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Two Bard College students were awarded a highly competitive Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship by the U.S. Department of State. Art history major Tatiana Alfaro ’21 has been awarded $5,000 towards her studies at Bard College Berlin. “I’m so happy to have received the Gilman award. It’s definitely an honor and was unexpected. My experience with Gilman will enhance my experience abroad. Studying in Berlin will help me have a more global view on the art world, and specifically, what I want my role within it to be. I believe it will be a good opportunity for me to see my personal and academic interests overlap, not only as an art historian but as a global learner.”

Biology major Mary Reid ’21 has been awarded $3,000 for her term at the Lorenzo di Medici Institute in Florence, Italy. “Studying abroad is an aspiration for many students but financial concerns are often an impossible barrier. I am incredibly privileged to reach for my own aspirations as a result of this scholarship, my supportive friends, and my wonderful family. While abroad, I hope to gain a greater knowledge of new cultures and ideas, as well as an increased sense of autonomy and introspection. I am eager to make my study abroad experience live up to my childhood ambitions. Thank you to everyone who has made this possible.”

Gilman Scholars receive up to $5,000 to apply towards their study abroad or internship program costs with additional funding available for the study of a critical language overseas. The Gilman scholarship supports American undergraduate students of limited financial means to study or intern abroad and, since 2001, has enabled more than 31,000 outstanding Americans of diverse backgrounds to engage in a meaningful educational experience abroad. The program has successfully broadened U.S. participation in study abroad, while emphasizing countries and regions where fewer Americans traditionally study. The late Congressman Gilman, who served in the House of Representatives for 30 years, chaired the House Foreign Relations Committee, and was honored with the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Medal in 2002, commented, “Study abroad is a special experience for every student who participates. Living and learning in a vastly different environment of another nation not only exposes our students to alternate views, but also 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.”

Once separated by prison, BPI alumnus Antoine Patton and his daughter, Jay Jay, built Photo Patch, an app that lets incarcerated parents stay in better touch with their children.

A new study shows that women were much more often introduced at a prominent oncology conference by their first name rather than by title. Bard alumna Dr. Tatiana Prowell weighed in on the importance of the study, and found herself in the middle of a Twitter backlash.

“Ankara’s drone program has morphed into a successful industry that’s already exporting products,” writes Gettinger. “It’s also a potent military force that’s further straining the NATO alliance. Turkey is wielding its new arsenal in a military campaign against Kurdish fighters in Syria.”

Korzyk, who teaches calculus and computer science at Manhattan Village Academy, was one of seven recipients of the Sloan Award for Excellence in Teaching Science and Mathematics, an annual awards program that honors exceptional math and science teachers working in New York City’s public high schools. Winners receive a cash award of $5,000 and their schools each receive an award of $2,500 to augment their educational programming.

“When fires raged across Brazil this summer and deforestation rates reached startling highs, users began downloading a small German search engine in a modest effort to counteract the devastation,” writes Drozdiak. “Ecosia GmBH, a Berlin-based alternative to Google, donates as much as 80% of the profit it makes from running ads alongside search results to plant trees around the world.”

Drones are increasingly being used by criminals across the country, and local law enforcement agencies are often powerless to stop them. “The use of drones by criminal groups is appealing in part because drones are harder to catch,” says Holland Michel, codirector of the Bard Center for the Study of the Drone. All reported sightings of drones flying in restricted airspace are recorded by the F.A.A., and the agency can impose civil penalties on those who break the rules. But the F.A.A. does not have criminal enforcement authority, and though it requires drones to be registered, it depends on the honor system. “The consensus is, no one has cracked the code on countering drones,” Holland Michel says. “It’s an unresolved challenge.”

The Television Academy has honored Boris FX, the leading developer of visual effects plugins and applications, with three Engineering Emmy Awards. The Boris FX products Sapphire, Mocha Pro, and Silhouette have each been recognized for their technical achievements and contribution to the world of television. Bardian Ross Shain is the chief product officer for Mocha, and he accepted the award at the 71st Engineering Emmy Awards ceremony on Wednesday evening, October 23, 2019, at the JW Marriott Hotel Los Angeles. 

“Cybersecurity remediation at hospitals appears to be slowing down doctors, nurses, and other health professionals as they offer emergency cardiac care,” writes Bard alumnus Nsikan Akpan.

The BrainStorm Neuroscience Pitch Competition awards grants to young researchers for innovative projects in brain research. Bard psychology major and Memory Lab manager Michael Greenberg ’20 won for his team’s proposed research into “hacking” the brain using mindfulness meditation to strengthen self-control and autonomy. The $15,000 grant will enable the MemLab team, led by Bard professor Justin Hulbert, to move their project forward.

Matthew Junge, Bard College Assistant Professor of Mathematics, has been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation in the amount of $190,868 for research into multitype particle systems. The grant comes from the NSF's Division of Mathematical Sciences Probability Program.

Interacting particle systems with random dynamics are fundamental for modeling phenomena in the physical and social sciences. Such systems can be used to describe chemical reactions, as well as the spread of disease, information, and species through a network. These models often become more meaningful when multiple particle types are incorporated. For example, the celebrated First Passage Percolation model describes the spread of a single species through an environment; the incorporation of competing species enriches the model. This project seeks to study more realistic variants of well-known models for chemical reactions, epidemic outbreaks, and the spread of information as to deepen our understanding of important phenomena from across the sciences and further develop the mathematics that helps explain them. The project will involve the training of undergraduate students.

In summer 2020, Professor Junge will use a portion of the NSF grant to run a Tiny Mathematics Research Community at Bard that vertically connects undergraduates, graduates, postdoctoral researchers, and professors in a retreat-style research workshop.

Professor Junge joined the Bard faculty this fall, coming to Annandale from Duke University, where he served as William W. Elliott Research Assistant Professor of Mathematics. He received his doctorate in mathematics from the University of Washington, where he also earned MS, BS, and BA degrees.

His areas of interest include probability, statistical physics, and mathematical biology. Professor Junge’s research takes a probabilistic approach to particle systems from physics and biology, including models for chemical reactions, species proliferation, and epidemic outbreaks. He also studies random structures from classical mathematics and computer science, such as permutations and fragmented spaces.

This semester, he is teaching Probability and Calculus I, as well as supervising a research project with two Bard undergraduate students. He also teaches in the Bard Prison Initiative, alongside Mathematics Program colleagues John Cullinan and Japheth Wood.
 

Bard College, supported by New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s (NYSERDA) REV Campus Challenge, announced today the launch of a new website to be a centralized, public resource for exploring sustainable micro hydropower in New York State. The website also documents this process for the Saw Kill Micro Hydropower Project on the Bard Campus, including the installation of real-time water quality monitoring equipment.

The website is organized to streamline and standardize the process for evaluating and implementing a potential micro hydropower site responsibly. The site breaks down the requirements for assessing, implementing, and maintaining a micro hydropower system. Using the Saw Kill Project as an example, lessons learned are provided as a resource for landowners, local governments, and researchers alike.

The MicrohydroNY website will be updated on a regular basis with news about the Saw Kill Project and changes that affect micro hydropower in New York State. Visitors are encouraged to explore the website and sign up for direct emails from MicrohydroNY at microhydrony.org.
 

Ninety-five countries now own military drones, a sharp increase from 2010, and drone operations are becoming deeply embedded in armed forces worldwide in ways that are changing global security, according to a new report by the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College. The report found not just a rising number of drones but also an expanding infrastructure of military bases, test sites, and training academies to support the operation of unmanned aerial vehicles. “A lot of countries, not just technologically advanced countries … have gone out to create drone programs,” said Dan Gettinger, codirector of the center and the report’s author, who used open-source data for the research. Unmanned aerial vehicles, he said, “are featuring more prominently in world affairs, as we’ve seen most recently in the Saudi drone attacks.”

The paper, by Bard alum Silas E. Busch ’16 and Professor Arseny S. Khakhalin, builds on a study undertaken by Busch for his Senior Project in biology. Busch explored whether different neurons in the optic tectum of Xenopus tadpoles—the part of the brain that helps tadpoles navigate in the water without running into objects or each other—are tuned to synaptic inputs of different duration. What he found is that most tectal neurons do have a preference for either short or long patterns of activation, and that this preference changes depending on what tadpoles see and hear. It means that the tadpole brain as a whole, and each individual neuron within it, adjusts to changes in the animal’s environment, enabling the tadpole to better navigate and survive. The paper describes this particular type of neuron-by-neuron “temporal tuning” in the tectum for the first time, applying an electrophysiological measuring technique called dynamic clamp in an entirely new way. 

Bard Faculty and Students in Chemistry and Physics Collaborate on Newly Published Research

In recent years, scientists have developed a new set of techniques to thin down certain materials into sheets that are only a few atoms thick—the most famous example being graphene, a one-atom thin layer of graphite that holds the title of world’s thinnest material. Graphene and its thin cousins hold promise both for being implemented in new technology and in helping physicists understand the quantum properties of materials. In making prototype devices from them, researchers often need to shape these sheets into particular patterns with features measured in nanometers.

Noting that conventional methods for doing this require multistep processes that can damage the materials, Ethan Richman ’20 led a team of undergraduates working in the labs of Bard Chemistry Professor Chris LaFratta and Physics Professor Paul Cadden-Zimansky to pioneer a potentially cleaner and faster way of slicing graphene at the nanoscale by using a high-powered laser beam focused into a microscope. While a handful of other research groups around the world have tried using lasers for graphene slicing, the Bard researchers noticed that laser cuts in air can damage the graphene at the atomic level. Taking a cue from techniques used in industrial laser cutting, Richman tried modifying the cutting technique by submerging the graphene in water and found this improved both the quality and efficiency of the cutting. Their results are published in Optics Materials Express, with Cadden-Zimansky, LaFratta, and eight student collaborators as coauthors.

Professor Eshel writes that if Americans choose to reduce meat consumption, it would improve water quality, biodiversity, soil health, and food security, as well as slowing climate change.

Who you are can affect the quality of care you get as a woman in the U.S. health-care system, writes Bard alum Amanda King CEP ’18. Each year, more than 700 women die in the United States due to pregnancy or causes related to childbirth. Yet nearly 60 percent of all maternal deaths are preventable. One of the factors behind the numbers is the uneven quality of prenatal and postpartum care—a reflection of racial and ethnic disparities within the U.S. medical system.

The use of prescription stimulants by those without medically diagnosed conditions marks a growing trend among young adults—particularly college students seeking a brain boost. A new study coauthored by cognitive scientist Sara Mednick ’95 finds that nonprescribed psychostimulants may slightly improve a person’s short-term focus but impede sleep and mental functions that rely on it—such as working memory.

Research by Bard professor Felicia Keesing and colleagues suggests health and environmental benefits of integrated ranches in Kenya.

By replacing meat with protein-conserving plant alternatives Americans could satisfy key nutritional requirements, while eliminating pastureland use and reducing 35-50 percent of the cropland currently needed for food production in the United States, says a new study coauthored by Bard College Research Professor Gidon Eshel. The findings, part of modeling study published in Scientific Reports, suggest that use of nitrogen fertilizer and greenhouse gas emissions would also be reduced, while only food-related water use would rise.

“While widely replacing meat with plants is logistically and culturally challenging, few competing options offer comparable multidimensional resource use reduction,” write Eshel and coauthors Paul Stainier, Alon Shepon, Akshay Swaminathan, all of Harvard University.

In their study, “Environmentally Optimal, Nutritionally Sound, Protein and Energy Conserving Plant Based Alternatives to U.S. Meat,” Eshel and his coauthors used a computer model to devise hundreds of plant-based diets to replace either beef alone or all three dominant U.S. meat types: beef, poultry and pork. Plant-based diets consisted predominantly of soy, green pepper, squash, buckwheat and asparagus. The authors’ goal was to model a range of plant replacement diets that were at least as nutritious, if not more beneficial, than the meats they replaced, while also assessing their environmental impact. Diets were modeled to exactly match the protein content of the meat they replace—13 grams of protein per day from beef or 30 grams of protein per day from all three meat types—while also satisfying 43 other nutrient requirements, such as vitamins and fatty acids.

Buckwheat and tofu jointly delivered a full third of the total protein of diets that replaced all meats, yet accounted for only 12 percent of the nitrogen fertilizer and water and less than 22 percent of the cropland needed to produce the meats they replaced. Soy contributed the most protein to beef-replacing diets, but accounted for only six percent of the overall nitrogen fertilizer needed to produce beef. Replacing meat with plant alternatives was estimated to save approximately 29 million hectares of cropland, three billion kilograms of nitrogen fertilizer, and 280 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide per year. Food-related water use was projected to rise by 15 percent.

Gidon Eshel is a research professor of environmental physics at Bard College. He earned a BA from Haifa University and MA, MPhil, and PhD degrees from Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.

“What this new technology proposes is to watch everything at once,” says Michel. “Sometimes it’s referred to as ‘combat TiVo’ because when an event happens somewhere in the surveilled area, you can potentially rewind the tape to see exactly what occurred, and rewind even further to see who was involved and where they came from.” The experimental high-altitude balloons promise a cheap monitoring platform that could follow multiple vehicles for extended periods. They are also subject to fewer restrictions and regulations than drones, raising privacy concerns.

A new study coauthored by Bard College Assistant Professor of Philosophy Kathryn Tabb in the journal Nature Human Behaviour finds that people consistently rated antisocial behavior as less genetically influenced than prosocial behavior. In their paper, “Asymmetrical Genetic Attributions for Prosocial versus Antisocial Behaviour,” Tabb and her coauthors write that their findings were replicated across six studies using a range of stimuli that described a variety of prosocial and antisocial behaviors. This was true regardless of whether genetic explanations were explicitly provided or refuted. Their analysis suggested that this asymmetry may stem from people’s motivating desire to hold wrongdoers responsible for their actions.

“The asymmetry was present when participants were only given descriptions of behaviour and asked to rate how much of a role genetics played in causing it, without being told anything about the actor’s genetic predisposition; and it persisted even when participants were told explicitly whether the individual in question was genetically predisposed to the type of behaviour exhibited, suggesting that people may remain relatively reluctant to accept even explicit ascriptions of antisocial behaviour to genetics,” write Tabb and coauthors Paul S. Appelbaum and Matthew S. Lebowitz, both of the Center for Research on Ethical, Legal and Social Implications of Psychiatric, Neurologic, and Behavioral Genetics, Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University Irving Medical Center. “The relative resistance to genetic explanations for antisocial behaviours demonstrated across these studies might help to explain findings from previous studies that indicate that genetic evidence often fails to influence the punishments deemed appropriate for criminal wrongdoing.”

In addition to adding to the substantial body of research suggesting that factors beyond the inherent quality of biological explanations for behavior can influence people’s likelihood of endorsing them, Tabb and her coauthors contend that their findings have specific real-world implications, particularly for situations involving criminal justice. “If people are generally resistant to genetic explanations for antisocial behaviour, including crime, judges and jurors may be unlikely to be swayed by such evidence,” they write. “Indeed, this resistance might help to explain why providing genetic explanations for misdeeds often fails to affect judgements about criminal culpability and punishment in the ways we might expect, as well as the finding that Americans tend to disfavour genetic explanations for violent behaviour, as compared to environmental and choice-based explanations.”

“When taken together, our results suggest that people’s interpretations and evaluations of findings in behavioural genetics may depend not only on the scientific merit of the evidence, but also on the moral valence of the behaviours in question,” the authors conclude. “This kind of motivated reasoning about empirical information can pose obstacles to scientific literacy, underscoring the importance of identifying exactly what motivations are affecting intuitions about behavioural genetics and precisely what impact biological explanations are having on people’s thinking.”

The study was funded by a grant from the Program on Genetics and Human Agency of the John D. Templeton Foundation, with additional support from the National Institutes of Health.

Kathryn Tabb is assistant professor of philosophy at Bard College. Since receiving her doctorate in history and philosophy of science at the University of Pittsburgh, Tabb has earned a master’s degree in bioethics and health law and served as assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University. Her interests include philosophy of science and medicine, bioethics, psychopathology, American pragmatism, and the history of philosophy, especially early modern philosophy. At Columbia, she taught courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, including Science and Values, The Normal and the Pathological, Darwin, and Contemporary Civilization. Professor Tabb is currently working on a monograph on John Locke, Agents and Patients: Locke’s Ethics of Thinking, that explores his theory of psychopathology and its implications for his philosophical theories. Recent peer-reviewed publications include the articles “Behavioral Genetics and Attributions of Moral Responsibility,” Behavioral Genetics; “Philosophy of Psychiatry after Diagnostic Kinds,” Synthese; “Locke on Enthusiasm and the Association of Ideas,” Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, Vol. 9; and “Darwin at Orchis Bank: Selection after the Origin,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (2016). Her published work also includes reviews and commentary in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Psychological Medicine, and Evolutionary Education and Outreach; and book chapters in Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry IV: Psychiatric Nosology; Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry III: The Nature and Sources of Historical Change; and Brain, Mind, and Consciousness in the History of Neuroscience. She is an investigator for the National Endowment for the Humanities grant project “Humanities Connections Curriculum for Medicine, Literature, and Society” (2017–20) and is coprincipal investigator for the Genetics and Human Agency Project “Intuitions about Genetics and Virtuous Behavior,” funded by the John D. Templeton Foundation.
 

Horowitz, who teaches chemistry at Bard High School Early College Newark, offers strategies for helping first-gen college students develop the metacognitive skills necessary to become effective learners.
 

What are Bard professor Felicia Keesing and her husband and research partner Rick Ostfeld up to this summer? The Ghostbusters of Lyme disease are hunting ticks in Dutchess County.
 

Bardians in conversation: Sam Jaffe Goldstein ’13 interviews Arthur Holland Michel ’13 on his new book Eyes in the Sky, and why he's worried about government surveillance. 
 

On Wednesday, July 10, 2019, Professor Jain gave a seminar at the North West Cancer Research Centre at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom. The seminar, "RNA Binding and Translation Inhibition by Novel Chemotherapeutic Compounds," was part of the Centre's 2019 Seminar Series.

Justin Hulbert, assistant professor of psychology and director of Bard's Memory Dynamics Lab, comments in Gizmodo that “motivated forgetting can be a powerful tool used to shape one’s inward life and outward perspective. We in the Memory Dynamics Lab at Bard College continue to explore the mechanisms and consequences associated with various forms of forgetting.”

Bard College student Thomas Harris ’22 has won a highly competitive Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship from the U.S. Department of State. Harris was awarded $3,000 scholarship towards his participation in the Bard-Smolny Program at Smolny College in St. Petersburg, where he will study in Russian for the fall 2019 semester. Harris is currently pursuing dual degrees in math and engineering through Bard College and Columbia University’s 3+2 program, in which a Bard student may transfer to Columbia at the end of their junior year at Bard, and upon completing a two-year program at Columbia, qualify for both a BA from Bard and a BS from Columbia. Born and raised in Chicago, Harris is also a concept artist and poet, going by his distinctive Russian name Foma. He is currently working on several projects, including his second book.

Gilman Scholars receive up to $5,000 to apply towards their study abroad or internship program costs with additional funding available for the study of a critical language overseas. The Gilman scholarship supports American undergraduate students of limited financial means to study or intern abroad and, since 2001, has enabled more than 25,000 outstanding Americans of diverse backgrounds to engage in a meaningful educational experience abroad. The program has successfully broadened U.S. participation in study abroad, while emphasizing countries and regions where fewer Americans traditionally study. The late Congressman Gilman, who served in the House of Representatives for 30 years, chaired the House Foreign Relations Committee, and was honored with the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Medal in 2002, commented, “Study abroad is a special experience for every student who participates. Living and learning in a vastly different environment of another nation not only exposes our students to alternate views, but also 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.”  gilmanscholarship.org

Bard professor Felicia Keesing and her husband and research partner Rick Ostfeld explain their work on the Tick Project, the prevalence of misinformation on tick-borne diseases, and how to talk about parasites at a cocktail party.

“Eyes in the Sky is that rare creature: a deeply reported and deftly written investigation that seeks to understand both the implications of a technology and the motivations of its creators.”

Michel, codirector of the Center or the Study of the Drone at Bard College, provides a “persuasive look at how society might regulate cutting-edge technology to assure both individual privacy rights and the government’s ability to guard public safety.”

A new study of nearly 3,000 fourth, fifth, and sixth graders links a midday nap with greater happiness and self-control, fewer behavioral problems, and a higher IQ—a finding that was particularly evident in sixth graders.

With Public Lecture “What Is Time?” by Carlo Rovelli, World-Renowned Scientist and Best-Selling Author, on Thursday, June 13

— Further Reading —

Jim Bardeen, Hal Haggard, and Carlo Rovelli, faculty members in the Bard Summer School on Quantum Gravity, weigh in on “White Holes: Black Holes’ Neglected Twins,” in Space.

 

High-flying, solar-powered drones could serve as floating cell towers, connecting remote users and providing continuous service across the globe—a “phenomenally complex technical challenge,” says Michel.

The study, led by biologist Gabriel Perron in collaboration with microbiologist M. Elias Dueker, both on the faculty of the Bard Center for the Study of Land, Air, and Water, shows that even small concentrations of the synthetic antimicrobial agent triclosan can disrupt freshwater microbial communities in favor of bacteria that are associated with human disease and antibiotic resistance.

The new missile, which carries no explosives, is designed to kill a single person without hurting those around them, thus reducing unnecessary harm. The reality is likely a little more complicated than that, writes Michel.

Psychologist Simine Vazire will deliver the 2019 Andrew J. Bernstein ’68 Memorial Lecture at Bard Hall on Thursday, April 25, at 6:00 p.m. Vazire, professor of psychology and director of the Personality and Self-Knowledge Lab at UC Davis, will give a talk on “The Credibility Revolution in Psychology.” 

Bard alumna, literature major, and technology reporter Natalia Drozdiak cowrote the story for Bloomerg on the first image of a black hole, a “huge breakthrough for humanity.”

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) has named Felicia Keesing, Bard College’s David and Rosalie Rose Distinguished Professor of Science, Mathematics, and Computing, as one of its 2019 Fellows. The Society's fellowship program recognizes the many ways in which its members contribute to ecological research and discovery, communication, education and pedagogy, and management and policy. Fellows are members who have made outstanding contributions to a wide range of fields served by ESA, including, but not restricted to, those that advance or apply ecological knowledge in academics, government, non-profit organizations, and the broader society. The Society cited Keesing for “pioneering research in the ecology of infectious diseases and community ecology of African savannas, and pedagogical research that she has integrated into a vision and practice of college science teaching for enhancing scientific literacy.”

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.

The Ecological Society of America, founded in 1915, is the world's largest community of professional ecologists and a trusted source of ecological knowledge, committed to advancing the understanding of life on Earth. The 9,000 member Society publishes five journals and a membership bulletin and broadly shares ecological information through policy, media outreach, and education initiatives. The Society's annual meeting attracts 4,000 attendees and features the most recent advances in ecological science. For more information, visit esa.org.

 

Simon’s Rock students Eric Yi and Samantha Statter joined professors Eric Kramer and Donald McClelland, and Joseph Carlson of the Joint Genome Institute, as coauthors of an academic research paper published in Plant Direct that provides new insights into one of the big mysteries in forest ecology.

Daphany Rose Sanchez—BHSEC Queens alumna, Class of 2010—has been named to the Grist 50 list of top innovators for her work bridging affordable housing and energy efficiency.

Before leaving for winter break last December, all first-year students at Bard College were given a test tube and asked to take it home and collect a sample from a freshwater pond, lake, or stream; take a photo of its source, and bring it back to campus as part of Bard’s 2019 Citizen Science program. The program, an intensive science immersion required of all Bard first-year students, aims to develop science literacy through hands-on, real-world course work and projects. The students’ water samples—collected from nearly 400 sites across the globe—were a main component of this year’s curriculum, which tackled urgent, present-day questions related to water. Students began an ongoing effort to test, plate, photograph, and map the samples, in part to document a violacein-producing bacterium that is central to the research of Bard biology professor Brooke Jude. Photos of the collection sites, as well as many of the petri dish platings of the water samples, were turned into an interactive map that will be used by both Jude and future Citizen Science students.

Mary Krembs, director of the Citizen Science Program, said the focus on water provided an ideal subject that is both part of students’ daily lives and a pressing issue in many communities. Students were asked not only to examine the properties of water and how those properties influence the contamination (and decontamination) of drinking water but also to consider the extent to which problems of contamination go beyond pure science and are affected by social, historical, and political factors. Krembs said 479 students participated in the program and were divided into 28 sections, taught by 28 faculty, each focusing on a different aspect of the science of water issues, from sampling and lab testing to education and communication.
“We’re challenging students to grapple with what it means to be scientifically literate, the role citizens play in weighing in on important scientific issues, how citizens can find the scientific information they need in order to meet the challenges they face, the skills they need to adequately and thoroughly interpret scientific claims, and the ways in which the conduct, analysis, and interpretation of science can be influenced by political and other potentially distorting factors,” said Krembs. “To be literate, students need to know how science is done, vetted, communicated, and taught.”

In addition to its valuable role in this year’s Citizen Science program, the sampling, plating, and mapping will be essential to Jude’s research, which focuses on cataloging and characterizing violacein-producing bacteria to determine if they can be used to treat invasive species infections, such as those currently decimating amphibian populations. Jude said future Citizen Science students will be gathering new water samples, and students in the research section of the program in 2020 will have an opportunity to characterize isolates from this year's collection.
 “Up until now, my study site and focus area has been largely contained to the Hudson Valley waterways, and some surrounding sites in the East Coast,” said Jude. “The research we are conducting during Citizen Science has allowed my research program to expand greatly the sites for water collection, via both the student participation as Citizen Scientists and members of the research team. We have plated water samples from over 19 countries and 30 US states, and currently have 299 violacein-producing strains to add to my data set to be further analyzed.”

Krembs gave credit to Bard Systems Administrator Hayden Sartoris ’18, a computer science graduate, for writing the software that enabled the mapping project to come to life.

Citizen Science is an innovative program for all first-year students at Bard College. Through two weeks of intensive study during January intersession, students develop a core understanding of both the conduct and the content of science. This foundation allows them as citizens to grapple with the ever-increasing number of national and global issues influenced by science. The first-year experience at Bard is designed as an immersive introduction to the liberal arts and critical thinking across disciplines. This experience serves as a foundation for all students as they pursue their particular area of interest and encounter issues driven by science that permeate society and impact their daily lives. The Citizen Science Program is a dynamic and challenging learning experience aimed at elevating the ability of each student to understand and apply scientific thought and tools. The program emphasizes the methodology and critical thinking skills used by scientists, and their application. During Citizen Science, students learn by doing. Students are fully engaged in problem solving and must learn to identify, obtain, and digest the types of scientific evidence needed to make informed decisions. Citizen Science mirrors what it is to be a scientist. For more information, visit citizenscience.bard.edu.
 

The students’ water samples—collected from nearly 400 sites across the globe—were a main component of this year’s Citizen Science curriculum, which tackled urgent, present-day questions related to water.

By Sarah Wallock ’19

If you’re passing through the Reem-Kayden Center on a given Saturday afternoon, you may run into a group of middle school girls, chatting about math games and examining the origami designs that they just made in the Girls Math Club. Or, if you’re a patron of the Tivoli Library, you may come across a STEAM Workshop using soap and food coloring to make marbled milk paper and learn about how calcium affects saturation rates. Both programs are hosted by STEAM Explorers, an initiative of Bard’s Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) and Math Program. STEAM Explorers has two components: Bard Science Outreach and the Bard Math Circle. Together, they work to create experiences and design experiments that inspire wonder, spark curiosity, and challenge old ideas.

Sarah deVeer ’17 volunteered for STEAM Explorers as a Bard student; now, she runs the program as the science outreach coordinator. This year she has worked to expand the program beyond local partners in Red Hook, Rhinebeck, Kingston, and Tivoli to communities across the Hudson Valley such as in Beacon, Albany, and Hudson. Sarah also worked to revamp the curriculum, and to good effect: John Kemnitzer, the principal of Bulkeley Middle School in Rhinebeck, recently said that this year’s program was the best one yet.
“One aspect that I really love about Bard’s STEAM Explorers is that we don’t charge the schools or community for our programs,” says deVeer. “We offer these programs because we genuinely believe that Bard is a private institution operating in the public interest.” Working with six STEM fellows and 30 engagement mentors, STEAM Explorers collaborates with 12 partners in schools and community organizations throughout the Hudson Valley. DeVeer also coordinates science engagement efforts as part of Bard’s Citizen Science Program and Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Engagement. The most important part of discussing issues such as water quality and natural resource use with students, she notes, is how STEAM Explorers is “starting the conversation with the next generation.”

The Bard Math Circle was started in 2007 by mathematics students and faculty at Bard, to address the dearth of math enrichment opportunities in the Mid-Hudson Valley. It began with a monthly program at the Tivoli library, where the organizers brought puzzles, games, and toys that emphasized problem-solving skills and making math fun for all ages. Students attending the library programs reported doing better in their math courses at school because of their involvement with the project.
From the outset, Bard undergraduates have been an integral part of the Math Circle, running and developing programs, leading hands-on workshops, and mentoring K-12 students. The Math Circle has expanded over time to include programs at several libraries, schools, and community centers; math contests and national math competitions; programs to empower girls in math; a Rubik’s Cube Club; special events for teachers and senior citizens; and the most popular program, a weeklong summer CAMP (Creative, Analytical Math Program) for middle schoolers, run primarily by Bard faculty, alumni/ae, undergraduates, and local high school volunteers who have taken part in Math Circle programs. One parent whose daughter participated in the Girls Math Club recently commented, “My child was always happy after meetings, and she liked the girls-only space to learn and explore.” Undergraduate leaders credit their involvement with the Math Circle as one of the highlights of their Bard experience. The majority of Math Circle student leaders choose to pursue a career in teaching after graduation.

STEAM Explorers started in 2010 as an effort to bring science and math to area students in new and creative ways. Bard Science Outreach fellows and Bard Math Circle faculty and volunteers work with more than 4,000 children and teens throughout the Hudson Valley each year. Partnering with local schools, they connect what students are learning in the classroom with real-world issues, especially those facing the Hudson Valley region.

During the month of January, Science Outreach fellows worked with six different school districts to host a Day of Science. The CCE outreach team conducted science experiments around the theme of Hudson River watershed health, from off-campus events at Chancellor Elementary in Rhinebeck and Smith Intermediate School in Hudson, to on-campus events for local middle school students. Bard students led activities that showed the importance of local aquifers to the ecosystem. Participants tested the salinity of the river water, played a PCB board game, explored pH filters, and demonstrated water conservation through interactive activities.

STEAM Explorers works to provide real-world applications in all its experiments, like dissecting owl pellets to classify rodent skeletons and building marshmallow towers to learn effective design and construction mechanisms. “My favorite experiment was when we played with owl pellets!” says Junnaria, a sixth-grade student in Perfect Ten, an after-school program in Hudson that empowers and mentors young girls. “It was so cool finding all the bones of the animals! This [experiment] has made me more curious about nature and biology.” Melissa, a seventh grader from Perfect Ten, comments, “I really liked the marshmallow tower. It showed me how to plan measurements for buildings. It’s cool to find out that math and science are in everything, even marshmallows.”

Antonio Gansley-Ortiz ’18, a science outreach engagement mentor, reflects on how his work with the STEAM Explorers continues to influence him: “In April while out having dinner with [another mentor], I ran into one of my middle school students. She recognized us and pointed us out to her parents. The entire family then came over and thanked us for the experience. They also mentioned the student hadn’t stopped talking about her excitement with science. That moment was incredibly fulfilling. I want to help provide that positive experience to other students in the community.”

STEAM Explorers Initiatives

• Day of Science brings eighth graders from local school districts to the Bard campus to engage with Bard science fellows, faculty, and undergraduates in a series of themed science stations.  
• Girls Math Club for middle school girls run by Bard female math majors.
• Math Circle Library Programs include puzzles, games, and fun math activities for upper elementary and middle school students.
• Rubik’s Cube Club teaches kids how to master the Rubik’s Cube.
• Science Fairs connect Black Student Organization fellows and volunteers to mentor local students preparing to enter school science fairs.
• Science for Kids brings in-school, hands-on science experiments to K-5 students by using household products in new ways.
• Science Saturday brings children and families together with Bard students at local libraries and community centers to participate in science enrichment activities.
• STEM Night Out invites young students throughout the Hudson Valley to an evening of fun, hands-on scientific experiments led by science fellows and Bard first-year students.

Visit the Bard Math Circle and STEAM Explorers to learn more.
 

Blom treats the well-documented Little Ice Age of the 17th century “as an experiment in what can happen to a society when its baseline conditions, all ultimately dependent upon the weather, are shaken,” writes Miller.

Chelsea Mozen MBA ’15 joined the inaugural class of Bard’s MBA in Sustainability program in the fall of 2012 because she wanted to make clean energy a priority in the business world. Now she's heading up a first-of-its kind carbon offset program at Etsy, which she originally conceptualized for her Capstone Project at Bard. Last week, Mozen was featured in Bloomberg, Fast Company, and Wired for the carbon-neutral delivery program she’s leading. Etsy will now purchase carbon credits to compensate for the impact of its shipping operations, a bold move that Mozen hopes will shift the e-commerce industry.

During her time at Bard, Mozen held an internship with Etsy’s sustainability team, where she began to develop an idea for solarizing Etsy sellers. This way, the company could offset the pollution coming from transport and work toward their goal of net-zero emissions. Mozen proposed that Etsy use carbon finance to encourage their network of sellers, employees, and stakeholders to install solar energy in their homes. Etsy was looking to transition to 100 percent renewable energy by 2020 when Mozen pitched her climate strategy. After Mozen’s internship ended, she was hired full time as senior energy and carbon specialist.

Since then, Mozen has gone on to expand Etsy’s sustainability strategy. In her interview with a correspondent at Bloomberg, Mozen said: “The free shipping we’re used to actually isn’t free. When people think of the environmental impact from e-commerce, they immediately jump to packaging—but emissions from shipping has a big environmental cost.” She adds, “Even though we don’t directly control that shipping, we feel responsible for it because we’ve enabled it. We want consumers to know what responsible e-commerce can look like.”

Climate change experts have lauded Etsy and Mozen’s bold approach. Inquiries are arising about whether other businesses like Amazon will follow suit. “This is a solid move, and encouraging,” says Adam Klauber, director of sustainable aviation at the Rocky Mountain Institute (Wired).  “What I love about Etsy Solar is that it’s really about shared value creation for our community,” said Mozen. “By working together we can drive responsible solutions to our collective impact.”

Learn more about Bard’s Graduate Programs in Sustainability.
 

The recommendations, made by the Saw Kill Watershed Community with data and support from the Bard Water Lab, include adoption of stormwater runoff rules to maintain watershed health.

Professor Hulbert lectured on his research on memory dynamics, direct suppression, and PTSD.

At age seven, Bard alum Ingrid Stolt ’15 fell in love with the magnets on her parents’ refrigerator: “I used to pretend that one magnet was a magic wand that was causing the other to move back and forth and rotate through supernatural powers. Magnetism seemed magical because it was so mysterious, yet I wanted to understand how it worked.” Today, she's a fourth-year doctoral student in physics, helping to develop practical uses for superconductivity at Northwestern's Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Laboratory.

“The U.S. military and any military has to prepare for an operating environment in which enemy drones are not just occasional, but omnipresent,” writes Gettinger.