Biology Major and Minor

“I feel like at a bigger school, I’d be very intimidated to talk to my professor in that way, where we can be vulnerable with each other. Having that small faculty-to-student ratio makes it very comfortable to have conversations like that.”

When your research and teaching focuses on microbes, you can work anywhere—and Dr. Ola Olapade, professor of biology, has covered a lot of ground. His own research has taken him to the confluence of the Indian and Atlantic oceans in South Africa, Mayan ruins in Mexico and Belize (where he studied the impacts and contributions of microbes to the degradation and deterioration of stone monuments), Morocco, the Great Lakes and more.

Dr. Richard Youle, ’74, came to Albion College with the hope of teaching one day. But when the research bug bit him, he embarked on a career as an NIH researcher that has spanned more than four decades. This year, his research into Parkinson’s Disease has earned him the prestigious Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.

Gregory Eastwood knew since he was young that he wanted to be a doctor. Now, a career that has included work as a gastroenterologist and a bioethicist has led him to write a book about the issues involved with the end of life. “I think it is important to be aware of the process of dying and how it plays out in contemporary America,” he says.

To paraphrase an old saying, Annika Markovich’s summer is water to drink—but that’s about it. “We get only one freshwater shower a week and there are no laundry machines, so everything is washed with salt water from the ocean,” the senior biology major says. “It was a large adjustment, but I got used to it. It is just a very different lifestyle than the one we live in the States.”

Zerick Dill, ’20, is Albion’s first recipient of a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Exceptional Research Opportunities Program (EXROP) Fellowship. The award provides Dill with a 10-week internship this summer at one of the country’s top research institutions, along with a stipend, housing and travel expenses.

Kylie Heitman, ’17, has been a horse lover and rider since she was five and she has long dealt with the stress many horses experience when their daily routine is interrupted. Specifically, she wanted to know if an essential oil, in this case lavender, when diffused into the air could reduce stress in horses by suppressing their heart rates and cortisol levels.

Albion College biology professor Dale Kennedy’s love of birds led her to a career of studying the feathered creatures. Her passion resulted in her recently received William and Nancy Klamm Service Award from the Wilson Ornithological Society, one of the oldest ornithological societies in America.

Kenny McCosh, ’17, and Monica Brugnoni, ’17, will be part of a group of 26 Albion students who will volunteer their time and efforts for the Global Medical Brigades to help needy residents in Nicaragua. “It’s almost a cliché to say that this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” McCosh said.

On May 10, somewhere deep on the Appalachian Trail, Tom Poirier celebrated 30 years of sobriety all by himself. It was perhaps the perfect irony that on that momentous spring day he found himself acknowledging the vanquishing of one challenge in the place where he was attempting to embrace another. For Poirier, trekking the Appalachian Trail had found a place in his psyche for decades, an opportunity that haunted and dared him.