Learning to ‘Speak Lemur’: Fulbright Fellow Carly Batist Will Go to Madagascar to Study and Help Protect a Critically Endangered Species
Carly Batist and a black-and-white ruffed lemur (Photos courtesy of Batist)
By Lida Tunesi
Ph.D. candidate
Carly Batist (Anthropology (Biological)) received a 2021–2022 Fulbright U.S. Student Program grant to research the vocalizations of black-and-white ruffed lemurs in Madagascar.
Or, as she told The Graduate Center in an interview, “I’m essentially trying to speak lemur.”
With her adviser Professor
Andrea Baden (GC/Hunter, Anthropology, Biology) Batist investigates how the lemurs’ calls facilitate their social and reproductive strategies. Some of this work takes place at the Centre ValBio research station in Madagascar, which Graduate Center alumna Patricia Chapple Wright (Ph.D. ’85) helped establish in 2002.
Lemurs and Leaf Bugs, ‘Greening’ Neighborhoods and Green Energy: 11 Inspiring Graduate Center Students and Professors to Read About on Earth Day
Lemurs and Leaf Bugs, ‘Greening’ Neighborhoods and Green Energy: 11 Inspiring Graduate Center Studen
Even in this difficult last year, Graduate Center professors and students have been hard at work, researching the effects of climate change and investigating ways to protect animals and the environment:
3. Orchid researcher
Simon Verlynde, a Ph.D. student in the Plant Sciences subprogram of The Graduate Center’s Biology program, has helped to asses the extinction risk of the flowers in their native habitats and can tell you how to make your orchid re-bloom.
In Memoriam: Frances Degen Horowitz, President of The Graduate Center from 1991 to 2005
Frances Degen Horowitz
The Graduate Center community deeply mourns the passing of Past President and Professor Emerita
Frances Degen Horowitz, who died on March 15 at age 88. A prominent child psychologist, Horowitz served as The Graduate Center’s president from 1991 to 2005 and remained a member of the faculty until her retirement in 2010. She is widely admired for having the conviction and determination to move The Graduate Center from its original space in an office building on 42
nd Street to its current location in the landmark former home of the B. Altman & Company department store at 34
Ph.D. Candidate Alfredo Vidal Ceballos Creates Microscopic Images to Increase Awareness of Diseases Like Alzheimer’s
Alfredo Vidal Ceballos
s, a Ph.D. candidate in biochemistry, works in Professor
Shana Elbaum-Garfinkle’s lab at the Advanced Science Research Center at The Graduate Center, where he researches the role that material properties, such as viscosity and surface tension, play in regulating biomolecular liquids in the brain.
Vidal Ceballos
is also a Creative GC: Art Science Connect Research Fellow. The fellowship supports his project to create compelling microscopic images that increase understanding of what a disease like Alzheimer’s actually does to the brain. He recently spoke to The Graduate Center about his work and his academic career at CUNY, which began in 2012 when he moved from Mexico to enroll at Hunter College.
Waiting to Exhale: Students, Faculty, and Staff Reflect a Year After the COVID Shutdown
Megan Henriquez, Rod Hurley, Tracy Dennis-Tiwary, and Shawna Townsend
It has been a year since COVID altered life at CUNY, and life in general. Once we gathered in classrooms, hallways, and cafeterias. Now we gather largely on Zoom. Too many of us have lost loved ones and treasured colleagues or faced financial hardship and uncertainty, or both. More of us have had to change the ways we work, teach, learn, and spend time with families and friends.
To take stock of this year and what lies ahead, we invited Graduate Center students, faculty, and staff to share their experiences. A nursing Ph.D. student described how the 7 p.m. cheer made her feel. Our chief librarian helped kids find solace in cats. A student canceled her dissertation research trip and reconfigured her project.