa-Silva is a quantum astrochemist at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. She investigates how molecules interact with light so that they can be detected on faraway worlds. Sousa-Silva’s July 2021 TED talk, “The Fingerprints of Life Beyond Earth,” is featured on the front page of the TED website.

About Clara Sousa-Silva
Clara Sousa-Silva spends most of her time studying molecules that life can produce so that, one day, she can detect an alien biosphere. Her favorite molecular biosignature is phosphine: a terrifying gas associated with mostly unpleasant life. When she is not deciphering exoplanet atmospheres, Sousa-Silva works hard to persuade the next generation of scientists to become an active part of the astronomical community.

Sousa-Silva holds a doctoral degree in quantum chemistry from the University College London, and a masters degree in physics and astronomy from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Among her many achievements, Sousa-Silva is the recipient of the prestigious 51 b Pegasi Fellowship from the Heising Simons Foundation. The fellowship supports the growing field of planetary astronomy and exceptional postdoctoral scientists who make unique contributions to the field of astronomy. Her work and commentary has been featured in the BBC, WIRED, and the New York Times, among many others. Prior to joining the Center for Astrophysics, Sousa-Silva served as a research scientist at MIT.

About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 161-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.(8/31/21)
 

“Since the evidence is by now overwhelming that long-term human activity is accelerating the emergence of novel pathogens and increasing the risk of pandemics, the question investigators should really be asking is: did some recent, one-off event such as a lab accident exacerbate the already high and growing risk of spillover of a virus with pandemic potential caused by a decades-long shift towards industrialised farming and the wildlife trade?” writes Laura Spinney in the Guardian, citing Keesing’s April 2021 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) paper.

Isabel Polletta’s 2020 Senior Project at Bard has led to a published study in Frontiers in Psychology. Her research with Assistant Professor of Psychology Richard Lopez, who was her Senior Project adviser, has now been published as “Regulating self-image on Instagram: Links between social anxiety, Instagram contingent self-worth, and content control behaviors.”

Japheth Wood, director of quantitative literacy and continuing associate professor of mathematics at Bard College, is recognized for his article “Chords of an Ellipse, Lucas Polynomials, and Cubic Equations,” coauthored by Ben Blum-Smith and published by the American Mathematical Monthly. “We are thrilled to be recognized for this honor, and to now have our names associated with Paul Halmos and Lester Ford, as well as the long list of other excellent expositors who have been so lauded,” said Wood and Blum-Smith.

Summer is in full swing, but many families find themselves still managing COVID risks as the delta variant rises and children under 12 remain ineligible for vaccines. Bard College alumnus and science journalist Nsikan Akpan ’06 and WNYC host Michael Hill walk through the best practices for COVID parenting during this summer of delta. Nsikan Akpan is the WNYC health editor and 2021 winner of the John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service from Bard College.

A growing body of evidence suggests that biodiversity loss increases exposure to both new and established zoonotic pathogens. Restoring and protecting nature is essential to preventing future pandemics.

So reports a new Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper that synthesizes current understanding about how biodiversity affects human health and provides recommendations for future research to guide management. The research is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

Lead author Felicia Keesing of Bard College and the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies says, "There's a persistent myth that wild areas with high levels of biodiversity are hotspots for disease. More animal diversity must equal more dangerous pathogens. But that turns out to be wrong. Biodiversity isn't a threat to us; it's actually protecting us from the species most likely to make us sick."

A growing body of evidence suggests that biodiversity loss increases our exposure to both new and established zoonotic pathogens. Restoring and protecting nature is essential to preventing future pandemics. So reports a new Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) paper that synthesizes current understanding about how biodiversity affects human health and provides recommendations for future research to guide management. To read the PNAS paper, please click here.

Lead author Felicia Keesing is a professor at Bard College and a Visiting Scientist at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. She explains, “There's a persistent myth that wild areas with high levels of biodiversity are hotspots for disease. More animal diversity must equal more dangerous pathogens. But this turns out to be wrong. Biodiversity isn't a threat to us, it’s actually protecting us from the species most likely to make us sick.”

Zoonotic diseases like COVID-19, SARS, and Ebola are caused by pathogens that are shared between humans and other vertebrate animals. But animal species differ in their ability to pass along pathogens that make us sick.

Rick Ostfeld is a disease ecologist at Cary Institute and a co-author on the paper. He explains, “Research is mounting that species that thrive in developed and degraded landscapes are often much more efficient at harboring pathogens and transmitting them to people. In less-disturbed landscapes with more animal diversity, these risky reservoirs are less abundant and biodiversity has a protective effect.”

Rodents, bats, primates, cloven-hooved mammals like sheep and deer, and carnivores have been flagged as the mammal taxa most likely to transmit pathogens to humans. Keesing and Ostfeld note, "The next emerging pathogen is far more likely to come from a rat than a rhino.”

This is because animals with fast life histories tend to be more efficient at transmitting pathogens. Keesing explains, “Animals that live fast, die young, and have early sexual maturity with lots of offspring tend to invest less in their adaptive immune responses. They are often better at transmitting diseases, compared to longer-lived animals with stronger adaptive immunity.”

When biodiversity is lost from ecological communities, long-lived, larger-bodied species tend to disappear first, while smaller-bodied species with fast life histories tend to proliferate. Research has found that mammal hosts of zoonotic viruses are less likely to be species of conservation concern (i.e. they are more common), and that for both mammals and birds, human development tends to increase the abundance of zoonotic host species, bringing people and risky animals closer together.

“When we erode biodiversity, we favor species that are more likely to be zoonotic hosts, increasing our risk of spillover events,” Ostfeld notes. Adding that, “Managing this risk will require a better understanding of how things like habitat conversion, climate change, and overharvesting affect zoonotic hosts, and how restoring biodiversity to degraded areas might reduce their abundance.”

To predict and prevent spillover, Keesing and Ostfeld highlight the need to focus on host attributes associated with disease transmission rather than continuing to debate the prime importance of one taxon or another. Ostfeld explains, “We should stop assuming that there is a single animal source for each emerging pathogen. The pathogens that jump from animals to people tend to be found in many animal species, not just one. They’re jumpers, after all, and they typically move between species readily.”

Disentangling the characteristics of effective zoonotic hosts – such as their immune strategies, resilience to disturbance, and habitat preferences – is key to protecting public health. Forecasting the locations where these species thrive, and where pathogen transmission and emergence are likely, can guide targeted interventions.

Keesing notes, “Restoration of biodiversity is an important frontier in the management of zoonotic disease risk. Those pathogens that do spill over to infect humans—zoonotic pathogens—often proliferate as a result of human impacts.” Concluding, “As we rebuild our communities after COVID-19, we need to have firmly in mind that one of our best strategies to prevent future pandemics is to protect, preserve, and restore biodiversity.”

This research was supported by a National Science Foundation Grant OPUS 1948419 to Keesing.

Felicia Keesing, David and Rosalie Rose Distinguished Professor of Science, Mathematics, and Computing, has been on the Bard faculty since 2000. She has a B.S. from Stanford University and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Since 1995, she has studied how African savannas function when the large, charismatic animals like elephants, buffaloes, zebras, and giraffes disappear. She also studies how interactions among species influence the probability that humans will be exposed to infectious diseases. Keesing also studies Lyme disease, another tick-borne disease. She is particularly interested in how species diversity affects disease transmission. More recently, she has focused on science literacy for college students, and she led the re-design of Bard College’s Citizen Science program. Keesing has received research grants from the National Science Foundation, National Geographic Society, National Institutes of Health, Environmental Protection Agency, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, among others. She has been awarded the United States Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2000). She is the coeditor of Infectious Disease Ecology: Effects of Ecosystems on Disease and of Disease on Ecosystems (2008) and has contributed to such publications as Nature, Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Ecology Letters, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Proceedings of the Royal Society, Ecology, BioScience, Conservation Biology, and Trends in Ecology & Evolution, among others.(4.5.21)
 

“Somewhere in the nook of downtown Los Angeles’ urban hellscape, Adam Baz is eloquently flying his hawk companion amidst the nuisance of blaring sirens, clamorous humans, and of course the universally dreaded pests—pigeons,” writes Joshen Mantai for Flaunt. The 35-year-old falconer, bird biologist, and Bard alum has crafted a rare career in the city as a bird abatement specialist and falconry educator.

According to a new study, gender prototypes influence the way people perceive and react to sexual harassment toward women. The study, by a team of researchers led by Bard alum Jin X. Goh ’12, found that sexual harassment claims are perceived as less credible and the acts as less harmful when the victims are nonprototypical women compared to women with more feminine features. “These findings are disconcerting,” say the researchers, “because determining that sexual harassment has occurred is a crucial first step in reporting the harassment, holding the perpetrator accountable, and supporting the victim.” The findings were published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

How do we become a complex, integrated multicellular organism from a single cell? In a new study led by postdoctoral scholar Camila Lopez-Anido, researchers used RNA sequencing to track nearly 20,000 individual cells as they coordinated to build a leaf. Through this highly detailed process — visualized by Camila’s sister, artist and Bard alum Virginia Lopez-Anido ’15 — the researchers captured transient and rare cell states, and found a surprising abundance of ambiguity in how cells traversed various identities.

“As we think about flexibility and resilience in the face of a changing world, we want to learn more about how organisms can manage to build functional bodies when they are under stress or exposed to extreme environments," says Lopez-Anido. “This requires research with organisms that have flexible and tunable lifestyles, such as the plants we study.”
 
As part of a family of artists, Lopez-Anido also embraced a uniquely artistic perspective to interpret and share this research, using a pointillism-inspired analysis software to visualize her massive dataset and engaging her sister Virginia to create artwork inspired by Camila’s research.

“I like to engage with artists and scholars across disciplines because it can bring new layers of meaning to science—and make science more accessible, which is very important to me," says Camila, who has taught scientific literacy at Bard College through its Citizen Science program and will soon begin work as an assistant professor of biology at Reed College. “I'm looking forward to fostering more of these meaningful research experiences and collaborations for my mentees.”

On March 31, EXTINCTION – THE FACTS, Sir David Attenborough’s documentary exploring the extinction crisis and its consequences, premieres on PBS. The program features interviews with Bard College Biology Professor Felicia Keesing and other leading scientists discussing the extinction crisis, and its grave consequences for us all—threatening food and water security, reducing our ability to control our climate, and putting us at greater risk of deadly pandemic diseases, including COVID-19.

“We have a moment when we can change our world and make it better,” says Keesing in the documentary. “Often the best reservoirs for the pathogens that can jump to humans are smaller-bodied species, like rats and mice and certain kinds of bats. When we have intact natural systems with high biodiversity, these species are kept in check, but when humans destroy habitat, the large predators and herbivores disappear first. Which means the smaller-bodied species are the big winners. They proliferate wildly, they live at super high density and are the ones far more likely to make us sick.”

EXTINCTION – THE FACTS reveals what is happening to the natural world, how human activity drives extinction, and why we haven’t acted sooner to stem these losses. With the world at a critical turning point, the documentary asks what governments, industries, and individuals can do now to change our course. EXTINCTION – THE FACTS premieres Wednesday, March 31, from 8:00-9:00 p.m. ET. For more information or to view the documentary, please visit pbs.org/show/extinction-facts.

Felicia Keesing, David and Rosalie Rose Distinguished Professor of Science, Mathematics, and Computing, has been on the Bard faculty since 2000. She has a B.S. from Stanford University and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Since 1995, she has studied how African savannas function when the large, charismatic animals like elephants, buffaloes, zebras, and giraffes disappear. She also studies how interactions among species influence the probability that humans will be exposed to infectious diseases. Keesing also studies Lyme disease, another tick-borne disease. She is particularly interested in how species diversity affects disease transmission. More recently, she has focused on science literacy for college students, and she led the re-design of Bard College’s Citizen Science program. Keesing has received research grants from the National Science Foundation, National Geographic Society, National Institutes of Health, Environmental Protection Agency, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, among others. She has been awarded the United States Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2000). She is the coeditor of Infectious Disease Ecology: Effects of Ecosystems on Disease and of Disease on Ecosystems (2008) and has contributed to such publications as Nature, Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Ecology Letters, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Proceedings of the Royal Society, Ecology, BioScience, Conservation Biology, and Trends in Ecology & Evolution, among others.(3.29.21)
 

“You and your students should continue to wear masks and socially distance in the classroom,” Morrison, a professor at the University of California Riverside, writes in response to a vaccinated teacher asking about classroom precautions. “Since your students are not vaccinated, they can get infected with the virus, get sick and also spread it to others. Based on what we know so far, there is a possibility that you could get infected and transmit it to the unvaccinated persons that you interact with inside and outside of the classroom.”

The APS Rising Star designation recognizes outstanding psychological scientists in the earliest stages of their post-PhD research careers. “As an APS Rising Star, you are among the brightest minds in our field,” said APS in its announcement. At Bard since 2019, Lopez earned his PhD in cognitive neuroscience at Dartmouth College. He is the recipient of the National Research Service Award to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research from the National Institutes of Health, as well as multiple teaching awards.

Richard Lopez earned his PhD in cognitive neuroscience at Dartmouth College and subsequently served as a postdoctoral fellow in the Translational Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab at Rice University. He has taught psychology and neuroscience courses at Dartmouth College and the University of Houston. He is the recipient of the National Research Service Award to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research from the National Institutes of Health (National Cancer Institute), as well as multiple teaching awards including the Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award from the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning. His work has appeared in journals such as Psychological Science; Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews; Cerebral Cortex; Social, Cognitive, and Affective Neuroscience; and other outlets. His recent published work has examined important individual difference factors implicated in successful regulation of cravings and emotions in daily life. BA, Princeton University; PhD., Dartmouth College; Postdoctoral Fellow, Rice University. At Bard since 2019.
 

The Biden administration is making good on its pledge to increase vaccine supply, says Akpan. “Last week, New York State received just over one million doses for people to take their first shots of the vaccine. That’s almost as many as what the state received in all of February. We’re seeing similar trends in the City’s supply too. Also, these vaccine campaigns are three months old, and health authorities are already seeing signs that they’re paying off—even against the variants.”

Bard alumna Catherine Dickert ’94 oversees the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) Division of Mineral Resources (DMR), where as director she manages day-to-day operations of a statewide program charged with the regulation of oil, gas, and solution salt mining wells, geothermal and stratigraphic wells deeper than 500 feet. She also represents New York State on the Ground Water Protection Council and the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission. Dickert is involved in reshaping DMR policies to meet the goals of Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act through the development of emerging technologies that can help more efficiently detect potential pollution sources. Catherine hails from Saratoga Springs and holds a BA in Biology from Bard College and an MS in Wildlife and Fisheries Biology from the University of Vermont. She has been with DEC for five years.

Bard College announces the appointment of Juliet Morrison ’03 to the College’s board of trustees. Morrison is an assistant professor in the microbiology and plant pathology department at University of California Riverside, where she specializes in combining computational analysis with immunological and virological methods to address questions at the host-pathogen interface. She has spent the last 17 years studying innate immune responses to viral pathogens such as dengue virus, rhinovirus, poliovirus, yellow fever virus, and influenza virus.

“I am thrilled to welcome Juliet, a distinguished scientist and young alumna, to the Bard Board,” said Bard President Leon Botstein.

About Juliet Morrison
During her graduate studies at Columbia University, Morrison discovered that a viral protease facilitated poliovirus and rhinovirus interferon resistance. In her postdoctoral training at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, she discovered and characterized two novel and disparate mechanisms whereby the NS5 proteins of dengue virus and yellow fever virus inhibit interferon signaling to enhance viral replication and pathogenesis. At the University of Washington, Morrison showed that influenza disease severity correlates with host transcriptional signatures of increased cytokine production, and decreased coagulation and lipid metabolism signaling.

Morrison has received several awards for her work in the field of science and medical research, including the John and Samuel Bard Award in Science and Medicine from Bard College in 2020, the Calderone Junior Faculty Award in 2017 from Columbia University, and the Women in STEM Award from Bronx Community College in 2017.

Her Bard Senior Project, “Characterization of the Product of a Putative Mitochondrial Isocitrate Dehydrogenase Gene (ICD1) from Tetrahymena pyriformis,” was a study in which a clone of ICD1 was mutagenized to be made readable in E. coli and, after expression, shown to have isocitrate dehydrogenase activity. Her Senior Project advisor was Professor John Ferguson. Juliet received Ph.D. in microbiology from Columbia University in 2009. Juliet lives in Riverside, California.

About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 161-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.(2/24/21)
 

Does the conversion of natural habitats to human use favor animals that harbor agents causing human disease? A global analysis of vertebrates provides an answer to this pressing question. In their commentary accompanying the report, disease ecologists Felicia Keesing of Bard College and Richard Ostfeld of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies note that the study shows “the greatest zoonotic threats arise where natural areas have been converted to croplands, pastures and urban areas.” Ostfeld and Keesing have seen evidence of that firsthand during two decades studying Lyme disease transmission in New York’s Hudson Valley. Where development has cut the valley’s forests into small fragments, Professor Keesing says, “populations of white-footed mice boom because their predators and competitors have disappeared.” She and Ostfeld have found that white-footed mice “not only host more of the ticks that transmit Lyme, but they also are more likely than other mammals to infect ticks with the bacterium that causes the disease. The ticks, in turn, pass it to people.”

Felicia Keesing is the David and Rosalie Rose Distinguished Professor of Science, Mathematics, and Computing at Bard College.

“This stunningly photographed semi-autobiography draws on CRISPR-Cas9-mediated genome research into the iconic butterflies to step into a narrative about hybrid identities, diminishing spaces, social evolution and divided territories. The film goes, in the director’s own words, ‘from the vein of a butterfly wing to the border between countries,’” writes Scientific American. “Gambis, a seasoned science communicator and storyteller, manages to strike a delicate balance in tone rarely seen in science-driven movies.”