Message from the Chair

Welcome!

The Department of Health Sciences at Boston University is committed to excellence in research and teaching. We provide the solid training that leads to a competitive edge in careers in health professions and biomedical research. The department is located in the Sargent College on the Charles River Campus of Boston University and offers programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels in: physiology & neurobiology, nutrition and health science.  I encourage you to peruse the details of these programs on the individual program web pages.

Our programs and faculty are growing. A search in the last year for a new tenure-track Assistant Professor in the field of computational biology was highly successful and resulted in the recruitment of Dr. Jason Bohland from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.  Notably, he is the lead author on a recent, highly cited, plan for a large group coordinated effort to determine complete brain-wide maps of neural connectivity for model organisms including the mouse, macaque and eventually humans (PLoS Computational Biology 2009). Dr. Bohland was recruited to enhance the HP/AAP programs, as well as BU-wide computational programs. His interest in neuroinformatics of the brain encompasses an interest in the auditory system and will allow him to bridge several sectors of the BU campuses. Collaborations are planned with the Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences Department of Sargent, the trans-campus Neuroscience program, and the CNS Department. Additionally, a new adjunct faculty member, Dr. Claus C. Hilgetag, from the School of Engineering and Science, Jacobs University in Germany and an internationally known expert on computational neurobiology has joined the department and will be an active “virtual mentor” in the AAP program.

Our strong, funded, research program is a hallmark of our department. In 2008/2009, the department had a total of $5,309,902 available to run the programs of our research-active faculty members. Research areas in the department include cellular and molecular physiology, cytoskeletal biology, protein-protein interactions, apoptosis, cognition and neural information processing, mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases, as well as obesity, preterm labor, infectious diseases and cardiovascular disease research.

The department includes 85 full and part-time faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and technical and administrative staff. The size of the department facilitates individualized mentorship and research collaborations.  Many of our faculty hold joint appointments in departments on the medical campus.  We have an active and involved group of adjunct faculty and affiliated clinicians who co-mentor our graduate students and provide practicum training for our undergraduate students. The Health Science program is the new home of the undergraduate Public Health minor for BU. In addition, our highly regarded Nutrition clinical training program operates out of the Health Sciences Department in partnership with area hospitals.

For further information beyond that contained in these web pages you are welcome to contact myself or the appropriate Program Director: Dr. Robbie Durschlag (rdurschl@bu.edu, nutrition programs), Dr. Eileen O’Keefe (ebokeefe@bu.edu, Health Science program), or Dr. Judy Schotland (schotlnd@bu.edu, physiology & neurobiology programs).

Kathleen G. Morgan
Chair, Department of Health Sciences