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Events

Current and Upcoming Events

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

ATTENTION ALL BIOLOGY STUDENTS!!!

pizza on the pod

A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors and fellow biology students

tuesdays
RKC pod
7 p.m.
7:00 pm RKC pods
Contact: Catherine O'Reilly oreilly@bard.edu 845-752-2332

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Biology Student Talks

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Wyatt Shell
"Allelic Diversity of Two Populations of, and Pheromone use, in
Chinese Mantises (Tenodera Aridifolia)"

Sarah Wegener
"Learning and Predator Recognition in
the California Sea Hare, Aplysia californica"
12:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium
Contact: Catherine O'Reilly oreilly@bard.edu 845-752-2332

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Past Events

Science on the Edge lecture-"Finding the genes that make us human"

Wednesday, September 24, 2008
A lecture by Michael Tibbetts, Biology program.
What are the genetic bases of the qualities that we think of as uniquely human? Is there a set of “humaness” genes? Large-scale genome sequencing projects in multiple species are generating the kind of data that allow us, for the first time, to seriously ask such big questions. An article published in the September 5 issue of Science Magazine (Human-specific gain of function in a developmental enhancer, by Prabhakar, S. et al.) describes a gene whose human-specific activity may be necessary to form an opposable thumb. The nature of the differences between the human and chimpanzee versions of the gene they identify supports a popular model for how small modifications in genomes can lead to significant changes in physical characteristics. The methodologies employed by these researchers may lead to the discovery of genes important for other human-specific characteristics.
6:00 pm - 7:30 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Biology seminar-"Phenotypic plasticity as an adaptive host response to parasitic infection"

Thursday, September 25, 2008
A lecture by Dr. Lisa Schwanz, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies.

Parasites negatively impact their host’s fitness, potentially damaging host tissues and impairing host physiological or behavioral performance. In response to parasitic infection, hosts may alter their physiology, behavior or life history in ways that minimize the costs of infection. In this talk, I examine the optimal life history response of hosts when infected with parasites that have varying impacts. In addition, I explore the impacts of schistosome infection in deer mice by examining host physiology, survival and reproductive investment. In accordance with predictions, deer mice infected with this parasite increase their investment in offspring.

12:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Math & Computer Science lecture-"Calculus, Supersized"

Thursday, September 25, 2008
A lecture by Gregory Landweber, Mathematics program.
In calculus, we teach you how to take derivatives, and then once you're good at that, we tell you about second derivatives. But how do we go in the other direction and try to take HALF a derivative? It turns out that to take a half derivative, your functions need to come in pairs, analogously to how a complex number can be thought of as a pair of numbers, one real and another imaginary. Supersymmetry is the study of such pairings. This talk will discuss different ways that supersymmetry arises, both through explicit constructions, and through the notion of superspace.
**Some exposure to multivariable calculus and linear algebra will be assumed**
4:15 pm RKC 111

Math & Computer Science seminar-"Losing L'Hopital for Limits through Lazy Logic"

Thursday, October 2, 2008
A lecture by Robert McGrail, Computer Science program.

L'Hopital's Rule is a useful tool for computing limits with indeterminate forms. In fact, it is too useful. The speaker demonstrates how some of these limits can be computed without this rule. This talk is a shamless ruse designed to introduce the 0-1 law of finite mondel theory as well as expose the unwitting members of the audience to some very beautiful mathematics.

4:15 pm RKC 111

Bard Summer Research Institute Student Poster Session

Thursday, October 2, 2008
Join the SM&C division faculty and students in presenting their summer research
7:00 pm RKC lobby

Biology Seminar-"Bard-Rockefeller Semester in Science Information Session"

Thursday, October 9, 2008
Led by Michael Tibbetts, Academic director, Bard-Rockefeller Semester in Science program.
The Bard-Rockefeller Semester in Science in New York City (BRSS) is an intensive one-semester program designed for advanced science students, particularly those in the fields of neuroscience, biochemistry, molecular biology, developmental biology, biophysics, and genetics.

Students spend a semester living and working in New York City working in the laboratory with faculty from Rockefeller University and taking specially-designed science classes at Rockefeller and at Bard Hall, in conjunction with Bard’s program in Globalization and International Affairs. For more information, please visit http://www.bard.edu/brss/

12:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Hudson Valley Model Organisms meeting

Wednesday, October 15, 2008
The Hudson Valley Model Organisms group will meet on Wednesday, October 15th. Dr. Jodi Schwarz, Vassar College, will present the keynote address, "Model systems for ecological research: Corals as a case study."
4:30 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Biology Seminar - "Invasion Ecology and Metacommunity Dynamics"

Thursday, October 16, 2008
A lecture by Martha F. Hoopes, Mount Holyoke College

Early metacommunity theory emphasized four distinct models to explain the spatial structure, dynamics, and species composition of communities: species sorting, patch dynamics, mass effects, and the neutral model. Several tests of metacommunity theory have focused on these models and on determining their relative importance in explaining spatial community structure. Applying metacommunity theory to invasion ecology redirects the focus to examine how theory on spatial community dynamics can inform our understanding of spatial interactions when all species are not considered equal. This talk examines how a focal species approach affects the interpretation of processes critical to metacommunity dynamics. I offer some preliminary thoughts on conceptual differences between the four conceptual metacommunity models and explore these with three invasion case studies.

12:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Math seminar - "The Mathematics of Fairness"

Thursday, October 16, 2008
Lecture by Allison Pacelli, Williams College.

How do you divide a candy bar fairly between two people? The most popular solution is known by many and can even be found in the bible: one person divides the bar in half, the other gets to choose which piece she wants. But what happens if three people are dividing the candy? Worse yet, what do you do if you're dividing a collection of indivisible goods? Things like TV's and pianos are not much use cut in half! The idea of fairness itself is considerably more complicated when more than two people are involved, but mathematics can be surprisingly useful in these situations.
4:30 pm RKC 111

Science on the Edge lecture-"The LHC: Testing the Standard Model and Beyond"

Tuesday, October 21, 2008
A lecture by Matthew Deady, Physics program
The Large Hadron Collider at the CERN laboratory in Switzerland has just been turned on for initial testing. The "Standard Model" of particles and fields has successfully matched theory and experiment for more than 30 years, and results from the LHC will put the model to its most stringent tests yet. The large energies available will also undoubtedly answer questions about extensions of and alternatives to the Standard Model, including supersymmetry, dark matter, dark energy, and string theory. In this lecture, these theories and what might be learned about them from the LHC will be explored. We will also discuss the spurious concerns that the LHC might cause a black hole that would swallow the universe.

This talk will focus on the theories of particles, as a complement to the October 2007 talk which focused on the accelerator technology itself. An edited version of that talk appears in the latest issue of the Bardian.

6:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Computer science lecture - "Creating Realistic Graphical Agent Populations: An Integrated Artificial Intelligence (AI) Challenge"

Monday, October 27, 2008
A lecture by Peter G. Selfridge, Ph.D.

Virtual graphical environments (think Second Life or World Of Warcraft) have a number of real-world applications including training first responders, urban planning, and military training. Technology for creating both “geo-typical” terrain (e.g., a generic small city) and “geo-specific” terrain (e.g., downtown Kingston) has improved dramatically in recent years. What is missing is the ability to create realistic populations of regular people to populate the landscape: people commuting, going to lunch, taking their kids to daycare, et cetera.

This talk will first review some motivating applications, the current state-of-the-art in terrain generation, and the general problem. Approaches to creating realistic agent populations will be reviewed, including crowd modeling, game technologies, and work in AI-style cognitive architectures. Two key challenges will then be described: the creation and maintenance of realistic behaviors, and the idea of scalable cognition or cognition on demand. Some research ideas to address these challenges will be briefly sketched.

Bio:
Peter Selfridge received his Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Rochester and spent 19 years at Bell Labs and then AT&T Bell Labs doing research into sensory robotics, artificial intelligence, knowledge representation, software visualization, interactive database exploration, 3D web technologies, and more. For the last 5 years he has supported the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in their mission of funding revolutionary R&D to help maintain the technological superiority of the United States. He also does independent research in Artificial Intelligence.

12:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Mathematics Summer Research Talks

Thursday, October 30, 2008
Sylvia Naples - 4:15 p.m.
"An upper bound for the number of graceful labelings of a path with N edges"

Nicholas Michaud - 4:35 p.m.
"Delaunay Realizability of Certain Graphs"

Mona Merling - 4:55 p.m.
"Function Fields with Class Number Indivisible by a Prime 1"
4:00 pm RKC 111

3-2 Combined Plan information session

Monday, November 3, 2008
Interested in Studying Engineering? come hear about Bard's 3-2 combined plan with Columbia University. Derek Hernandez, former Bard student and current Columbia student, will speak about the program.
12:30 pm Hegeman 107

Biology search candidate lecture - "Bacterial surface binding: Sweet attachments"

Thursday, November 6, 2008
A lecture by Brooke A. Jude, candidate for the open position in Biology.

Investigation into Vibrio cholerae revealed that this organism colonizes both chitinous aquatic surfaces and the human small intestine via GbpA. Sequence analysis has revealed a GbpA homolog in all other Vibrio species that have been sequenced to date. We hypothesize that other aquatic Vibrio, such as Vibrio fluvialis, Vibrio vulnificus, or Vibrio parahemolyticus may also utilize GbpA to bind to environmental and intestinal surfaces. Current investigations include screening of aquatic isolates for attachment potential via GbpA.

12:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Math seminar - "Reflexive Polytopes, Comples Tori, and Elliptic Curves"

Thursday, November 6, 2008
A lecture by Charles Doran, University of Alberta.

We'll start by investigating the combinatorial properties of certain lattice polytopes in R^n, specifically reflexive polygons. By reinterpreting these as Newton polygons, we will relate these combintorial objects to algebraic equations naturally defined on complex tori. The vanishing loci of these equations are then elliptic curves, whose basic geometric and topological properties we will discuss. If time permits, we may also describe an application to string theory.
4:30 pm RKC 111

Discrete Mathematics Day at Bard College

Saturday, November 8, 2008
Speakers include:

Cristina Ballantine, College of the Holy Cross
"Expander Graphs: Algebraic and Combinatorial Constructions"

Margaret Bayer, University of Kansas
"Flag Vectors of Polytopes: An Overview"

Debra Boutin, Hamilton College
"The Determining Set: A (Smallest) Set that Identifies Every Vertex in a Graph"

Robert McGrail, Bard College
"Knots, Quandles, and the Constraint Satisfaction Problem"

Ed Swartz, Cornell University
"f-Vectors of Manifolds"
9:30 am - 5:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium
Website: Event Website

Information Session - New Biology course for the spring semester: Tropical Ecology

Tuesday, November 11, 2008
New Biology course for spring semester:
Tropical Ecology

Professor Catherine O'Reilly

Tropical ecosystems are among the most biodiverse, most threatened, and the least studied in the world. This course will examine both practical and theoretical aspects that are unique to tropical ecosystems, including the role of geology, biogeochemical cycling, evolutionary processes and species interactions. In addition, we will discuss issues related to conservation, such as habitat fragmentation and climate change. This course will include lectures, student presentations, and research projects. Students will design, conduct, synthesize, and present a field research project. This course will involve a field trip to La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica over spring break.

Prerequisites: Moderation, Bio 202 Ecology and Evolution, Permission of the instructor.

Come to the information meeting to learn more about the field trip, acceptance into this course, and the additional costs.

6:30 pm RKC 111

Chemistry search candidate lecture - "Understanding Nucleic Acid Structure and its Interactions with Small Molecules"

Wednesday, November 12, 2008
A lecture by Swapan Jain, candidate for the open position in Chemistry.

According to RNA World hypothesis, early life used RNA for information storage and chemical catalysis. Small molecules may have played an important role in this endeavor by assembling nucleic acids during prebiotic evolution. Our results with proflavine and coralyne (small organic ligands) show that reactions carried out by protein enzymes today could have been achieved by non-enzymatic means. Mechanistic studies using hydroxyl radical footprinting have also been instrumental in our understanding of RNA structure. Future work aims to understand the structural changes that occur in riboswitches (noncoding region of mRNA) upon ligand binding. I would also like to investigate whether RNA can be regulated simultaneously by multiple pathways.

4:45 pm - 6:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Science on the Edge lecture-"New Insights into the Chemistry of Depression"

Wednesday, November 12, 2008
A lecture by Richard A. Gordon, Professor of Psychology.

After the discovery of antidepressant drugs in the 1950s and the burst of research on neurotransmitters that took place in the 1960s, a scientific hypothesis about depression became firmly established in the community of researchers and clinicians: depression was rooted in depleted brain amines, such as norepinephrine and serotonin, a deficit that the antidepressants corrected. The amine hypothesis (known popularly and in pharmaceutical advertising as “chemical imbalance”) guided research throughout the rest of the 20th century. However, by the late 1990s it had become clear that direct research on the metabolism of depressed patients had failed to support the hypothesis. In this lecture I will discuss some exciting recent research that uses sophisticated techniques of brain imaging and has lent new support to the possibility that depleted amines are importantly involved in the chemistry of depression. Further commentary will be offered on the limitations and promise of this work, as well as some of the current thinking on the underpinnings of depression in the brain.
6:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Biology seminar - "A Visual Narrative about Fruit Flies"

Thursday, November 13, 2008
A lecture by Alexis Gambis, The Rockefeller University

Alexis Gambis will speak about the importance of visual imagery and narrative in both science understanding and communication. He will give insight into his current thesis work explaining the mechanisms of cellular death, how to use the fruit fly as a genetic model to study human neurodegenerative diseases, and the fluorescent toolkit to visualize neurons in the fruit fly eye . Using the camera eye, Alexis has also been actively making films with scientific themes during his graduate career. Alexis will talk about his recent films and the importance of visual storytelling in science communication, show a few clips of his film "A Fruit Fly in New York", and share his recent experience pioneering the first science film festival in New York.

12:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Biology search candidate lecture - "Small non-coding RNAs in the bacterium Shewanella oneidensis: Computational prediction and experimental validation"

Thursday, November 13, 2008
A lecture by Brett Pellock, candidate for the open position in Biology.

Bacteria use small, non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) to rapidly alter gene expression in response to changing conditions. Bacterial ncRNAs are small and difficult to identify experimentally. We are synthesizing computational and experimental methods to predict and validate the existence of ncRNAs in Shewanella oneidensis, a bacterium that can reduce a wide variety of substrates when grown anaerobically. Of particular interest is the ability of Shewanella to reduce soluble, toxic heavy metals to insoluble, much less toxic forms.

4:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Math seminar - REU information session

Thursday, November 13, 2008
Interested in summer research in mathematics?

Come to an REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) information session.
Hosted by the Mathematics program

Students Sylvia Naples and Tomasz Przytycki and faculty members John Cullinan and Lauren Rose will be speaking on the application process and their own experiences with past REU's.
4:15 pm RKC 111

Chemistry search candidate lecture - "Electrostatics and Ribonuclease Biology"

Monday, November 17, 2008
A lecture by Jeremy Johnson, candidate for the open position in Chemistry

The mechanism of ribonuclease toxicity toward cancerous cells involves multiple steps, including cellular uptake and evasion of the ribonuclease inhibitor protein. Both of these steps of ribonuclease cytotoxicity are proposed to be controlled by the cationic nature of the ribonuclease and its interactions with the anionic cell membrane and anionic inhibitor. To understand the role that electrostatics play in ribonuclease biology, I investigated the effect that the positive charge of ribonuclease have on their cytotoxicity.
5:30 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Biology seminar - "The zebrafish as a model for heart disease"

Thursday, November 20, 2008
A lecture by Patrick Page-McCaw, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

I will present two stories on how the zebrafish can be used as a model of heart disease. In the first story, our lab has used genetic, pharmacological and surgical tools to dissect the affect of stress on cardiac output. In the second story, we have discovered that Serum Amyloid A is required for cholesterol transport early in embryogenesis and that the failure to transport cholesterol results in defects in Hedgehog signaling.

12:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Biology search candidate lecture - "Npl3: At the Interface of Transcription and mRNA processing"

Thursday, November 20, 2008
A lecture by Tracy Kress, candidate for the position in Biology.

From the beginning of transcription, mRNAs are processed in a myriad of ways to specify the correct timing, localization, and quantity of protein synthesized. To ensure the efficiency and accuracy of gene expression, transcription and mRNA processing steps are tightly coordinated both spatially and temporally. Despite their critical importance, few factors that regulate this coordination are known. I identified Npl3 as one such factor, and my work aims to uncover the mechanism of Npl3, and other factors, in this coordination.
4:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Math seminar - "Geometry of Infinite Graphs"

Thursday, November 20, 2008
A lecture by Jim Belk

If you draw a grid on the plane and then zoom out, the empty squares between the gridlines become smaller and smaller until they are lost to sight. The result is that the large-scale geometry of the plane is essentially the same as the large-scale geometry of an infinite grid. In the same way, many non-Euclidean geometries can be understood on a large scale using infinite graphs. In this talk, we will explore the geometry of several graphs that arise in this fashion, and we will discuss the sorts of questions that one might ask about the geometry of an infinite graph.

4:15 pm RKC 111

Chemistry search candidate lecture - "Uncovering the World of Bacterial Small RNAs"

Monday, November 24, 2008
A lecture by Jane Liu, candidate for the open position in Chemistry.

Due to their central role in regulating bacterial pathogenesis, small non-coding RNAs (sRNAs) represent targets with therapeutic potential. To investigate the entire repertoire of sRNAs in the human pathogen, Vibrio cholerae, we developed a method, sRNA-Seq, to directly clone and analyze whole populations of V. cholerae transcripts, 14 to 200 nucleotides, by high-throughput pyrosequencing. From over 680,000 reads, 500 new intergenic sRNAs and 127 antisense sRNAs were identified.

5:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Computer Science candidate lecture - "Off the Desk and Into the Wild: Two Expeditions in Distributed Robot Systems Architecture"

Tuesday, November 25, 2008
A lecture by
Keith O'Hara
candidate for the position in Computer Science

Just as special purpose mainframe computers grew into general purpose personal computers, special purpose industrial robots are evolving into general purpose personal robots. Drawing on ideas from computer systems architecture such as parallelism, redundancy, heterogeneity, locality, and scaling laws, we propose a "robot systems architecture" perspective on the design of robot computing systems. From this perspective, two distributed robot systems built for tasks as varied as computing education and mobile robot navigation will be presented.
4:00 pm RKC 111

Biology search candidate lecture-"Mobile DNA: Reshaping and Rearranging the Yeast Genome"

Tuesday, December 2, 2008
A lecture by
Lisa Scheifele
candidate for the position in Biology
Mobile DNA presents a considerable challenge to genome stability due to its presence as dispersed repeats. Could this instability enable adaption and thereby explain why genomes retain high levels of mobile DNA? Indeed, we have found that following experimental evolution, strains with higher levels of repetitive DNA contain a broader variation in chromosome structure. The abundance of repetitive DNA must therefore be fine-tuned so that benefit of chromosome rearrangements in promoting genome evolution outweights the potential for lethal damage.
12:30 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Science on the Edge lecture - "Preventing Web-bot Spam: Intelligence is the Key"

Tuesday, December 2, 2008
A lecture by
Sven Anderson
Computer Science program
Telling the difference between human and automated programs such as Web-bots has become important in preventing Web-bot access to e-mail addresses, private information and limited electronic resources. CAPTCHAs, programs that can accurately judge whether a user is human or machine, are the primary line of defense against Web-bot access. For example, Google's Mail program uses CAPTHCAs to prevent Web-bots from creating bogus user accounts from which to launch spam messages. Every day humans solve about 60 million CAPTHCAs. The human "computation" expended has an unintended benefit: it can be recycled to help digitize old printed texts that are unrecognizable using optical character recognizers. This talk, intended for a general audience, will explore the vanishing difference between humans and computer programs on current text CAPTCHAs and outline efforts to keep one step ahead of the intelligent Web-bots. We will also consider other efforts to recycle human computation.
6:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Math seminar-"Rigidity and Flexibility of Structures"

Thursday, December 4, 2008
A lecture by
Maria Belk
Mathematics program
Why are some structures rigid, but others fall down? We'll look at some simple structure and examine their rigidity. We'll start by considering bar frameworks - place the vertices of a graph in 2 or 3 dimensions, and think of the edges of the graph as bars, forced to maintain their length. After examining the rigidity of bar frameworks, we'll move to consider tensegrities. In a tensigrity framework, some of the edges are called struts and are allowed to increase in length while others are called cables and are allowed to decrease in length. These are tensegrities where the struts are suspended in the air by the cables, and yet the entire structure is rigid.
4:30 pm RKC 111

Fall 2008 Science, Mathematics & Computing Senior Project Poster Session

Monday, December 8, 2008
The Science, Mathematics & Computing Division presents...

Fall 2008
Senior Project Poster Session

Students presenting:
Priyanka Oberoi
Adviser: Felicia Keesing

"The Effect of Invasive Plant Species, Garlic Mustard Plant (Alliaria petiolata), on Entomopathogenic Fungi, Beauveria bassiana"

Faqir Usman
Adviser: Sam Hsiao

"Using Graphs to Model the Spread and Containment of Fire"
4:30 pm RKC lobby

Biology program Independent Research Poster Session

Monday, December 8, 2008
Biology program

Fall 2008
Independent Research
Poster Session
Students presenting:
Alex Carlin
Jyoti Dev
Margo Finn
Samuel Israel
Allison James
Anna Josephson-Day
Sarah Mount
Jessica Philpott
Wyatt Shell
Ilya Smirnoff
Rachel Steinhorn
Emma Taylor-Salmon
William Wylie

4:30 pm RKC lobby

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Attention all Biology students!!!A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors and fellow biology students.
Professors Felicia Keesing and Philip Johns will be hosting tonight.
7:00 pm RKC terrace

Math & Computer Science seminar - "From Fourier Analysis to Wavelets"

Thursday, February 5, 2009
A lecture by
Cliona Golden
Mathematics program
Math plays a key role in the workings of many electronic devices we use in day-to-day life: MP3 players, digital cameras, cellphones, .... In this talk, we will discuss two fundamental math tools, Fourier Analysis and Wavelets, for the representation and processing of signals and images.
4:15 pm RKC 111

So you really want to be a doctor? A talk for pre-med students

Saturday, February 7, 2009
Dr. Delma-Jean Watts
Bard Class of 1998
Delma-Jean received her M.D. from the Albany Medical College and was a resident, then a fellow in pediatrics at the Hasbro Children's Hospital, Providence, RI. She is a part-time faculty member at Brown University.
3:00 pm RKC 102

Science on the Edge lecture - The 2008 Nobel Prize Awards

Tuesday, February 10, 2009
The 2008 Nobel Prize Awards
Christian Bracher, Physics programLecturing on the Nobel Prize in Physics awarded jointly to Yoichiro Nambu for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics and to Makoto Kobayashi and Toshilde Maskawa for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature.
John Ferguson, Biology programLecturing on the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded to Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus.
Michael Tibbetts, Biology programLecturing on the Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Y. Tsien for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP.
6:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, February 10, 2009
A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors & fellow biology students!TuesdaysRKC POD 2227 p.m.

7:00 pm RKC pod 222

The Angle Defect and Its Generalizations

Thursday, February 12, 2009
Lecture by
Ethan Bloch
Mathematics Program
The angle defect, which goes back to Descartes, is a very simple way of measuring the curvature at the vertices of a polyhedral surface in Euclidean space. The angle defect is the polyhedral (and much simpler) analog of Gaussian curvature, as studied in differential geometry. Although the angle defect is the only plausible definition of curvature at the vertices of a polyhedral surface, it turns out that there is more than one possible way to generalize this definition to arbitrary finite 2-dimensional polyhedra, and to higher dimensional polyhedra. This talk will present a few different such generalizations, and will discuss a way to compare these different generalizations in dimension 2. The talk will be elementary, though a willingness to consider higher dimensional polyhedra is required.
4:15 pm RKC 111

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, February 17, 2009
A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors & fellow biology students!TuesdaysRKC POD 2227 p.m.

7:00 pm RKC pod 222

Dynamical Systems & Number Theory

Thursday, February 19, 2009
A lecture by
John Cullinan
Mathematics program
Dynamical systems have been studied in the context of population modeling, fractal geometry, and topology for much of the 20th century, but it is only recently that they have been studied for their number-theoretic applications. In fact, many open questions in number theory can be rephrased in terms of dynamical systems. This talk will be an introduction to the arithmetic of polynomial dynamics and we will also discuss our recent work on the ramification of iterated rational functions.

4:15 pm RKC 111

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, February 24, 2009
A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors & fellow biology students!TuesdaysRKC POD 2227 p.m.

7:00 pm RKC pod 222

Life stage transitions: Hormones make fish do crazy things too!

Thursday, February 26, 2009
A lecture by
Steven Gavlik
Siena College
Most vertebrates pass through two or more distinct life stages. Examples include hatching or birth (larval to juvenile transitions) and puberty (a juvenile to adult transition). Hormones of the endocrine system are primary controllers of the anatomical and physiological changes occurring during these life stage transitions. Fish undergo these transitions as free-living organisms, which allows for interactions between the hormonal control systems and the environment. This talk will present findings about the hormonal controls of two important fish life stage transitions – metamorphosis of Summer flounder and sex determination in American eel.
12:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Black-Scholes Insight: Hedging Investments to Create a Risk-free Portfolio

Thursday, February 26, 2009
A lecture by
Rebecca Ryan
MAT Program in Mathematics
Bard College
In 1973 Fischer Black and Myron Scholes settled a longstanding problem in economics: how to determine the fair value of a stock option. They realized that holding specific positions in stocks and in an option could render a portfolio instantaneously risk-free. Having eliminated the risk, solving for the value of an option became a feasible mathematical procedure. This revolutionary insight sparked the explosion of the now multi-trillion dollar derivatives market.

In this presentation, I will reconstruct the Black-Scholes portfolio from the ground up, assuming basic economic or mathematical knowledge from the audience. First, learn how investors use options, stocks, short positions, and long positions to speculate and to hedge. Then, explore how casinos hedge games to cover payouts. Finally, see how the Black-Scholes portfolio is analagous to a casino's hedging strategy.
4:15 pm RKC 111

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, March 3, 2009
A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors & fellow biology students!TuesdaysRKC POD 2227 p.m.

7:00 pm RKC pod 222

Hearing space: An exploration of vibrational prey localization

Thursday, March 5, 2009
A lecture by
Jason Schwarz
Laboratory of Sensory Neuroscience, Rockefeller University
The teleost fish Aplocheilus can locate and capture its insect prey on the surface of the water without any visual input. An array of mechanosensory organs on the crown of the fish's head, the neuromasts, detect water surface waves in a manner analogous to the detection of sounds by tetrapods. The fish compares the intensities and latencies of stimuli at various neuromasts to determine the direction of the wave source and analyzes the wave spectrum to determine how far the wave has propagated. In view of the robustness of the behavior and the accessibility of the nervous system, prey localization by Aplocheilus offers us an experimental system useful in the study of fast neural signal processing.
12:00 pm Laszlo Z. Bito Auditorium - RKC

Tricolorable Torus Knots are NP-Complete

Thursday, March 5, 2009
A lecture by
Peter Golbus, class of 2009
ASC Lab, Bard College
This work presents a method for associating a class of constraint satisfaction problems to a three-dimensional knot. Given a knot, one can build a knot quandle, which is generally an inﬁnite free algebra. The desired collection of problems is derived from the set of invariant relations over the knot quandle, applying theory that relates ﬁnite algebras to constraint satisfaction problems. This allows us to develop notions of tractable and NP-complete quandles and knots. In particular, we show that all tricolorable torus knots and all but at most 2 non-trivial knots with 10 or fewer crossings are NP-complete.

4:15 pm RKC 111

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, March 10, 2009
A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors & fellow biology students!TuesdaysRKC POD 2227 p.m.

7:00 pm RKC pod 222

Biodiversity Loss and the Rise of Emerging Infectious Diseases

Thursday, March 12, 2009
A lecture by
Richard S. Ostfeld
Senior Scientist, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies
The rate of species extinctions, both globally and from local communities, continues to accelerate. In recent years, ecologists have asked, to what degree will ecological communities lose their ability to provide “ecosystem services” as biodiversity is lost? This talk will describe how biodiversity loss affects the risk and incidence of zoonotic diseases (diseases transmitted from non-human vertebrates to humans). Zoonotic diseases, including avian influenza, Ebola, SARS, and plague, comprise the majority of so-called emerging infectious diseases. Most zoonotic pathogens can infect several wildlife host species. However, hosts differ strongly in their capacity to support population growth of the pathogen. Some hosts act as reservoirs that amplify pathogens, whereas others act as “dilution hosts” that can absorb but do not contribute pathogens. Therefore, the diversity and species composition of the host community is fundamentally important in determining pathogen transmission and disease dynamics. Reservoir hosts tend to be abundant, widespread species that are resilient to human-caused environmental degradation. In contrast, dilution hosts are often sensitive to environmental degradation, disappearing when biodiversity is lost. This presentation will describe three case studies of diseases – Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome, West Nile virus encephalitis, and Lyme disease – that are exacerbated when biodiversity is reduced. Explorations of the mechanisms that underlie the increase in disease risk with reduced biodiversity suggest that other zoonotic diseases will behave similarly. These case studies show that the current biodiversity crisis is likely to increase human exposure to many infectious diseases.
12:00 pm Laszlo Z. Bito Auditorium-RKC

Cartan's View of Einstein's Relativity

Friday, March 13, 2009
A lecture by
S. James Gates, Jr.
John S. Toll Professor of Mathematics
Director, Center for String and Particle Theory
University of Maryland
Gauge theories seem to describe all of the known forces in Nature...except gravity as it is normally viewed. However, using the Cartan approach to the geometry of curved manifolds, even gravitation is seen to be almost identical to other gauge theories. This talk will be accessible to math and physics majors.

12:00 pm Laszlo Z. Bito Auditiorium-RKC

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, March 17, 2009
A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors & fellow biology students!TuesdaysRKC POD 2227 p.m.

7:00 pm RKC pod 222

Thirty Days Hath September (or Diophantus, Music, and Shakespeare)

Wednesday, March 18, 2009
A lecture by
Jeff Suzuki
Brooklyn College

What do a musical scale, a calendar, and the U.S. flag have in common? They are all solutions to the problem of finding a set of whole numbers that match a particular property. The solutions rely on the use of Diophantine equations and continued fractions, which offer the best rational approximation to a given real number.

6:15 pm RKC 102

Stream Ecosystem Functioning in Urban Landscapes

Thursday, March 19, 2009
A lecture by
Cathy Gibson
Skidmore College
As integrators of the landscape, streams are heavily impacted by land-use change such as urbanization. Changes in ecosystem structure associated with urbanization are well known, but how ecosystem function changes as a result of these structural changes is not well understood. This talk will examine how urbanization affects nutrient cycling and whole system metabolism in both small headwater streams and large rivers. Maintenance of downstream water quality depends on the ability of stream to retain and process nutrients. This talk will examine what drives nutrient uptake in urban streams, how it differs from forested counterparts, and discuss implications for downstream water quality. In addition, we will look at the impact of hydrological modifications via dams affects these functions, as well.

12:00 pm Laszlo Z. Bito Auditorium-RKC

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, March 24, 2009
A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors & fellow biology students!TuesdaysRKC POD 2227 p.m.

7:00 pm RKC pod 222

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, March 31, 2009
A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors & fellow biology students!TuesdaysRKC POD 2227 p.m.

7:00 pm RKC pod 222

Newborn Screening: A Look Back and a Look Ahead

Thursday, April 2, 2009
A lecture by
Michele Caggana, Sc.D, FACMG
Director, New York State Department of Health, Newborn Screening ProgramNewborn screening began in New York State in 1965 with the addition of a single metabolic disorder called phenylketonuria (PKU). If you drink diet soda, you may see the bottle warning phenylketonurics not to drink these beverages. That's because prior to 1965, people who had PKU became mentally retarded and often were institutionalized because their disease was caught too late. With the advent of newborn screening, the Wadsworth Center, New York State's Public Health Laboratory could identify those affected babies at birth, before they suffered significant cognitive impairment by sampling a few drops of blood from a newborn's heel. By limiting intake of phenylalanine and protein in general, affected infants could live and function normally. Newborn screening has changed a lot over the years. The Program in New York is the largest, most comprehensive free program in the United States. We now screen for 45 disorders and use sophisticated equipment. This discussion will start in the early 60's, bring us to current activities in Albany, and we will glimpse into the future as well. In addition, factors that have impacted newborn screening in recent years will be discussed.
12:00 pm Laszlo Z. Bito Auditorium - RKC

Cycle-Structure Invariant for Finite, Connected Quandles

Thursday, April 2, 2009
A lecture by
Robert McGrail
Laboratory for Algebraic and Symbolic Computation
Bard College
The speaker introduces the notion of a quandle, an algebra that arises in knot theory and group theory, as well as the concept of connectedness in algebras. In particular, every finite, connected quandle has an unambiguous permutation cycle structure associated to it. This cycle-structure can be simply and efficiently computed from an operation table for the quandle, and so serves as a useful combinatorial invariant for the classification of finite, connected quandles. The speaker will introduce an improvement to the isofilter program of the Prover9/Mace4 automated deduction suite based upon this invariant. Moreover, he will discuss the implications of this work to the goal of completing a computational classification of the variety of finite quandles. This is joint work with Aleksandar Chakarov (Bard '10).

4:15 pm RKC 111

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, April 7, 2009
A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors & fellow biology students!TuesdaysRKC POD 2227 p.m.

7:00 pm RKC pod 222

Females & Fluoxetine: Sex differences in the effects of antidepressants on the brain and behavior

Thursday, April 9, 2009
A lecture by
Georgia E. Hodes
University of Pennsylvania
Women are twice as likely as men to suffer an episode of depression, but only between puberty and menopause. This suggests a relationship between reproductive hormones and depression in females. However, most theories on the etiology of depression are based on research done solely in males. This talk will focus on current research examining sex differences in the effects of antidepressants on neurogenesis and depression associated behaviors using a rodent model. Additionally, this talk will examine how reproductive hormones influence cognitive function and the response to stress across the lifespan. The understanding of how males and females differ may lead to better treatments for depression in both sexes.

12:00 pm Laszlo Z. Bito Auditorium - RKC

Gender Participation and Performance in Science and Mathematics: The Ordinary Origins and Unintended Consequences of Attitudes and Stereotypes

Thursday, April 9, 2009
A lecture by
Kristin Lane
Psychology program
Many mental activities occur automatically or unconsciously, including thoughts that are relevant to social perception, judgment, and action. This talk will present interactive illustrations of mental events that exist outside of conscious awareness or control; I will then show evidence that suggests that these ordinary processes can give rise to systematic social biases, which in turn can influence participation, interest, and performance in science and math domains. In particular, the talk will consider the gender disparity in science and mathematics in light of these findings from the mind sciences.

4:15 pm RKC 111

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, April 14, 2009
A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors & fellow biology students!TuesdaysRKC POD 2227 p.m.

7:00 pm RKC pod 222

Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives

Thursday, April 16, 2009
A lecture by
David Sloan Wilson
Director, EvoS program
Binghamton University
For complex reasons, evolutionary theory was restricted to the biological sciences and avoided for most human-related subjects for most of the 20th century. That is now rapidly changing. The 21st century will witness an integration for the study of humanity comparable to the integration of the biological sciences that took place during the 20th century (and continuing). I will review current trends and how they are embodied in EvoS, a campus-wide evolutionary studies program at Binghamton University that has received NSF funding to expand into a nationwide consortium.

12:00 pm Laszlo Z. Bito Auditorium-RKC

How Hard is Static Program Analysis?

Thursday, April 16, 2009
A lecture by
Harry Mairson
Brandeis University

Static program analysis is a form of predicting the future: it's what a compiler does to predict the behavior of your program, so that at run-time, the compiled version of your code runs faster or better.

Control flow analysis (CFA) is a canonical form of static program analysis performed by compilers, where the answers to questions like "can call site X ever call procedure P?" or "can procedure P ever be called with argument A?" are used to optimize procedure calls. In the interest of compile-time tractability, these questions are answered approximately, possibly including false positives. Much experimental work has been done on flow analysis. Here we describe, instead, some analytic characterizations of how hard CFA is.

Different versions of CFA are parameterized by their sensitivity to calling contexts. We show that the simplest version of CFA, called 0CFA, is complete for PTIME. In other words, it is as difficult to solve as any problem requiring polynomial time. A family of generalizations of 0CFA providing better analyses, called kCFA (k a positive integer), has never been implemented efficiently. We prove that this is necessary: the problem solved by kCFA is complete for EXPTIME---it is as difficult to solve as any problem requiring exponential time.

Each proof depends on fundamental insights about the linearity of programs, appealing to ideas from linear logic and the geometry of interaction---a linear logic semantics that is effectively an exact form of control-flow analysis.

This is joint work with David Van Horn (Brandeis University), presented at the 2008 ACM International Conference on Functional Programming.

4:15 pm RKC 111

Linear Stability of Simple Higher-Dimensional Dynamical System: The Role of Self-Adjointness and Non-Normality, with Examples from Ecology and Climate

Monday, April 20, 2009
A lecture by
Gidon Eshel
Physics program
I will first review the concept of stability in the context of variance maintenance by dynamical systems, starting in 1-D and working our way to N-D. I will provide numerous examples, both analytic (i.e., with no physical relevance) and from physically realizable system such as the jet stream or Spotted Owl survival in response to conservation efforts. I will discuss two methods of obtaining dynamical system's governing linear operator: (1) using analytic linearization of non-linear operators (with the examples of mid-latitude perturbations on the jet, and the Lotka-Volterra equations of population dynamics; and (2) data-based (empirical) derivation using covariance of strobed states. I will then introduce normality (self-adjointness), discuss time-scales, and emphasize the distinction between asymptotic and transient stability. I will conclude with the complete solution of the stability problem, a solution comprising both eigen analysis (and thus asymptotic stability) and Singular value Decomposition of finite time propagators (addressing transient stability).

4:30 pm RKC 111

Science on the Edge "The Orbiting Carbon Observatory: Assessing carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere"

Tuesday, April 21, 2009
A lecture by
Catherine O'Reilly
Biology program
and
Simeen Sattar
Chemistry program
In February, NASA launched a rocket on a mission to deploy a new satellite. The rocket malfunctioned, sending the satellite, in development for the past 9 years and part of $273 million dollar system, into the ocean. The rocket was carrying the NASA's new Orbiting Carbon Observatory, a satellite intended to assess carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. The information from this satellite would have helped researchers understand the distribution of this greenhouse gas, providing data to improve climate models and insights into the 'missing carbon sink'.

6:00 pm RKC 111

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, April 21, 2009
A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors & fellow biology students!TuesdaysRKC POD 2227 p.m.

7:00 pm RKC pod 222

Forensic DNA Analysis: The Real CSI NY

Thursday, April 23, 2009
A lecture by
Kathy Corrado
Director, Onondaga County Crime Lab
Forensic DNA analysis is used extensively in criminal investigations to either associate or exonerate individuals from leaving their DNA at crime scenes. The Director of the Onondaga County Crime Lab in Syracuse NY will provide insight into the real life workings of a forensic DNA lab including the types of evidence typically encountered, current technologies being utilized in the field, the significance of DNA matches, and examples of interesting cases. The benefits and concerns of the use and expansion of forensic DNA databases will also be discussed.

12:00 pm Laszlo Z. Bito Auditorium-RKC

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, April 28, 2009
A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors & fellow biology students!TuesdaysRKC POD 2227 p.m.

7:00 pm RKC pod 222

A Glimpse of Symplectic Geometry, via lots of pictures

Thursday, April 30, 2009
A lecture by
Megumi Harada
McMaster UniversityThe motivation for symplectic geometry comes from classical physics, but the modern theory is related to many other areas of mathematics (not just physics) such as combinatorics, representation theory, topology, algebraic geometry, and many others. I will give a "mosaic" glimpse of this exciting field of research by briefly discussing the following inter-related topics, all of which appear (in one way or another) in my current work: 1) From classical physics to symplectic geometry: the magic of Hamiltonians;2) Horn's problem: how linear algebra and symplectic geometry yield polytopes and combinatorics;3) Getting topology out of a function: a bit of Morse theory;and finally, time permitting, I will say a few words about how the themes (1)--(3) come together in my current work on the study of the topology of hyperKahler Hamiltonian quotients.

4:15 pm RKC 111

Mathematics Senior Project Presentations

Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Mona Merling
4:15 p.m.

Ezra Winston
4:40 p.m.

Dexin Zhou
5:05 p.m.
4:15 pm RKC 111

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, May 5, 2009
A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors & fellow biology students!TuesdaysRKC POD 2227 p.m.

7:00 pm RKC pod 222

Biology Student lectures

Thursday, May 7, 2009
Young Eun Choi
"Developing a reversible and cell-specific system for inhibiting
protein synthesis in C. elegans"

Trillian Gregg
"Development of a Novel Method of Macromolecule Delivery into Cells"
12:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Mathematics Senior Project Presentations

Thursday, May 7, 2009
Nicholas Michaud
4:15 p.m.

Sylvia Naples
4:40 p.m.

Tomasz Przytycki
5:05 p.m.

Zhechao Zhou
5:30 p.m.
4:15 pm RKC 111

Mathematics Senior Project Presentations

Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Serena Randolph
4:15 p.m.

Tina Zhang
4:40 p.m.

Scott McMillen
5:05 p.m.
4:15 pm RKC 111

Senior Project Poster Session

Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Join us in celebrating our graduating seniors as they present posters outlining their work.
6:00 pm RKC lobby

Psychology Senior Project Poster Session

Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Join us in celebrating our graduating seniors as they present posters outlining their work.
6:00 pm RKC lobby

Independent Research Poster Session

Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Students presenting:

Algebraic & Symbolic Computation Laboratory
Adviser: Robert McGrail
Jacqueline Bow
Aleksandar Chakarov
Bella Manoim
Georgi Smilyanov
Adina-Raluca Stoica
Petar Stojanov

Biology Independent Research Students
Advisers: Ken Howard, Philip Johns & Michael Tibbetts
Elena Dragomir
Rosa Levin
Jessica Philpott
Jega Jananie Ravi
Hannagh Shapero
Ilya Smirnoff
Rachel Steinhorn

Math Independent Research Students
Advisers: James Belk, Maria Belk & Lauren Rose
Julia Bennett
Adam Chodoff
Liz Jimenez-Martinez

Tropical Ecology class
Adviser: Catherine O'Reilly
Erik Badger
Tessa Dowling
Genevieve Howell
Allison James
Hannah Liddy
Chantal Ludder
Elizabeth Lund
Sarah Mount
Loralee Ryan
Wyatt Shell
Marta Shocket

6:00 pm RKC lobby

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, May 12, 2009
A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors & fellow biology students!TuesdaysRKC POD 2227 p.m.

7:00 pm RKC pod 222

Why study single events in biology? Studies on the assembly of HIV, how cells secrete and the metastatis of tumor cells

Thursday, May 14, 2009
A lecture by
Sandy Simon
Laboratory of Cellular Biophysics
Rockefeller University
Most studies in biology focus on the "averaged" behavior. Either the average behavior of a molecule (which we study by its biochemical activity), the average behavior of a cell (which we study by its physiology) or the average behavior of an individual (which we study by population dynamics). However, important lessons can be learned from studying single events. Examples will be given from our work on a number of projects ranging from studying single HIV viruses as they assemble, single vesicles as they are release by a cell to signal or internalized into a cell, single cells as they die and single tumor cells as they metastasize through the body.

12:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Summer Research presentations

Friday, July 31, 2009
Fish Connectivity
Preston Kemeny

Eels and Crayfish:
Conclusions Through Shocking Field Investigations
Aidan Mabey

Why Orceine Rocks: Mitotic Staining Protocols
Ian Hetterich

Refreshments will be served
2:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Preparing for the Health Professions at Bard

Monday, August 24, 2009
A seminar by
John B. Ferguson
Health Professions Advisor

4:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center, Room 101

Science, Mathematics & Computing Division Ice Cream Social

Wednesday, August 26, 2009
"Ice cream is happiness condensed"
-Jessi Lane Adams

Come to the Science, Mathematics & Computing Division
ICE CREAM SOCIAL

Stop by to ask questions about courses being offered or find out more about majoring in the programs. Faculty members from each program will be there to answer questions.
4:00 pm RKC lobby

Biology Major Information Session

Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Learn about upcoming Biology courses and research opportunities!

Biology faculty members will be available to answer questions
4:30 pm RKC 101

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, September 8, 2009
ATTENTION ALL BIOLOGY STUDENTS!!!

pizza on the pod

A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors and fellow biology students

tuesdays
RKC pod
7 p.m.
7:00 pm RKC pods

What's that microbe sticking to your lobster? Adventures in the Jude Lab

Thursday, September 10, 2009
a seminar by
Brooke A. Jude
Biology program
12:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Biology Writing Fellows

Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Drop-in hours for help with any biology course writing

Hannah Liddy
Tuesdays
8-9 p.m.

Sam Israel
Wednesdays
6-7 p.m.
RKC pods

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, September 15, 2009
ATTENTION ALL BIOLOGY STUDENTS!!!

pizza on the pod

A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors and fellow biology students

tuesdays
RKC pod
7 p.m.
7:00 pm RKC pods

Hormonal mechanisms of developmental plasticity in amphibians: A story of stress, food, and fat

Thursday, September 17, 2009
A seminar by
Erica Crespi
Vassar College
12:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, September 22, 2009
ATTENTION ALL BIOLOGY STUDENTS!!!

pizza on the pod

A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors and fellow biology students

tuesdays
RKC pod
7 p.m.
7:00 pm RKC pods

Changing Channels: How modifications for navigation have affected the Hudson River

Thursday, September 24, 2009
A seminar by
Dan Miller
Restoration Ecologist
NYSDEC, Hudson River Estuary program
12:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, September 29, 2009
ATTENTION ALL BIOLOGY STUDENTS!!!

pizza on the pod

A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors and fellow biology students

tuesdays
RKC pod
7 p.m.
7:00 pm RKC pods

CD8 T cell Memory: Fighting and Remembering our Enemies

Thursday, October 1, 2009
A seminar by
Joshua Obar
University of Connecticut Health Center
12:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Bard Summer Research Institute Poster Session

Thursday, October 1, 2009

7:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, October 6, 2009
ATTENTION ALL BIOLOGY STUDENTS!!!

pizza on the pod

A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors and fellow biology students

tuesdays
RKC pod
7 p.m.
7:00 pm RKC pods

A Hitchhiker's Guide to Phoresis: Using transmission dynamics to unravel host-parasite coevolution

Thursday, October 8, 2009
A seminar by
Chris Harbison
Siena College
12:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, October 13, 2009
ATTENTION ALL BIOLOGY STUDENTS!!!

pizza on the pod

A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors and fellow biology students

tuesdays
RKC pod
7 p.m.
7:00 pm RKC pods

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, October 20, 2009
ATTENTION ALL BIOLOGY STUDENTS!!!

pizza on the pod

A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors and fellow biology students

tuesdays
RKC pod
7 p.m.
7:00 pm RKC pods

Ecological drivers of the fluctuations in small mammal populations

Thursday, October 22, 2009
A seminar by
Andrea Previtali
Cary Institute of Ecosystems Studies
12:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, October 27, 2009
ATTENTION ALL BIOLOGY STUDENTS!!!

pizza on the pod

A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors and fellow biology students

tuesdays
RKC pod
7 p.m.
7:00 pm RKC pods

Spatio-temporal drivers of the West Nile virus in avian hosts

Thursday, October 29, 2009
A seminar by
Shannon LaDeau
Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies
12:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Chemistry search candidate lecture

Thursday, October 29, 2009
Creating Devices and Performing Analyses at the Micro-Scale
A lecture by
Christopher LaFratta
Candidate for the position in Chemistry
6:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, November 3, 2009
ATTENTION ALL BIOLOGY STUDENTS!!!

pizza on the pod

A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors and fellow biology students

tuesdays
RKC pod
7 p.m.
7:00 pm RKC pods

Sense and Sense Ability: D-Pax2 function during the development of sensory systems in Drosophila melanogaster

Thursday, November 5, 2009
A seminar by
Joshua Kavaler
Colby College
12:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Chemistry search candidate lecture

Friday, November 6, 2009
Watching Rust Dissolve:
Ultrafast X-Ray Absorption Measurements of the Reductive Dissolution of Iron Oxide Nanoparticles

A lecture by
Jordan Katz
Candidate for the position in Chemistry
The reduction of Fe(III) is one of the most important chemical changes that takes place in the development of anaerobic soils and sediments, and the reductive dissolution of iron-bearing minerals by microbes plays a critical role in this process. Despite its importance in biogeochemistry, many questions remain about the mechanism of this electron transfer reaction, in part because the speed of the fundamental chemical steps renders them inaccessible to conventional study. Ultrafast time-resolved x-ray spectroscopy is a technique that can overcome this limitation and measure changes in oxidation state and structure occurring during chemical reactions that can be initiated by a fast laser pulse. We use this approach with ~100 ps resolution to monitor the speciation of Fe atoms in maghemite nanoparticles following photo-induced electron transfer from a surface-bound photoactive dye molecule.

4:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, November 10, 2009
ATTENTION ALL BIOLOGY STUDENTS!!!

pizza on the pod

A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors and fellow biology students

tuesdays
RKC pod
7 p.m.
7:00 pm RKC pods

How enteroviruses evade the innate immune response

Thursday, November 12, 2009
A seminar by
Juliet Morrison
Mount Sinai School of Medicine
12:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Tropical Ecology Information Session

Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Biology course for the spring semester
Tropical Ecology
Professor Catherine O'ReillyTropical ecosystems are among the most biodiverse, most threatened, and the least studied in the world. This upper level course will examine both practical and theoretical aspects that are unique to tropical ecosystems, including the role of geology, biogeochemical cycling, evolutionary processes and species interactions. In addition, we will discuss issues related to conservation, such as habitat fragmentation and climate change. This course will include lectures, student presentations, and research projects. Students will design, conduct, synthesize, and present a field research project. The class will take a field trip to La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica over spring break to conduct research projects. The trip will incur additional course costs ($). The information session will describe the nature of the course and provide details regarding the field trip.Prerequisites: Moderation, Bio 202 Ecology and Evolution, Permission of the instructor.Application forms are required. Submission date is Friday, December 4th, to Megan Karcher (karcher@bard.edu). All Applicants will be informed by December 9th. Forms are posted outside Catherine O’Reilly’s office, RKC 213.

6:00 pm RKC 111

Pizza on the Pod

Tuesday, November 17, 2009
ATTENTION ALL BIOLOGY STUDENTS!!!

pizza on the pod

A chance to do homework, get help with your classes, eat pizza and socialize with your professors and fellow biology students

tuesdays
RKC pod
7 p.m.
7:00 pm RKC pods

Pre-Health Professions 101: How to Prepare

Tuesday, November 17, 2009
A talk by
Professor John Ferguson
Health Professions Adviser
Professor Ferguson will introduce the pathways leading to post-baccalaureate degrees in the health professions, including allopathic medicine, osteopathic medicine, veterinary medicine, dentistry, optometry, etc. etc. The discussion will be tailored to the interests of the audience. If you are interested in a health profession, but have not attended a similar previous discussion, you should attend this one.
7:00 pm RKC 102

Biology Student Talks

Thursday, November 19, 2009
Sarah Mount
"A native species, the American eel (Anguilla rostrata), as a biological control for an invasive crayfish (Orconectes rusticus)
in tributaries to the Hudson River, NY"

Mia Strauss
"Development of courtship behaviors in sac-winged bat pups at
La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica"
12:00 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium

Chemistry search candidate lecture

Friday, November 20, 2009
Molecular Shapes and Molecular Interactions:
Insights from Infrared Spectroscopy

A lecture by
Timothy Vaden
Candidate for the position in Chemistry
3:30 pm Reem-Kayden Center László Z. Bitó '60 Auditorium