Bard's Biology Program has a long tradition of original research by its students. Each student's educational experience at Bard culminates in a senior project, in which the student conducts an independent research project of his or her own design.

Graduates of the biology program are extremely successful. About 80% are involved in science or math as graduate or professional students, health professionals, teachers, writers, or researchers. Bard students who apply to medical school have had a 78% placement rate (the national average is 50%). Their scores on the MCAT are equally impressive—a recent report shows that average scores for Bard students are in the 96th percentile or above, and Bard is ranked as one of the top 25 schools in the country for the Verbal Reasoning part of the MCAT.

Here are descriptions of a few recent Bard biology graduates:

Nsikan Akpan '06
Nsikan transferred to Bard from Simon's Rock College of Bard after his sophomore year. In the summer of 2005, he did research on neuroendocrinology with Bruce S. McEwen of Rockefeller University. For his senior project, he did research on NMDA receptors in zebrafish. He is currently a research assistant in the Department of Pathology at Tufts Medical School studying Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas disease. He plans to attend graduate school for neurology or neuropathology to develop treatments for neurodegenerative diseases.

Parris Humphrey '06
Parris also transferred to Bard. In his junior year, he traveled to Kenya with Dr. Felicia Keesing to study why the sandflies that transmit leishmaniasis, a tropical disease, are more abundant in areas without large herbivores like giraffes, zebras, and elephants. For his senior project, he figured out that deer can disinfect blacklegged ticks of the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. He is currently a research assistant studying the molecular ecology of disease at the U. of Pennsylvania, working with Professor Dusty Brisson.

Ryan Schwarz '05
Ryan was involved with the ISROP program in his first year and did research in neuroscience on campus in his sophomore year. In the summer after his junior year, he participated in Rockefeller University's SURF program. Ryan also co-directed the Ghana Project, in which students explored issues facing developing nations and went to a fishing village in Ghana to build school facilities. During January intercession of Ryan's junior year, he worked at the Bairo-Pite medical Clinic in Dili, East Timor, where he helped tuberculosis patients in the ward and ran the wound care facility. During this experience, he became interested in public health as a career and cemented his plan to enter medical school. Since graduating, Ryan has worked with a medical team devoted to healthcare for the homeless in Pittsburgh and is currently working for The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative in New York City. He plans to enter medical school in 2006.

Lindsay O'Reilly '05
Lindsay became hooked on scientific research during a research trip to Kenya with Dr. Felicia Keesing. On that trip, she investigated the effects of savanna fires on bird diversity and abundance, a project that was recently published in the Journal of African Ecology. After spending a semester in New Zealand in her junior year and doing numerous research projects during her summers, Lindsay developed a senior project asking why nitrogen cycling rates differed between soils from different forest types. She is currently preparing her results for publication while enrolled as a graduate student in ecology at the University of New Hampshire.

Michal Marszal '05
Michal came to Bard from Poland on the Distinguished Scientist Scholarship with an intense interest in biomedical research. Over his four years at Bard, he became interested in clinical aspects of medicine. His senior project examined the role of a brain protein that has been implicated in schizophrenia, learning, and memory. Michal showed that an important developmental model system, zebrafish, is also a good model for examining the role of this brain protein in neuronal cell survival. Michal is currently a medical student at McGill University in Montreal.

Tapan Maniar '05
Tapan spent the summer after his junior year doing research at Rockefeller University as a participant in their SURF program. When he returned to Bard, he spent his senior investigating the role in development of a brain protein common to all vertebrates. For this investigation, Tapan used the new zebrafish facility on campus to genetically manipulate this important model species. Tapan is now a graduate student in The Rockefeller University Ph.D. Program.

Supriya Munshaw '05
For her senior project, Supriya examined the completely-sequenced genome of the honey bee. Honey bees have a remarkable ability to recognize distinct smells. Since this could be explained by an abundance of pheromone binding proteins and receptors, Supriya examined the genome of this species computationally to see if such a family of related yet highly variable sequences could be found. Using computer programs developed at Bard, she found a set of highly variable, small open reading frame regions with exactly the predicted gene pattern. This research project has shed light on both the genomic structure and the olfactory system of honey bees and has recently been published in the Journal of Apicultural Research. Supriya is now in the Ph.D. program in bioinformatics at Duke University.

Karin Kram '05
Karin characterized the substrate specificity of the protein product of a gene, Rv1373, in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis, and its possible role in pathogenesis. She had become interested in bacterial pathogenesis and wanted to tackle a significant disease, if possible. Karin found a paper suggesting a rather controversial idea that some of the genes in Mycobacterium were of eukaryotic origin, and she chose one of these genes, Rv1373, to pursue. Her work in the laboratory suggested that the protein product of this gene did indeed have activity with compounds found only in animals, consistent with the hypothesis that Mycobacterium may use this activity to modulate the physiology of its animal host in its favor. Karin is now a graduate student in microbiology at Columbia University.

Meagan Leatherbury '03
During her sophomore year, Meagan became interested in the biological effects of persistent organic pollutants after hearing a talk by Dr. Lou Guillette in the Distinguished Scientist Lecture Series. She spent the summer after her sophomore year as an REU student at a marine research center studying the effects of a common pesticide on algae. Her senior project expanded on this research to investigate the combined effects on algae of both pesticides and nutrient enrichment. Meagan completed a major in dance as well as biology. After graduation, she worked for two years in Washington, DC at the National Center for Homelessness and Poverty and is now in Bolivia as a member of the Peace Corps.

Pam Roy '03
Pam came to Bard as an art major but became hooked on science after participating in the ISROP program during her first year. She ended up majoring in both biology and studio art. Her biology senior project was an investigation of the ecology of sandflies, insects which transmit the disease leishmaniasis. Based on this work, Pam coauthored a paper on the ecology of sandflies in upstate New York that was recently published in the Journal of Medical Entomology. After graduation, Pam taught in an inner-city elementary school in Philadelphia for two years. She is now a graduate student in disease ecology at Michigan State University.