Susan Perkins

 

Susan Perkins is the Martin and Michele Cohen Dean of Science at the City College of New York. She is a parasitologist who has been working in the Caribbean for almost 30 years, studying the malaria parasites of the lizards that inhabit the islands. 

 

Susan is a native of northern New York State, but has been living in New York City for more than 20 years. A lifelong lover of animals and nature, she studied Biology at the State University of New York in Potsdam and currently is a trustee on the College’s Alumni Board. After receiving her Bachelor’s degree, Susan obtained her Ph.D. at the University of Vermont where she first began her work on parasites (and took her first trip to Saba in 1996!). 

 

Before Susan moved to City College, she spent 15 years as a Curator of Microbiology at the American Museum of Natural History. She was the co-curator of the exhibit The Secret World Inside You, which highlighted the role of the human microbiome and a Professor in the Museum’s Richard Gilder Graduate School. Work in her lab has focused on malaria parasites of not just lizards, but also birds, turtles, bat and deer as well as studies of other parasites including canine heart worm and trypanosomes as well as microbiome studies in wild animal hosts. She has conducted fieldwork across the Caribbean but also in Africa, Australia, and Indonesia.

 

She is the author of more than 80 scientific publications as well as the book Welcome to the Microbiome.

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Presentation: Monday, October 17th

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