Program Faculty

×

Kate Huffer (they/them)

Kate grew up in Green Bay, WI before majoring in Neuroscience and Biological Chemistry at Dartmouth College. They then earned their PhD in Biology from the National Institutes of Health-Johns Hopkins Graduate Partnerships Program, where they studied sensory ion channels in in the lab of Kenton Swartz, PhD, at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, MD. Kate is particularly interested in what the structure of an ion channel can tell us about how it works and which drugs it might be sensitive to. They enjoy knitting, spinning yarn, and biking.

×

Deborah Keszenman (she/her)

Deborah Keszenman earned her MD from the Universidad de la Republica’s School of Medicine in Montevideo, Uruguay. Following her curiosity and desire of exploration of new areas, at an early stage of her medical studies she joined the Biophysics Department at the Medical School and started to do research in the area of DNA damage and repair. While working as a physician and teaching Biophysics at the Medical School, Deborah earned a MS and then a PhD in Biophysics in the area of Radiation Biology from the Universidad de la Republica–PEDECIBA. Deborah worked researching and teaching Biophysics at the Universidad de la Republica for more than 30 years, beginning as an honorary lecturer. She is a research member of the Project for Development of Basic Sciences PEDECIBA, Uruguay. In 2005, Deborah and her family moved to the United States where she continued her scientific career at the Biosciences Department at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York and in 2006 she became a Beam Line Scientist of the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory (NSRL). In 2015, Dr. Keszenman returned to Uruguay to join the Group of Biophysical Chemistry as Professor of Biophysics at CENUR Litoral Norte in Salto, and to be in charge of the Environmental and Medical Radiation Biology Laboratory. Her scientific research is focused towards problems of radiation biology with potential application in clinical Medicine and with impact on the human-environment interaction. Deborah has specialized in the study of genomic responses to nitro-oxidative stress induced by UV, ionizing radiation, anticarcinogenic agents and pesticides at the molecular and cellular levels. Her research group is also studying the role of natural products on protective and adaptive responses to genomic damage induced by physical and chemical agents present in the environment. Her group is actively involved in the transference of all this basic knowledge to society to empower a sustainable development. Debrorah teachers in the Environmental Water Lab Strand.

×

Yakira Teitel (she/her)

Yakira's path to medicine and public health has been winding and untraditional. She has lived and worked in Mexico, Central America and Peru; taught in after school programs and high schools in the San Francisco Bay Area; and led community mural projects in all of these places. Yakira received her MD from the University of California San Francisco and her MPH from Columbia University in New York. She trained in Family and Community Medicine at UCSF/San Francisco General Hospital and then worked for the Department of Public Health in San Francisco doing primary care, HIV care and adolescent medicine before moving to the Hudson Valley in 2021 and starting at Bard in 2022.

Yakira teaches in the Science Communication for Public Action Strand. Yakira's section will explore the power of public health communication to enact social change towards health equity and environmental justice. Students in Yakira's section will examine specific case studies of scientists, academics, artists and community members working together to address issues facing their communities and then use these lessons to propose projects of their own.