Felicia Keesing

David & Rosalie Rose Distinguished Professor of the Sciences, Mathematics, and Computing

My research focuses on the ecology of infectious diseases in New York's Hudson Valley and in the savannas of central Kenya. I do a lot of research with undergraduate students at Bard College, who frequently find the answers to questions no one has ever asked before -- and often motivate me to take my research in entirely new directions. I love to teach, too. Over the years, my approach in the classroom has been transformed by my learning how to teach so that students practice doing rather than just listening.

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Current students

• Kate Cooper -- effects of climate change on freshwater eels in the Hudson River
• Eli McClatchy -- effects of soil type on the distribution and abundance of entomopathogenic fungi
  
• Beth Thomas -- an evaluation of global evidence for the presence of the bacterium that causes Lyme disease
• Nadia Russell -- geospatial patterns in the human incidence of Lyme disease in the United States
  

Some lab alumni

• Brian Allan
• Darcy Ogada
• Jake Goheen
• Michelle Hersh
• Marta Shocket
• Luke Henry
• Parris Humphrey
• Dylan Dahan
• Doug McCauley

Current collaborators

• Rick Ostfeld
• Kurt Vandegrift
• Barbara Han
• Pete Hudson
• Amit Kapoor
• Matt Junge
• Nicole Eikmeier
• Lily Reeves

Other contacts

• Bard biology faculty
• The Science Division at Bard
• Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies