Department of Biology – Fordham Now https://now.fordham.edu The official news site for Fordham University. Thu, 06 Jun 2024 20:44:25 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://now.fordham.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/favicon.png Department of Biology – Fordham Now https://now.fordham.edu 32 32 232360065 WIBW TV: A Turtle-Loving Conservationist, Fordham Grad is Topeka Zoo’s New CEO https://now.fordham.edu/in-the-media/wibw-tv-a-turtle-loving-conservationist-fordham-grad-is-topeka-zoos-new-ceo/ Thu, 06 Jun 2024 20:44:22 +0000 https://now.fordham.edu/?p=191534 In this segment, Christina Castellano, Ph.D., says she has a passion for wildlife and the environment and wanted “to marry business and conservation and community service.” She earned a master’s degree and a doctorate in biological sciences from Fordham.

“To be part of the process to really rebuild populations and to speak about these incredible animals has been really a wonderful part of what I’ve been doing,” she says.

“As you move through the zoo community, and you learn different ways in different positions, on how you can contribute, how you can connect people, how you can elevate people. I was looking for a greater opportunity to be better able to do that,” she says. 

“My vision is very much what the Zoo is putting forward to continue our over 90 years of community service, to be a leader in wildlife conservation and to find opportunities to continually make that connection between our community with that mission to make this planet a better place for all of us, wildlife and people.”

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Fordham Professors Reflect on Fluid Nature of Gender https://now.fordham.edu/politics-and-society/fordham-professors-reflect-on-fluid-nature-of-gender/ Wed, 06 Apr 2022 14:52:39 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=159136 Just 26 years ago, President Bill Clinton signed the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act into law. Today, gay marriage is legal in all 50 states, and the idea that gender is more than a simple binary is gaining acceptance around the country. Efforts to lift up and support people who identify as non-binary are very much ongoing though, and so over the last few months, Fordham News spoke to members of the community who have had insights to share on the topic of gender, either because of their work, their personal experience or both.

Full transcript below

J.D. Lewis: The eureka moment was in an English class. We were talking about The Merchant of Venice and we were talking about Portia, and the teacher said, “So you have to consider Portia as being a girl in a boy’s body, acting like a boy.” I was like, oh, that’s me. And so that was essentially the point at which I realized this is what my gender is.

Patrick Verel: When President Obama’s Department of Education issued guidance in 2016, that schools should allow students to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity, it was hailed as groundbreaking by supporters of transgender rights. But when Donald Trump took office in 2017, it only took a month for his administration to reverse course. Fast forward to 2021. Joe Biden reinstituted the guidance, and efforts to lift up and support people who identify as non-binary continue. In June of that year, for instance, the state of New York began offering the option of an X gender to anyone who did not identify as male or female. The federal government followed suit in September, allowing people to choose it on their passports. For those of us who are old enough to remember when President Bill Clinton signed the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, it’s fascinating how much things have changed. Over the last few months, I’ve talked to Fordham folks who have had insights to share in the topic of gender, either because of their work, their personal experience, or both. I’m Patrick Verel, and this is Fordham News.

When I first met J.D. Lewis, a professor of biology at the Calder Center in 2011, they had presented as male. At an event in 2019, Lewis presented as female. We recently sat down to talk about that journey.

Now, you told me that you realized something was different about you when you were four years old, right?

J.D. Lewis
J.D. Lewis

JL: Yes, that’s correct. And so two big events both occurred at the same time. I discovered my profession and I discovered my gender in one day. And it happened when my mom’s older sister was visiting us. And she is a professor, and so she was my motivation to become a professor. And at the same time, I realized, oh, I’m a girl. And at the time, I didn’t think much of it. I’m four years old, and I just figured this is something that happens to everyone. And as I got a little bit older, I start to realize that I didn’t just feel like a girl, but that I kind of fit somewhere in between. And again still assumed this is how everyone felt. And by the time I was starting middle school, I realized, oh, this is pretty unique. And I have to admit that, at the time, because I identified more as a girl, I was hoping that puberty would give me a different body than I have right now and that I would end up having a girl body to go along with my sense of being a girl gender.

And again, at the same time, we didn’t have the language to be able to explain that, and so it was really difficult for me to be able to convey to other people what I viewed as my gender. And it was difficult for other people to tell me what they viewed as. And so, kind of the Eureka moment was in an English class, we were talking about The Merchant of Venice and we were talking about Portia, and the teacher said, “So you have to consider Portia as being a girl in a boy’s body, acting like a boy.” I was like, oh, that’s me. And so that was essentially the point at which I realized, this is what my gender is. Yeah.

PV: So at the same time that you figured out what you wanted to do with your life, you figured out who you were as well. That’s a lot for being four.

JL: It was. And of course, just like my gender, my ideas of what I wanted to be professionally shifted over time. But ultimately, obviously, I ended up becoming a professor, and in fact, that was partly because of my gender identity. I wanted to pick a field where I would be able to be comfortable with the way I dressed, so I knew I couldn’t work in the business world, because I am not comfortable in a suit and tie. And I wanted to be able to work in a field that was less gender-biased, for lack of a better way of putting it, than most of the STEM disciplines. And botany, at the time, was a field that was more open and welcoming to people who were not male. And so that’s how I ended up, partly, as a botanist and how I ended up as a professor.

PV: Really. So that influenced your choice even within the sciences.

JL: Yes, very much so. And then one other part about that is I was really interested in plant reproductive biology because plants can be whatever they want. You can have male flowers, you can have female flowers. You can have plants that produce male flowers some years and plants that produce female flowers some years. You can have flowers that are both male and female. You can have flowers that are male and have other flowers that are male and female on the same plant. You can have plants that have female flowers and male flowers at the same time. I’m like, this is perfect. This is me.

PV: Wow. Okay. That’s amazing. So that’s, what an interesting… and obviously you’ve stuck with it. It’s worked well for you.

JL: It has.

PV: Yeah. What changed for you between 2011 and 2019?

JL: Good question. And I think two things really were what made me change, how I approached this. And one was we had a better sense of what terminology we could use to describe our experiences. And so the idea of gender fluidity, for example, that term became much more commonly used. People started to understand what it meant. And so people could start to use it to identify how they felt because other people would understand what it meant. So I think that was part of it. And another part of it was working with students who were concerned about representation. And I had a meeting with one of my grad students who was lamenting the lack of representation of certain groups. And I realized that I needed to do a better job of representing, that it wasn’t just enough for me to be supportive and to be effectively an ally. That because this is my experience, I needed to be my full self.

PV: Yeah. When was that?

JL: It was about six years ago now, around 2015.

PV: And how do you identify today?

JL: So as a biologist, I view gender from a non-binary standpoint. And obviously, I’m gender fluid, and so I fit within that category as well. But because when I was young, I didn’t identify with a specific gender, now I typically use the term either genderqueer or agender to identify myself.

PV: So I think there’s this assumption that if you feel, as you do, that you aren’t the gender that you are assigned at birth, that you would naturally gravitate towards transitioning, either with things like hormones or with surgery. You’re not interested in that, right?

JL: So I think for a lot of people who are trans in whatever way that they’re trans, transitioning is clearly a critical part of being who they are, right, being their full self. And gender affirmation surgery, clearly, is really important, and hormone therapy can be really important. I think for me because I don’t identify with a specific gender, it makes it difficult for me to decide what I would transition to. And because for me, the fluidity is, okay, so I’m feeling more like a girl today, or I’m feeling more like a boy today, that also makes it pretty difficult to decide what to transition to.

And then another aspect of it is that I’m already fairly androgynous in terms of my build, and so my face is fairly masculine and obviously my voice is fairly masculine. But if you look at the proportions and I’m trying to buy clothes, then women’s clothes actually fit me better than men’s clothes do. And so even before I was open and out, I mostly wore women’s running gear, for example, because women’s running gear just flat out fit me better.

PV: What’s it been like since you decided to be more open about your gender?

JL: So there’s been a lot of support, which has been really nice, and I feel for the most part very welcome. One of the interesting things for me was that, when I was younger, I would be teased a lot. And people assumed that my gender isn’t what was different, that it was my sexuality. And so I was called a fairy a lot when I was very young, and I was called a different F-word when I was older. And that was basically on a daily basis that I would get this. It was whenever I was out and people didn’t know me, I would get the F-word, and it’s like, oh, you think you’re so original. And what’s been interesting, since I started dressing more like how I feel about my gender, is most of those kinds of comments have stopped. I still get death threats, and riding on public transportation can be kind of challenging because you always get someone who’s looking at you like, you don’t fit in.

But for the most part, people have been really supportive, so it’s been really nice. And again, for me emotionally, it’s been much better. So I feel like I am being able to be my full self now, and I’m able to go about my day without worrying about how I look. And to be blunt, before I started dressing the way I dress now, every time I was out, I felt like, I look crazy. I look ridiculous. This is not who I am. Now I feel like whenever I go out, I’m like, I like how I look. I like that people see me this way. And so that’s been a big change as well.

PV: I’m sorry. I have to follow up on this. Death threats?

JL: Yeah. I get people riding on the train who, as they’re walking past, say things like, you’re an abomination, you should be killed, or you’re a Satan worshiper or whatever, right? And it’s kind of like with the F-word, it’s like, oh, you think you’re so original. So. And I actually have had people physically accost me. And so it goes beyond just words, but actually, physically accost me.

PV: And what about here at Fordham?

JL: So for the most part, people have been really supportive. It’s been really nice. It’s been a journey. And I say that because I realize for everyone around me, it’s been a journey as well, right? And so my transition, I try to do over a fairly… and when we’re talking about transition, of course, it’s not from a medical standpoint. It’s more as how I present or how I dress, it’s my hair length, it’s things like wearing makeup. And I realize that for a lot of people at Fordham who have known me for a long time, it is different. And so I realize that it’s been quite a journey for other people as well. And so I feel that my being able to be my full self is a testament to the fact that most of the people of Fordham are nurturing and encouraging about it and are supportive about it.

PV: Yeah. Yeah. That’s great to hear. That’s great to hear. I mean, it’s so disturbing to hear about these kinds of things. You talk about the public transit. There’s this idea that we hold ourselves to, in New York City, that we’re so enlightened, but you know that that’s not the case at all, in many settings with many people. So it’s disturbing to hear that, and I’m sorry to hear that. That can’t be easy, but at the same time, I can’t say I’m all that surprised.

JL: Yeah. And thank you. It is easier in New York, I feel, because New York is very much a you do your thing, I’ll do my thing kind of place, which I think is good in this kind of situation.

PV: That covers all the questions that I have formally written down.

JL: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

PV: There is one more though.

JL: Oh yeah, okay.

PV: That I’ve been thinking about, and that is to say your family. Is that something that you feel like you could talk about?

JL: Yeah. I’m willing to talk about that. My ex-wife and I are you get along… well, we co-parent our children pretty effectively. Our kids joke about us being essentially co-workers as parents because we both work together on it. And she’s asked how do I identify, because of course she sees me like this, just like everyone else does. And same answer, right. It’s just kind of like, I don’t really identify with a specific gender. And with my kids, a couple of my kids are queer, and they’re very comfortable with their queerness. And so I, in some ways I feel like that, again, it’s this idea of representation, that for me to be my full self is good for them, because it lets them know that there are people even in our family that are supportive.

PV: Talking with Professor Lewis gave me a great local perspective on the subject. So, for my next interview, I decided to expand beyond our borders. Sameena Azhar, an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Social Service works with Khawaja sira, a group of third gender people who have lived in communities in Pakistan since the 16th century. Did I say that right?

Sameena Azhar
Sameena Azhar

Sameena Azhar: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

PV: I did. Khawaja sira.

SA: Khawaja sira.

PV: Just rolls right off your tongue. Yeah.

SA: Yeah, yeah. And the accent is for the a, on the A at the end, so Khawaja sira.

PV: Sira. Oh, okay.

SA: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.

PV: So now, in my intro, I noted that in the United States, you can now pick a third gender on official documents. That’s old news in South Asia though. Why?

SA: Well, it’s not super old. In 2014, the Supreme Court of India allowed for the creation of a third gender. So rather than registering as an M or a male, or a F as a female, you can register as an E. So this third gender option. And similar policies have also been passed in Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, not in Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, but the rest of those South Asian countries passed similar policies. Additionally, in India, Hijra are considered a scheduled caste.

So the scheduling of castes and tribes in India is a process that dates back to colonialism, and there were certain groups of people or communities that were considered to be scheduled as caste or tribes. And these individuals in modern India get a sort of affirmative action-style status by the government. So there are social entitlements that are available to them that are akin to welfare or food stamps, allotted seats in the representative government at the local level, so they’re called panchayats, so they’re reserved seats for people that are from these communities. So they’re pretty progressive actions to try to include these folks who are fully socially within South Asian society. And it’s a community that has been really gripped by both a long history of being honored and exalted, and also a long history of being marginalized.

PV: Now, I just spent a lot of time talking about the Khawaja sira and getting that correct, but you just referenced another group in India.

SA: Yeah. So, I mean, we’re basically talking about more or less the similar identities of third gender and gender-nonconforming identities. In India, the nomenclature is most commonly called Hijra.

PV: Hijra.

SA: Right. There’s other names for it in India as well, like Kinnar, Khusra, Aravani. There’s many names for this. In Pakistan, the name is Khawaja siras.

PV: What does colonialism have to do with all of this?

SA: So prior to British colonization, under mogul or Raj, but control, there was much more state-sanctioned support for these communities. So folks who were hijra or Khawaja sira would often work as courtesans or advisors or handmaidens in the royal court. And with the coming of colonization, the identity of being a hijra became criminalized. So in 1871, the Criminal Tribes Act made hijra criminals. And then additionally, Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which is borrowed from the British penal code, criminalizes what is called carnal intercourse against the order of nature. Right? So this essentially is interpreted to be homosexuality or more specifically sodomy.

PV: When you talk about these folks that embrace this way of being, are we talking about people who would typically be identified as male embracing femininity or vice versa?

SA: No, typically it is folks who’ve been assigned male sex at birth and identify as either women, or as men and women, or as a third gender person. It’s much less typical, I mean, pretty much, for the most part, doesn’t exist, to have somebody who was assigned female sex at birth, who may identify as a man and be called a hijra. So it is quite specific to what we would call in the West, trans women. But the third gender classification of E does encompass anyone, regardless of whatever sex was assigned at birth, to identify as E.

PV: And how does this all relate to what you do here at Fordham?

SA: So my research really began in south India. My family is from a city called Hyderabad. It’s where I did my dissertation research, so mainly looking at issues related to HIV and gender non-conformity stigma of people who are living with HIV, are HIV positive. And my work in Pakistan has been somewhat of an extension of that. I’m not focusing there on folks who are HIV positive. There’s also a much, much lower prevalence of HIV in that part of Pakistan, so my research there is focused on an area called Swat, which is in Khyber Pakhtunkhwaqua, and that is the northwest province that borders Afghanistan.

So it’s been a very interesting place to be doing research, first through the pandemic, but also through the huge influx of Afghan refugees that have come in the past several months. The focus of those interviews and surveys that we’ve been conducting in both India and Pakistan have been really around trying to figure out how to reduce these experiences of the stigma that people are encountering within their families, within their communities, within employment settings, within healthcare settings, knowing that these experiences contribute also to poor mental health, and most probably acutely to experience the violence or homicide against gender-nonconforming people.

So one of my participants, research participants in India had been murdered during our research, and it really just drives home that these are issues that impact people’s lives in very intimate and violent ways.

PV: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man, that’s brutal.

SA: Yeah, yeah. Truly was.

PV: Daniel Alexander Jones, a professor of theater who performs under the stage name Jomama Jones, first introduced me to the concept of gender fluidity when I met him in 2013. Now, Daniel, Jomama has been a vehicle for you to try to get people to see both themselves and others in a new light. Do you feel like you’re seeing some of the changes you were hoping for?

Daniel Alexander Jones
Daniel Alexander Jones

Daniel Alexander Jones: Oh, Patrick. That’s a good question. Yeah. I think were you to look at maybe 2010 and look forward at where we seemed to be heading as a nation, we’ve gone in a very different direction.

PV: Do you feel like there’s been a backlash?

DJ: There are people who believe their way of life is threatened by the changes that are happening, or even by, and this may be a more accurate way to say it, the naming of things that have always been there, but the taking up a space around those things, right? We know that those we call trans folk now have always been here, throughout history. This is not a new phenomenon, but it is culturally shaped in such a way that claiming sovereignty and truth and ownership of that identity is going to be a threat to someone for whom that identity’s invisibility is necessary for them to understand themselves, for them to feel their own sense of power, right? When you think about how that’s connected to the last five or six years of our national experience, it’s sobering.

PV: The last time we talked, you said that so much of the conversation about gender fluidity is about how we encounter someone who is different from ourselves, and what happens to us if we fully accept them. Can you elaborate a little bit on that?

DJ: This was originally, Patrick, from my perspective as an artist, because I was thinking about, both in my work professionally and also in the classroom, what role curiosity plays. The idea of engaging something you don’t know and being heightened or quickened or energized by the unknown, as much as you are by the process of naming and pointing out the things that you do know. And for an artistic process, whether it be writing or acting or directing, whatever the thing is, vital work depends on that curiosity. And it is that destabilization and the reaching for language to articulate what you’re feeling, the comparison of this new feeling to things you have experienced before. And also, if you will, the surrender into the possibility that that new experience has. All of those things are so necessary.

And what I began to encounter in the classroom, and what I began to encounter professionally even more so, was this sense of, we’ve got to name it and know it. What the problem is rooted in is a kind of taxonomical approach to life. Meaning that, if we think about taxonomy, we think about this idea of naming, delineating, putting things into categories. I’m thinking very often of those butterfly cases. Like those, the people who go out and collect them, and they pin the butterfly, and they name the butterfly, and there’s a sense that it is that thing. But we know that butterflies in life move. What they came from you don’t get in that pinned creature. So there’s so much of the story that’s missing from that pinned moment in time.

And then too, we then begin to think about exemplars of a particular group. Like this is what this type of thing looks like. And the connected part of that is we then begin to assume that something that looks like that, that has the same shape or form or the same name, will have the same content. Why? Well, in part we know it’s because our brain wants to filter out the things that are familiar so that we can pay attention to the things that aren’t. But I think the artist has a responsibility to deliberately engage what we don’t know, to deliberately destabilize what we think we know. It is part of our social responsibility.

And I think one of the things that this question around gender fluidity rubs at is that, if we live in a culture that has defined gender according to these formal shapes, whether they be shapes of thought or shapes of material of the body, we then eliminate the content. And that subjective content is the truth for that individual. So what does it mean that we would center a process by which I can have my observations, but I can’t then overwrite my truth of what those observations mean onto you before I get to know who you are, before I hear from you. Because as is so often the case, especially with folk who are dealing with expressing their own gender fluidity, very often what’s on the inside doesn’t match, quote-unquote, what’s on the outside. And so if I come to you and I have determined your interior by your outside, then I have done a violence to you.

PV: Talk to me about your own journey. How has your act changed since you started?

DJ: I was born into and raised in a worldview that was so profoundly shaped in the macrocosmic way by the civil rights movement, like the freedom movement and the workers’ movement, the grassroots movements that created the community I grew up in. Also, the courage of my parents who had an interracial marriage at a time where that was really forbidden, and the power of my community, which was a black community, working-class in western Massachusetts, that also was the house for a kind of multiethnic enclave. All of that to say that the culture that was born from that mixture of people, and that particular time, was in many ways set in opposition to the world that I entered when I started to go to school, which was a hierarchical world where race had a hierarchy, gender had a hierarchy, class for sure had a hierarchy.

So I had very early on to learn that I knew things about life that many of the people that I was going to meet in this other world didn’t know. And I also had to understand from a very early age, and I’m talking about memories from kindergarten, first grade, second grade, that many of the stories that were in that new world about who I was, about who my parents were, about who the people I loved were, were false. And I had to have the inner resolve, even before I had language to articulate it, to say, that’s not true. They don’t know.

And it’s when I became aware of my sexuality, and I understood that I was gay. What I understood is, just like I talked about those two different worlds, I could also look and say, oh, this is what is posited as being a boy or a girl or a man or a woman or… I could look at what the rules were supposed to be. So again, I came into this all at a time when I was looking around and saying, oh, wow, everybody’s playing this game. Everybody’s adopting these roles. And this person that I’ve known my whole life is now suddenly a jock or a girly girl or whatever. And I’m like, oh, it’s so interesting to see the person I know, take on and perform an extreme version of gender, as a way to get power, as a way to find their security, as a way to name themselves and be part of this larger configuration of students in this public high school.

And I knew it wasn’t me. So if I don’t fit any of these things, then the pressure, which I think is what a lot of young people face, is how do you conform? How do you figure out how to get access to or move in that system? Or the real danger, how are you taking that in, like do you try to fight your way back into the thing? And maybe the blessing and the curse that I had was like I told you, I had an experience and a bodily experience of something else.

One of the things that’s interesting, I’ve been teaching at this Jesuit university, and I hear a lot about the teachings of Christ. And I think one of the primary ideas is that you greet strangers as holy presences, that who you don’t know may be an angel. It’s your responsibility to take care of your fellow human being. Care means presence. Are you willing to be present with another human being? And I’m shocked always by how many people are unwilling to do that. I shouldn’t be shocked, but I remain shocked.

PV: Talking to Daniel shed light on how the culture is changing, but of course, culture can’t thrive if it’s not given the space to do so, which is the realm of law. For that, I turn to Elizabeth Cooper, a professor of law and the faculty director of the Feerick Center for Social Justice at Fordham Law School. Now you were involved in the passage of the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act or GENDA, a 2019 New York law that was originally part of a previous law that was passed in 2002.

Elizabeth Cooper
Elizabeth Cooper

Elizabeth Cooper: I have had the real pleasure of being a member of and an advocate for the LGBTQ communities for many decades. And I remember very clearly when we were trying to get the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act, otherwise known as SONDA, passed through the state legislature. And there were a number of advocates that were trying to get the bill passed in its original form. And that would’ve prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation, which is being lesbian, gay, bisexual, as well as on gender expression or identity. And those phrases typically refer to people who are transgender or gender non-conforming. The advocates were told that they could get SONDA passed, but only if they took out the protections for gender expression.

And the advocates agreed to do that with the notion of, we’ll come back next year, get the gender expression non-discrimination provisions passed. Well, it just so happened that SONDA was passed in 2002, became effective in early 2003, but it was not until 2019 that the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act actually was enacted. The law is so powerful, because it prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression in employment, in housing, in places of public accommodation, in education, in countless areas, basically adding gender expression and identity to the long list of identities that cannot be the basis for discrimination in New York State.

PV:  When it comes to the push and the pull of these laws, you’ve said that Jim Crow laws can be a helpful reference point. Can you explain why?

EC: If you think about Jim Crow laws or Title VII, which prohibits discrimination in employment, or the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination on basis of disability, you have lots of prohibitions on discrimination based on an individual’s identity, their core identity, who they are. Historically, I think the Supreme Court often thought of these as immutable characteristics. Not all of them are so immutable, but they are basically aspects of identity that go to one’s core. They also have absolutely no impact on how well one can perform one’s job. So if you have a person who is an excellent lawyer, for example, it should not matter whether they are transgender or cisgender, meaning that their physiology and their gender identity aligns, cisgender. And so, why should we permit discrimination based on gender identity? It makes absolutely no sense. This has nothing to do, like race, like sex, like religion, with how one can do one’s job.

I think that thinking about this historical context is also helpful when we start to think about the ways in which some people argue that religion or biblical values mean that one should be able to discriminate against people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender non-conforming, and so on. It’s important to look historically to the kinds of arguments that were raised against Title VII and other laws that prohibit discrimination based on race. For example, people argued that it would be wrong to have black people and white people in the same bathroom, that it went against the Bible, that there were risks of violence. There were people who argued that separation of the races was mandated by the Bible. And in this context, I think that we are getting to the point where we understand that gender identity or expression or sexual orientation, this is not a matter of choice or going against God or going against the Bible. This is just a matter of who we happen to be.

PV: It seems like people either are willfully ignoring history or just don’t know about it.

EC: I think most people don’t know about it. I think that the point is just to look at people for the value of, for example, employment, the job that they can do. Why would you ever want to tell someone who’s gender non-conforming that they can’t walk into a movie theater? Or why would it be okay or should it be okay for a doctor to say to a transgender person, I don’t want to treat you?

PV: You’ve been involved in this advocacy for 25 years with groups such as the law school’s LGTBQ student group. How have things changed within the movement itself in that time?

EC: I confess that I am just dumbfounded by the changes that have happened in my lifetime. And when I say dumbfounded, I mean in the best way possible. When I first started teaching at Fordham, I was concerned about coming out. I remember that the LGBT law student group sometimes met off-campus, so its members would not have to worry about being seen walking into a room where people knew that the gay group was meeting.

The attitude today towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender identity more generally, is just striking. I see law students and undergrads. I have a niece who’s 18 years old. I see her and her peers having a comfort with people who are different from themselves. And they don’t look at it as something that should require segregation. They look at it as something to learn about, and they want to embrace the richness of diversity in their lives. So you have straight people, like my niece, joining the high school Gay-Straight Alliance. You have kids coming out as teenagers in high school, sometimes middle school. You have people claiming their gender identity or presenting themselves in gender non-conforming or genderqueer ways much earlier on.

There is a real, tangible move away from understanding gender as a binary. There is a much greater acceptance, understanding and acceptance, that gender, like race, is very socially constructed. It’s not that men don’t typically have more testosterone and women typically have more estrogen, or we have different body parts, but that, in the way we present ourselves, some of our rules are arbitrary. Why should only women wear nail polish? Why should only women wear dresses? Why should only men wear ties and Oxford shoes, right? It has nothing to do with who you are and your core values as a human being. If anything, how much more wonderful this world is when people can be their full selves and live their full lives, whether it is with their families of origin, or in the workplace, or walking down the street in the middle of New York City or the middle of any other small town, anywhere in this country.

 

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Student Highlights Unseen Vibrant World in New York-Area Ponds https://now.fordham.edu/science/student-highlights-unseen-vibrant-world-in-new-york-area-ponds/ Fri, 27 Aug 2021 19:09:14 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=151755 Michael Kausch has a very mixed relationship with some of the smallest living things on earth.

On the one hand, Kausch, a Ph.D. student based at Fordham’s Louis Calder Center biological field station, is studying the causes and consequences of harmful algal blooms (HABs) in New York metropolitan area lakes.

For the last six years, that has involved traveling to about 20 lakes in and around New York City and collecting water samples to determine concentrations of dissolved nutrients, chlorophyll, and phytoplankton species composition. Algal blooms are a big concern now, and in fact, the State of New York has dedicated $82 million to combat them in places such as Lake Carmel in Putnam County, one of Kausch’s sites. In addition to appearing as foam or scum on the surface of the water, the blooms can produce toxins that make people and animals sick. Preventing explosive growth of these microscopic organisms is so key to his work, that the tentative title of his dissertation is “Causes and consequences of cyanobacteria harmful algal blooms in New York metropolitan area lakes.”

On the other hand, despite trying to prevent the blooms, he happens to be fascinated by them.

Video caputure of cyanobacteria
One of the videos that Kausch has shared through his Twitter account.

“I’ve always been interested in the smallest life forms. I certainly think they’re the most interesting life forms, and many times, the most important ones,” said Kausch, a native of Queens who earned a master’s degree in applied environmental geosciences at Queens College.

“They can also cause some substantial problems for humans. Climate change and nutrient loading, which is when human activity triggers the release of nitrogen and phosphorus, are happening pretty much all over the world, so in the last few decades it seems like there’s been an explosion in the occurrence and the intensity of harmful algal blooms.”

Last month, Kausch, who goes by the Twitter handle @NYCMicrobes, tweeted out the view he’s had in the lab with the wider world. With the aid of an Em1 portable microscope and an iPhone, he created videos of several algae, including synura, oocystis, and his favorite, euglena, flitting and bouncing around in their aquatic world. The videos, which he set to music that he’s recorded with friends, are a side project, but have attracted some attention; the Quebec City newspaper Le Soleil included them in an article published in their science section in July.

“I think these could be good for teaching because I feel like people might be amused by the music, and then also seeing the cool algae moving around,” Kausch said.

Michael Kausch and John Wehr speaking next to tanks of water
Kausch has been working under the supervision of John Wehr, who mentors projects in the University’s Experimental Lakes Facility (ELF) tanks, a collection of two dozen 1,200-gallon tanks that can hold entire lake communities for research purposes.

When it comes to the research, which Kausch has conducted under the supervision of John Wehr, Ph.D., the most intriguing finding is that in the lakes with the highest concentrations of chlorophyll, the concentrations of nitrogen greatly affect the growth of algae. This is important because up until recently, the focus has been on the ways phosphorus can spur growth, rather than nitrogen.

“Historically, efforts to control HABs have focused on reducing phosphorus loads, but in the past decade or so, the literature has increasingly highlighted the importance of dual-nutrient management strategies targeting both nitrogen and phosphorus loading to control HABs,” Wehr said. Both come from waste created by humans.

“Sometimes it’s the nitrogen and phosphorus together, but the point is we as humans create waste in all sorts of ways, and that waste finds its way into water bodies,” he said.

He said one need not go further than Central Park to see how harmful algal blooms can be. Visit the boat rental area, and he noted that you’ll see signs warning against letting dogs swim there because some of the algae produce toxins. Excess use of fertilizer is one culprit; human waste can be another.

“Our use of the environment leads to these hyper-eutrophic, or sometimes hyper-productive situations, which people find aesthetically unpleasing, but in some cases, it’s also biologically undesirable,” he said.

“It changes the structure of the community, biodiversity goes down, we see unpleasant tastes and smells in water bodies, and then occasionally it produces toxins.”

Michael Kausch holding a microscope
Kausch examining a new water sample with his Em1 portable microscope.

Like Kausch, Wehr said he finds cyanobacteria to be fascinating—one of the remarkable features of some of them is their ability to draw nitrogen from the atmosphere when levels of it in the water start to dip.

“When there isn’t enough nitrogen in the system to keep supporting these blooms, certain species come to the fore and pull nitrogen from the atmosphere, convert it into usable forms, and keep on ticking. It’s quite a remarkable and amazing group of organisms with their adaptations,” he said.

Kausch’s enthusiasm translates into the lab, Wehr said, making him a natural to inspire and mentor undergraduate students. Like most researchers in the lab, he tends also to get more excited by algae-covered bodies of water than the average person would.

“I think his motivation to share some of what he’s been learning with videos and pictures is a good example of how he wants to share what he’s learning, and the excitement of discovery.”

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From High School Biology Teacher to Trailblazing Scientist: Remembering Fordham Alumna Marie Clark Taylor https://now.fordham.edu/fordham-magazine/from-high-school-biology-teacher-to-trailblazing-scientist-remembering-fordham-alumna-marie-clark-taylor/ Thu, 25 Mar 2021 18:23:41 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=147353 When Marie Clark Taylor enrolled in a graduate program at Fordham University in 1938, it was a pivotal step in the career of a scientist who would help transform the way high school science is taught. The very first woman—of any race—to earn a science doctorate from the University, Taylor graduated from Fordham’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1941. She went on to have a decades-long career at Howard University, shaping future scientists and working to improve teacher training in biology.

“Marie Clark Taylor’s accomplishments, which include many ‘firsts,’ [are] a testament to her undying passion and love for science and education,” wrote Wendy Hodgson, herbarium curator emerita and senior research botanist at Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. “That there are so many firsts reminds us of how difficult it was for women, especially women of color, to pursue careers in science.”

Born in Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania, five miles northeast of downtown Pittsburgh, Taylor enrolled at Fordham after earning a B.S. in education and an M.S. in botany from Howard University. Her doctoral research and dissertation on how light influences plant growth not only influenced her own methods as a biology teacher at Cardozo High School in Washington, D.C., but also proved invaluable years later as she emphasized the use of botanical materials and light microscopes to help students investigate living cells.

Taylor continued teaching at Cardozo until 1942, when she left to join the war effort as a staff assistant for the Army Red Cross. While stationed in New Guinea, she met fellow D.C. resident Richard Taylor, who was serving in the all-Black 93rd Airborne Infantry Division, and they were married in 1948—nearly three years after she joined the faculty at Howard University. In 1950, just after Howard’s final exams wrapped, Taylor gave birth to their only child, a son named Duane. (Her students reportedly joked that she’d planned the birth to follow exams so it wouldn’t interrupt the semester—such was her devotion to teaching.)

Advancing Scientific Scholarship

When she returned to D.C., in 1945, Taylor joined Howard’s Department of Botany as an instructor and was quickly promoted first to assistant professor and then to serve as the department’s first chair, a position she held until her retirement in 1976. And the department flourished under her leadership. Not only was she responsible for guiding the design and construction of the Ernest E. Just Hall building and greenhouse, she helped train generations of botanists and was an adviser to doctoral candidates. In recognition of her “tremendous contributions” to the university and its students, Howard named an auditorium in her honor and established a scholarship fund in her name to benefit women in the sciences.

Taylor may have found a home in Howard’s botany department, but that didn’t stop her from branching out to share her affinity for teaching—and new ideas on how to do it effectively—with fellow educators. In the 1950s and ’60s, she used grants from the National Science Foundation to fund a series of summer science institutes geared toward high school biology teachers.

During the series, Taylor touted the advantages of using botanical materials to help students grasp biology and understand living organisms. These materials, Taylor rightly argued, were cheaper and more readily accessible than animal specimens. The summer institutes were so successful that word reached President Lyndon B. Johnson, who enlisted Taylor to broaden the reach of the institutes, admitting teachers from not just the United States but overseas as well.

Taylor died on December 28, 1990, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. In Wini Warren’s Black Women Scientists in the United States (Indiana University Press, 1999), Taylor’s former colleague Margaret Strickland Collins, Ph.D., remembers her as “a powerhouse who for almost three decades trained most of the botanists who came out of Howard University, and who worked tirelessly … to improve teacher training in the sciences.”

Reflecting on Taylor’s legacy, Wendy Hodgson of the Desert Botanical Garden wrote, “How different would our world be had societies allowed more women, including women of color, to pursue sciences, contributing different perspectives and ideas so needed to understand a world of amazing complexity?”

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Calder Center Forest Proves Perfect for Safe Fieldwork https://now.fordham.edu/science/calder-center-forest-proves-perfect-for-safe-lab-work/ Mon, 19 Oct 2020 22:20:36 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=141944 In early March, Ar Kornreich was a whirlwind of preparation.

After six months of classes, Kornreich was almost ready to begin fieldwork for a biology Ph.D. dissertation. From late May to early August, Kornreich would roam the 113 acres of Fordham’s Louis Calder Center with a cutting-edge Vesper GPS logger, trapping, banding, and tracking gray catbirds. Her goal was to determine whether catbirds use mimicry of each other’s songs—also called song matching—as a way to regulate territorial boundaries. Having assisted a classmate, Medha Pandey, conduct similar work the summer before, Kornreich, who uses they/their/them pronouns, was super excited to do their own work.

Ar Kornreich recording the songs of catbirds
Ph.D. student Ar Kornreich recording the songs of catbirds on the grounds of the Calder Center. Photo courtesy of Ar Kornreich

A Field Season Like No Other

Suffice to say that after the COVID-19 closures, neither Kornreich nor Pandey, who are studying under the guidance of J. Alan Clark, Ph.D., got the summer of fieldwork that they expected. But thanks to extensive planning and a little bit of ingenuity, both graduate students were able to use what was arguably the safest research facility at the University’s disposal—the woods—to complete crucial data collection.

Clark, an associate professor of biological sciences who specializes in birds, said he was determined to help them salvage the field season, having experienced failed ones twice himself while working on his Ph.D. He credited the center’s director Tom Daniels, Ph.D., and assistant director Alyssa Perrone, with making it possible.

“To lose an entire field season is heartbreaking,” he said. “But by working carefully with the Calder staff, they were able to keep moving forward. They were very fortunate; both of them had highly successful summers, and they were able to do it safely.”

For Kornreich, that meant several changes. Because equipment bottlenecks made the Vesper GPS unavailable, they had to use an old-fashioned boom mic and GPS unit to track catbirds, which produce a cat-like mew call that is sometimes mistaken for mockingbirds. Kornreich also had to wait until June—two weeks later than planned—to begin work, when the University granted permission to go ahead. Even then, Kornreich was limited exclusively to outdoor activity—only essential Calder staff was allowed to enter buildings there.

Staking Out A Vocal Visitor

The gray catbird
A gray catbird that was captured and banded as part of Kornreich’s study into the birds’ song patterns. Photo courtesy of Ar Kornreich

Once safety protocols were established, Kornreich was able to roam the woods, trapping the birds in nets, banding them, and noting where they’d established distinct territories. In two months, they trapped and tracked 45 birds in six distinct areas.

“If we have two territories very close together, or even if we catch them singing to each other back and forth, we can compare the songs from catbirds whose territories are near each other and see to what degree they match,” they said.

“Based on behavioral observations of how they interact when those songs match, we can draw conclusions about how they’re using that mimicry.”

Kornreich had to forego training on trapping and banding birds, due to social distancing requirements. Even so, they said they still learned a lot on their own about recording in the field and has a better sense of how the birds behave now.

“It’s the sort of quick thinking and adaptation that scientists had to do when COVID hit. A lot of people’s field seasons got straight-up canceled, and even though mine wasn’t, it did necessitate a lot of creative thinking to make the season happen. Dr. Clark deserves a lot of credit for it,” they said.

Medha Pandey checks a bird for ticks
Medha Pandey checks an adult male common yellowthroat for ticks. Photo courtesy of Medha Pandey

You Trap Mine, I’ll Record Yours

Pandey and Kornreich contributed to each other’s success. Pandey’s fieldwork, which began last summer when she was a master’s student, also involves trapping birds, but Pandey is less interested in the type of bird she catches, and more interested in potential passengers—tick larvae capable of picking up pathogens from bird hosts.

The peak of her season, in August, was at the tail end of Kornreich’s season, so after she helped capture and band Kornreich’s catbirds, Kornreich paid back the favor by recording data on the birds and ticks Pandey caught. That was valuable because, in the end, Pandey caught and released 180 birds and collected 56 blood samples and 250 larvae.

“When most tick larvae are born, they’re pathogen-free, and if they come off the bird infected, it’s most likely the bird is the source of the infection,” she said.

“That’s what I want to confirm, both by testing the ticks and by sampling the blood from the birds.”

closeup of a bird with tick larvae near its eyes.
A closeup of a Carolina wren with tick larvae near its eyes. Photo courtesy of Medha Pandey

Because there were days when the number of birds caught in their nets reached the double digits, Pandey also relied on both an assistant and a volunteer from the Bedford Audubon Society. Even with COVID-19 related restrictions in place, she had more success than last year, when she caught 395 birds, but only collected 50 blood samples and 164 larvae.

“The first two or three times we went out in the field, it was like ‘OK, are we getting too many birds to handle in our social distanced setup? How do we do this safely and effectively for ourselves and for the birds as well?’ We were able to work those kinks out though,” she said.

Depending on the feedback she receives from her dissertation committee, she may have enough samples to move on to lab work.

Grateful For The Opportunity

yellow finch
A blue-winged warbler held by Medha Pandey. Photo courtesy of Medha Pandey

Both Kornreich and Pandey said the ability to continue their studies greatly helped them weather the challenges of the pandemic.

“I loved helping Medha in 2019. It had been the highlight of my year, and I was really depressed at the idea that I might not be able to do it myself this year,” said Kornreich, who hopes to return to the woods in 2021 with equipment that allows her to play songs back to catbirds.

“I tried to stay optimistic and focus on what I could do, and what options and equipment I did have, rather than what I no longer could do. Trying to balance the craziness of navigating that new reality, navigating your own panic, navigating the panic of everyone around you, and still trying to think straight about science, can be difficult. But the bottom line is, it did work out.”

 

 

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Remote, In Person, or Both, Fordham Professors Prioritize Academic Rigor and Connection https://now.fordham.edu/university-news/remote-in-person-or-both-fordham-professors-prioritize-academic-rigor-and-connection/ Wed, 16 Sep 2020 14:48:14 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=140484 This semester, Fordham welcomed back students for an unprecedented academic endeavor.

On Aug. 26., in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the state restrictions on mass gatherings, fall classes at the University commenced under the auspices of a brand-new flexible hybrid learning model.

The model, which was laid out in May by Dennis Jacobs, Ph.D., Fordham’s provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, is designed to be both safe and academically rigorous. After being forced to pivot to remote learning in March, professors and instructors, aided by Fordham’s IT department, spent many hours this summer preparing to use this model for the fall.

Today, some classes are offered remotely, some are offered in-person—indoors and outdoors—with protective measures, and still others are a blend of both. Whatever the method, professors are engaging students with innovative lessons and challenging coursework.

Rethinking an Old Course for New Times

Barbara Mundy, Ph.D., a professor of art history, said the pandemic spurred her department to reimagine one of its hallmark courses, Introduction to Art History. The course, which covers the period from 1200 B.C. to the present day, is being taught both in-person and in remote settings to 327 students in what’s known as a “flipped” format.

Before classes are held, students are provided with pre-recorded lectures, reading material, and videos, such as Art of the Olmec, which Mundy created with the assistance of Digital and Visual Resources Curator Katherina Fostano and her staff. When students meet in person or via live video, they then discuss the material at length. The content was changed as well; it now also addresses the representation of Black people throughout history and showcases artists who tackle themes of racism.

“Because we were looking at a situation where we couldn’t just do business as usual, I proposed that we take this moment to really rethink our intro class, which we’ve been teaching for decades,” Mundy said, noting that the department has expanded in recent years to include experts in art from more diverse sections of the world.

Contemplating the Bard

Before the COVID crisis, Mary Bly, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of English, presented materials to students in her Shakespeare & Pop Culture class and encouraged them to generate their own ideas on them during live discussions. Now she breaks her students up into pairs, and later “pods,” of about six students on Zoom, to form a thoughtful argument about a particular work of art, video, film, or theater.

“An argument is not a description,” said Bly. “It has to have some evidence or context to make their argument, say, for example, ‘This film is a racist portrayal of the play for the following reasons,’ or, ‘The director of this film pits the values of pop culture against Shakespeare and the British canon.”

To propel the conversations, she created a series of video-taped lectures with Daniel Camou, FCLC ’20. In some cases, students are expected to respond with a video of their own.

Embracing New Technologies

screen shot of a Zoom lecture
For her class Medieval London, Maryanne Kowaleski, Ph.D., Joseph Fitzpatrick SJ Distinguished Professor of History and Medieval Studies, meets with her students both in-person and online. Zoom provides a platform for live instruction, and Panopto allows her to share the lecture afterward.

Paul Lynch, Ph.D., an associate professor of accounting and taxation at the Gabelli School of Businesses, is teaching Advanced Accounting to undergraduates and Accounting for Derivatives to graduate students this semester. Of the five classes, four are exclusively online, and one is exclusively in person. For his remote classes, he’s turned to Lightboard, which allows him to “write” on the screen. He jokingly refers to it as his Manhattan Project.

“I love being in the class with the students. I enjoy the interaction, and I thought that was missing,” he said. “This gives me the ability to let the students see me as if I was in class writing onto a transparent whiteboard.”

He said he hasn’t had to change much of the content. The only major difference now is that instead of passing out equations on printed paper, he emails students custom-made problems in PDF format, and then edits within that document after they’re sent back.

“I’ve always given them take-home exams, and always worked off Blackboard, so it’s just a natural extension of what I used to do in class,” he said.

In Jacqueline Reich’s class Films of Moral Struggle, students are using the platform Perusall to examine how films portray moral and ethical issues. They watch and analyze films like Scarface, a 1932 movie about a powerful Cuban drug lord, and The Cheat, which shows the early representation of Asians in American films, said Reich, a professor of communication and media studies.

Among other things, students can use Perusall to annotate scenes from movie clips, such as the classic film Casablanca, where they identified shots ranging from “establishing” and “reaction” to “shot/reverse shot.”

“It’s a really good exercise to do in class when you’re teaching film language or talking about editing or lighting, because students can pause and comment on a particular frame,” Reich said.

She meets with 11 students on Zoom on Thursdays and another eight in person at the Rose Hill campus on Mondays.

Sign announcing Fordham's new Main Stage theater season
Despite not being able to stage live performances, the Fordham Theatre program’s Main Stage season, “Into The Unknown,” is still proceeding online, as are the majority of its classes. Men on Boats, its first main stage production, will run Oct. 8 to 10.

In another virtual classroom, Peggy Andover, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology, is teaching undergraduates at Rose Hill how the laws of the environment shape behavior in an asynchronous class called Learning Laboratory. Andover said that platforms like Panopto, which transcribe her lessons, can make it easier for students to look for specific information.

“Let’s say you’re studying for an exam, and you see the word ‘contiguity’ in your notes, and you don’t remember what it means. You don’t have to watch the entire lecture again—you can search for ‘contiguity’ and see the slides and the portion of the lecture where we were talking about it,” Andover said.

Graduate students teaching in the psychology program are also using Pear Deck to make their virtual classrooms more engaging on Google Slides, she said.

“You have this PowerPoint that’s being watched or engaged in asynchronously, but [Pear Deck] allows you to put in interactive features,” including polls and student commentary, she said.

“Our grad students found it’s a way to really get that engagement that they would potentially be missing when we went to online learning.”

Learning from Classmates

Aaron Saiger, a professor at the Law School, made several adjustments to Property Law, a required class for all first-year law students. Instead of meeting in person twice a week for two hours, his class of 45 students meets on Zoom three times a week for 90 minutes, an acknowledgment that attention spans are harder to maintain on Zoom.

The content is the same, but the way he teaches it had to change. While he was able to record four classes’ worth of lectures to share asynchronously, that wasn’t an option for everything.

“I’m spending less time talking to students one-on-one while everyone else listens, which is the classic law school teaching mode; we call it the Socratic method,” he said. “Everyone else is supposed to imagine that they’re the person being called on.”

Saiger’s solution is having students share two-sentence answers to questions in the Zoom chat function to gauge what everyone’s thinking about a topic, having them do more group work, and leaning more on visual material.

“The difficulties are not insubstantial, but I think we are meeting the challenges and finding a few offsetting advantages that will make it a good semester for everyone.”

Getting Creative with Lab Work

Stephen Holler, Ph.D., associate professor of physics, holds most of his experimentation class in person, with a few students attending remotely.

The in-person group is working on a hands-on solar project that allows them to learn about the material, electric, programming, and optical components of physics.

Students who are attending the class remotely are doing related mathematical work as a part of their semester-long project.

“One student is studying interference coding in optics, so I have him looking at designs in a paper,” he said. “He’s learning all the underlying physics for what goes into a portion of these mirrors that are used in laser systems.”

a chemistry set
“You can’t have the kids in the lab, and at the same time, we can’t not have some kind of hands-on,” said chemistry professor Christopher Koenigsmann.
His students will be conducting experiments at home instead, using kits he’s sent them.

Christopher Koenigsmann, Ph.D., assistant professor of chemistry, is sending lab kits to the students in his general chemistry class so they can conduct experiments from home.

“We were between a rock and hard place—you can’t have the kids in the lab, and at the same time, we can’t not have some kind of hands-on,” he said.

The kits will allow students to participate in labs virtually through a Zoom webinar with their professor, as well as in breakout rooms with their lab teams.

“We adapted as many of our experiments as we could to just use simple household chemicals that are all completely safe,” he said.

Elizabeth Thrall, Ph.D., an assistant professor of physical and biophysical chemistry, likewise sent a kit to students that they can use to build a spectrometer. Students can build it out of Legos, using a DVD and a light source to create different wavelengths of light. They capture them using their computer’s webcam which processes the data. They will then design an experiment that everyone in the class will conduct.

“Designing an experiment so that you learn something, that answers the question you set out to answer, and gives a protocol that someone else can follow so they can get the same results that you got, is really at the heart of what it is to do scientific research,” she said.

—Taylor Ha, Kelly Kultys, and Tom Stoelker contributed reporting.

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Professor Finds Molecular Mechanism Linked to Increased Risk for Disorders in Women https://now.fordham.edu/science/professor-finds-molecular-mechanism-linked-to-increased-risk-for-disorders-in-women/ Mon, 19 Aug 2019 13:22:56 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=122991 Women are twice as likely to have anxiety and depression than men. But not much has been known about how and why that happens at a molecular level—until now. 

Marija Kundakovic, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology, spearheaded a study that was published in Nature Communications, the third highest-ranked multidisciplinary science journal in the world, earlier this summer. Kundakovic and her colleagues found that chromatin, a microscopic cell component, changes its shape during the ovarian cycle—especially when females experience a drop in estrogen. This changes how our genes behave. Because this occurs inside the brain area implicated in anxiety and depression, it may mediate women’s vulnerability to increased risk for these disorders. 

Now, thanks in part to the research conducted by Kundakovic’s team, scientists are closer to figuring out which molecules should be targeted with drug treatments, particularly for women with anxiety or depression. 

“This is really important for us to show at the molecular levelthe molecular basis of this is what we now, with our study, are starting to understand,” Kundakovic said.

Part of the reason why this study is important is that it focuses on the female brain. Tell me more about that. 

The majority of neuroscience experimental studies were done on males. It’s been like that for decades. We know very little about the female brain, and this is particularly a problem for the disorders that are more frequent in women than men, like depression and anxiety. So this is why we basically don’t understand anything about the mechanism that tells us why this sex difference exists. 

Our study was designed to try to understand howat a molecular levelthese fluctuating sex hormone levels might increase the risk of anxiety and depression in women.

Why is there such a stark difference between men and women regarding their risk for anxiety and depression?

When you look at boys and girls before puberty, there’s really no difference in risk for depression. This risk really becomes two times higher in females when they get their first period when the hormones start fluctuating. And then around perimenopause, this difference becomes even more profound because there are more extreme fluctuations. You can have very high or very low sex hormones. And then after menopause, when women achieve these very stable, low sex hormone levels, the sex difference becomes almost nonexistent. So this really tells us that this is not about low or high hormones, but the fluctuations in hormones that might be increasing women’s vulnerability to anxiety and depression.

What’s an extreme example of hormone fluctuations? 

Postpartum depression, a period when you have very high progesterone and estrogen (sex hormones), and then a drop after pregnancy. It often triggers a serious depression. There are a lot of lines of evidence showing that this drop in sex hormones, particularly estrogen, may increase the risk for anxiety and depression.

There’s another interesting phenomenon. Women who are depressed and on antidepressant treatments often report that just before their period, they experience worsening of their symptoms. The symptoms seem to be in control with the treatment, but all of a sudden, in this particular period, their symptoms worsen.

All these human findings are consistent with our findings in mice (women experience the menstrual cycle; female mice experience a similar process called the estrous cycle), showing that a drop in estrogen during the estrous cycle leads to increased anxiety levels in females.

You studied brain cells from both female and male mice, and also included female mice in different stages of the estrous cycle. What did you find? 

DNA is six-and-a-half feet long in a single cell. You have to package it very nicely so you can put this huge piece of DNA into every cell. The way this is accomplished is through a special structure called chromatin. 

This is important to package our DNA, but not only for that. By opening and closing chromatin, you can turn genes on or off. You have to have this open structure for some factors to bind and to turn the genes on. If this is closed, you can’t do that. People use libraries as an analogy. You can have a huge library. There are certain books you can’t even access. But if something’s accessible, you can potentially read it. That’s how our genome works as well. 

What we showand this is really the biggest discovery of this studyis that as hormones fluctuate, they’re actually changing the organization of chromatin. This changes gene expression. 

Can you provide an example that explains these chromatin changes? 

Serotonin is a neurotransmittera chemical in the brain that has been implicated in anxiety and depression. What we show in our study is that the genes that are important for serotonin function, their expression, and their chromatin organization changes with the estrous cycle. Basically, now we are providing a possible molecular mechanism for why we could have those changes in anxiety levels across the ovarian cycle. 

What’s the difference between chromatin in male and female mice? 

In terms of how many open chromatin regions we have, the numbers are pretty similar. What is different is which regions are open or closed. They change with the estrous cycle, and they differ between males and females, meaning some genes that were closed will open up. And some genes that were open will close. What we didn’t expect is that we would find as many differences across the estrous cycle as we see when we compare chromatin in males and females. 

Women and men currently have the same treatment for anxiety and depression. But might your study results lead to the development of sex-specific treatments for these disorders? 

Yes. We are starting to understand what are the players involved, what are the mechanistic factorslike receptors, regulators of chromatinthat are leading to this opening and closing. It may help us identify a candidate that we could possibly target with drugs. 

Many women take birth control. How can that affect sex hormones and treatment? 

We don’t know enough about that. There are different contraceptives. I think we need more studies in humans to understand how exactly contraceptives would affect this. 

What implications does this research have for transgender people? Or is there not enough data yet? 

That’s another important question that I’m getting more nowadays. What we’re talking about here are biological changes that are induced by hormones. When we talk about transgender people, you might think about certain hormonal treatments that they are receiving. Our brain, even in adulthood, is responsive to these hormones. But sexual differentiation of the brain is very complicated, and it starts very early during life. So as you said, I think we would need more information and funding to try to understand how exactly this would affect transgender people. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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Student Research on Birds Leads to Unexpected Leadership Role https://now.fordham.edu/science/student-research-on-birds-leads-to-unexpected-leadership-role/ Fri, 19 Oct 2018 15:33:51 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=106678
Lindsay Thomas
Lindsay Thomas

The more crowded the neighborhood, the more social the bird. Such are the findings of an interspecies study by Fordham College at Rose Hill junior Lindsay Thomas.

Thomas, who is majoring in biology and minoring in sociology, unveiled her research at the Sixth Annual Bronx Science Consortium Poster Symposium on Wed., Oct. 3. Her work focused on observing birds, and how humans interact with them, in New York City parks. She hypothesized that birds live in different “avian communities” across the city, and, just like their human counterparts, their behavior often reflects the environment of their neighborhood.

In crowded parks, like Central Park, Thomas found that birds and humans interacted closely. People could get close to birds before the birds would take off and seek refuge in nearby woods—and not even that far into the woods. In less crowded parks, like Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, birds flew away much sooner when people approached them, and they fled much deeper into the wooded areas.

Project TRUE teen birding
Project TRUE teen birding

“In Central Park the birds are competing for the same areas of the park as humans so they tend to hang out in areas such as footpaths and fountains,” said Thomas. “Unfortunately, birds also tend to use humans as easy food sources due to frequent hand feeding.”

Thomas wasn’t alone in tracking bird-human observations; she was supported by New York City high school students recruited for the study through Project TRUE (Teens Researching Urban Ecology), a program funded by the National Science Foundation that pairs teens with educators from the Wildlife Conservation Society and Fordham researchers.

One of the students, Angel Torres, riffed on Thomas’ work. Out in the field he noticed that birds were more vocal in crowded parks where they were competing with humans and city noise; they were less vocal in quieter parks. However, regardless of the park, when the same species of bird was observed in close proximity to others of the same species, vocalization rates increased.

Teen takes note of his observations.
Teen takes note of his observations.

Thomas’ groundwork for the research began after Tiffany House, her counselor from CSTEP (Fordham’s Collegiate Science, Engineering, and Technology Program), encouraged her to apply for a summer research internship with Project TRUE. As Thomas lives in Rockland County, CSTEP funded her housing for the internship.

Through the Wildlife Conservation Society, she was matched with Jocelyn Harrison, a conservation educator from Central Park who helped her iron out research methods and questions. She was also mentored by Fordham graduate student Emily Casper. By July, she was explaining research methods to three teens and working in the field gathering data with them.

Observing her own mentors opened up new possibilities for Thomas.

“It was great seeing people who were more along in their careers, like Jocelyn. I didn’t know that her job even existed,” she said of the conservation educator. “And I didn’t know we had such a diverse graduate program in biology until I met Emily. Her research is in marine biology! I thought you had to go somewhere else to study that.”

After college, Thomas hopes to pursue fellowship opportunities. Her interests lie at the intersection of policy, public health, and the sciences.

And as inspired as she was by her mentors, Thomas was also inspired by her mentees.

“One of the major takeaways,” she said, “was just working with the high school students and seeing how smart and driven they were.”

Thomas said she went to a low-income high school where budget cuts led to reduction of advanced placement classes.

“When I started this program, my main goal was to provide the students with guidance that I didn’t have at their age,” she said. “If I heard they were interested in college, I would be really on to it and encourage them.” Last month one of the students sent her a college essay to read.

“I tried to offer support beyond the program, support that I didn’t get,” she said.

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Calder Center Symposium Features Young Citizen Scientists https://now.fordham.edu/science/calder-center-symposium-features-young-citizen-scientists/ Wed, 22 Aug 2018 19:03:24 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=102826 In a keynote address at the annual Calder Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium, Jessica Schuler of New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) stressed the need for engaging the general public as citizen scientists—volunteers trained to gather data for scientific research.

Jessica Schuler of New York Botanical Garden
Keynote speaker Jessica Schuler of New York Botanical Garden stressed the need for citizen scientists.

“It’s up to us to train everybody about ecology, it doesn’t have to be to understand research protocols like you [biologists]do, but just share your experiences out in the field,” said Schuler, who is director of the botanical garden’s Thain Family Forest.

Nevertheless, Schuler said that in addition to sharing anecdotes with the general public, further engaging them through research holds the potential to transform the science and deepen awareness.

At the Thain Family Forest, volunteers have helped monitor and restore the forest, planting more than 34,000 native species. Tracking invasive species, as well as natives, involved measuring everything in the 50-acre forest that had grown a meter or higher, Schuler said. It was a herculean task that would’ve overwhelmed Schuler and her fulltime staff of two. But since 2008, NYBG engaged hundreds of students and volunteers—citizen scientists—to obtain data sets that helped map out that forest restoration.

Schuler said volunteers in the citizen science program help to document the timing of events in the forest across the seasons, which can reveal important trends. Tracking a tree from when it flowers to when it produces fruit to when its leaves turn color in the fall can help produce a long-term data set that could provide indicators of global warming, for example. She stressed that the garden employs quality control to maintain “the validity of data science, in terms of phenology.”

“Once you get in there to establish these programs, they run and run well,” she said, adding that seasoned volunteers can train others. Plus, practicing science as a volunteer fosters awareness, she said.

Tom Daniels, Ph.D., director of the Calder Center, agreed. “We need a more scientifically literate society and citizen scientists are the way to go,” he said.

Melanie Taylor presented on white nose syndrome in bats
Melanie Taylor, a senior at Rose Hill, presented on white nose syndrome in bats.

20 Years of Undergraduate Research

For the past 20 years, Calder’s Undergraduate Research Program has allowed Fordham students to become citizen scientists themselves as they delved deep into the forests, rivers, lakes, city streets, and labs, in search of answers to research questions. This anniversary year was no different. Ten students took a data-driven look at the metropolitan region’s ecology this summer through a variety of experiments. From tying the roots of pediatric asthma in the Bronx to traffic data, to examining the effects of urbanization on blood glucose in pigeons, to observing seasonal patterns of photosynthesis on American beachgrass, the day’s subjects were as diverse as the city itself.

Engaging High School Students

Though the primary focus of the symposium was on the hard work conducted by undergraduates, this year a group of budding high school scientists were at the symposium to show the results of their Calder Center research for the first time. Their work underscored the focus of Schuler’s talk.

“Think globally; act locally,” she said. “Connecting students to nature teaches them that their data can make a difference and change policy.”

The idea to invite New York City high school students to participate in the Calder-sponsored program came from Patricio Meneses, Ph.D., associate professor of biology. After a meeting in May with Chief Diversity Officer Rafael Zapata, Meneses ran into Renaldo Alba on campus. Alba is the associate director of the University’s CSTEP/STEP program, which prepares minority students for careers in science, engineering, technology, and licensed professions. Within hours, Meneses secured financial sponsorship from Zapata’s office and recruited talented high school students from Alba’s program.

“We wanted to make sure the students would be paid for their research, so they didn’t have to take another summer job,” he said.

By June, selected student began hearing about their internships. That month, Meneses also recruited professors from chemistry, biology, and psychology. Work began in earnest in early July.

Kelechi D. Nnaji, a senior at Mount Vernon High School, researched how plants can be natural filters for polluted water. He’s been in the STEP program since seventh grade. The sumertime program brings students in grades 7 through 12 to Fordham for five weeks of college prep classes. He said the program familiarized him with the college campuses and helped him mature a bit faster than some of his peers.

“I’ve essentially experienced college life and even though I don’t go to the best school I do get excellent grades and I do really great things,” he said. “This is like my millionth time on campus.”

For Joshleen Cruzado, a senior at Young Women’s Leadership School in East Harlem, the program presented a rare opportunity.

“I’ve done research before but it was a retrospective, because the data was already there, but now I’m ready to do data myself,” she said beaming before her poster analyzing proteins of the HPV virus. “For women and minorities like me, we don’t get the opportunities to do these things, but because of this program we got that opportunity.”

Teen Scientists from the STEP Program
Teen Scientists from the STEP Program

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What Now? Advice for the Future from a Fordham Jesuit https://now.fordham.edu/commencement/2018/what-now-advice-for-the-future-from-a-fordham-jesuit/ Fri, 11 May 2018 18:00:46 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=89494 Daniel Sullivan, S.J., FCRH ’50, professor emeritus of biology, first set foot on the Rose Hill campus as an undergraduate in 1946. In the course of a career spanning five decades, he earned a Ph.D. in entomology at the University of California, Berkeley, and traveled to nearly every continent on the planet to conduct research on invasive species, particularly insects.

Fordham News caught up with Father Sullivan for a podcast from his Jesuit residence on the Rose Hill campus. He touched on the ways his faith complemented his research, what it takes to make it in science today, and the importance of setting and sticking to the right priorities.

He also had a bit of advice for graduates about the people they’ll meet along their way.

“I tell my students that really great scholars in this world are not going to give you a hard time. It’s the second raters that do that,” he said.

Father Sullivan: Not all things when you go out there are important, so you’ve got to prioritize them. Some are important and some are not important, and you’ve got to concentrate on those things that are important.

Patrick Verel: Europe. Africa. South America. Asia. In a career spanning five decades, Father Daniel Sullivan, SJ, professor emeritus of biology, has traveled far and wide. His expertise in invasive species, particularly insects, took him far from his native Rosedale Queens and from the Rose Hill campus, where he first set foot as an undergraduate in 1946. I’m Patrick Verel, and this is Fordham News. On May 19th, the members of the Fordham class of 2018 are going to walk down the middle of Edward’s Parade as part of the university’s 173rd commencement ceremony. What would you say your advice is to graduating seniors?

FS: Have self-confidence in what you have done so far. Your parents have spent their entire lives helping you. You’ve had four years at Fordham. We hope we have taught you something, but the main thing is now that you’re on your own.

PV: Did any of the advice you were given as a student really stick with you through the years?

FS: Well, working hard, because when I was here as an undergraduate in 1946 to 1950, I was a pre-medical student. Then, as now, it’s really a thing that if you don’t get a 3.0 or above, you can forget about medical school. So it was work, work, work hard. I just had to do it.

PV: How did your faith inform your work as a research scientist?

FS: First of all, non-Catholics sometimes think there’s a contradiction between belief in God and science. It’s not that way at all. It complements it, in fact. I look back on some of the great scientists. Galileo was, I presume, a Catholic. And Darwin, although not a Catholic, but he was a religious man. He belonged to a different religion, but not Catholic. And then of course one of the great geneticists, who started genetics, was Fr. Gregor Mendel, who was an Augustinian priest. At any rate, I got my Master’s degree in 1958. Then in the providence of the society, my superiors have been very kind to me. They sent me to Europe for five years. I spent four years in Austria at the State University of Innsbruck, where I took my theology. I was ordained over there. And in those days, they had a phenomenal faculty. It was unbelievable. It was really the golden age at Innsbruck. They had people like Karl Rahner for three years of theology. We had Hugo Rahner, his brother, for history. We had Josef Jungmann for liturgy. It was an incredible, wonderful time.

FS: From there, I went out to the University of California in Berkeley to get my PhD in entomology. They were very good to me. I tell my students that the really great scholars in this world are not gonna give you a hard time. It’s the second raters that do that. I didn’t realize it at first, but Berkeley, at least that area, was the international center for biological control of insect pests. It was a fascinating thing, and that’s what I’ve been into ever since.

PV: What do you think it takes to become a successful scientist today?

FS: Work hard. Initially you’re doing it by yourself. But in science nowadays, there’s always collaboration. You don’t do anything pretty much by yourself once you get a PhD. To get a PhD, yes you have to do it by yourself. You get a lot of help. That’s one of the advantages of having other graduate students in the program. They help you. And that’s very helpful because you’re not gonna be going off on some deep end, some side issue. They keep you on track.

PV: And these are tumultuous times, to say the least. I would imagine that some students might be feeling excited, but also a little queasy today. Do you think they should be nervous?

FS: Sure.

PV: Why?

FS: That’s normal. It’s normal because they’re leaving an area, four years that they knew and had friends and so forth, and now you’re going off on your own for the first time. I would say now what they give at Fordham College was better than what I got when I came here. We had, it was so concentrated in my time on biology and chemistry. And now, they don’t give as much as that, but of course you have much more time to work on social issues, social subjects, sociology. We didn’t have any of that. I think they’ve got a much broader background now. Much broader education to go out into the real world.

FS: One of the things I would tell them, not all things when you go out there are important. So you’ve got to prioritize them. Some are important and some are not important. You’ve got to concentrate on those things that are important. But secondly, even among important things you’ve got to prioritize. Not all important things are equally important.

PV: What’s the most interesting insect that you’ve studied?

FS: Aphids. Aphids are pest insects. They suck the sap out of plants, and that right away removes nutrition from plants. But they’re worldwide pests, mainly because they also transmit viruses to plants. They are very much like mosquitoes. Mosquitoes are really interested in getting your blood, but to prevent your blood from coagulating, they inject their saliva as an anti-coagulant, but as they do this, mosquitoes now, they inject a pathogen. Like, I have malaria. I got malaria the first time I was in India. Once you get malaria, you have it for life. But the aphids are similar, but you have beneficial insects that come along and kill the aphids, either tiny wasps that I work with, but also and rather beneficial insects that eats aphids is lady beetle. You’ve heard about the lady beetle?

PV Oh yeah.

FS: Well you know that the lady part is really the Blessed Mother. It’s a little clearer in German because the word for beetle is kafer, K-A-umlaut-F-E-R. And the word for lady beetle in German is Marie en kafer, Mary’s beetle.

PV I love that you brought up the ladybug and the lady bird, and you made a connection in the German name to it being Mary’s beetle, so you made a connection between the science and your faith. Do you see the actual research that you did on behalf of these, searching for solutions for dealing with invasive species? Was that part of serving God?

FS: My feeling is that just doing science in an atmosphere at Berkeley where most of them were non-Catholics, they know that not all Catholics are bad guys, or at least, sometimes some scientists figure any belief in God is awful. But out there, that never came up in Berkeley. They never asked me anything. Never to embarrass me, either one of the students or graduate students, or coming back as a professor.

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Researcher: Don’t Pigeonhole Pigeons! https://now.fordham.edu/science/dont-pigeon-hole-pigeons/ Mon, 16 Apr 2018 21:59:31 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=88230 Elizabeth Carlen, a doctoral student in biology at Fordham, has been studying urban wildlife for the past several years. But it’s her study of pigeons that stopped pedestrians in their tracks; they often paused to ask what she was up to with the winged creatures that New Yorkers tend to view as pests. Carlen’s work has recently received some attention from some of the city’s major news outlets, including WNYC and The New York Times, which has dubbed her “The Pigeon Stalker.”

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