From September 2021 to June 2022, Barnard celebrated all things related to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The College launched the Barnard Year of Science (BYOS) with the 2021 Convocation ceremony on September 14, the traditional start of the academic year.

Barnard’s expert faculty, its symbiotic relationship with Columbia University, and its location in New York City makes it singularly positioned to offer unparalleled opportunities to women who will become tomorrow’s STEM leaders. The College has also increasingly incorporated STEM curricula and programming into its liberal arts education, providing students with interdisciplinary knowledge and skill sets that they can carry beyond Barnard.

Barnard Year of Science also exemplified the College’s commitment to establishing itself as a leading educational institution in STEM and the arts. The mission continues to be to help students develop the intellectual drive required to excel, with an eye toward the emergence of new fields, new ideas, and new technologies. 

Young women interested in the sciences are choosing Barnard more than ever before in the College’s 132-year history:

• 34% of the Class of 2021 were STEM majors, compared with about 26% nationally.
• 36% of Black, Latinx, and Indigenous scholars from the same class year, who are significantly underrepresented in the field, majored in STEM at Barnard, compared with about 23% nationally.
• 10% of each Barnard graduating class enroll in medical school.
• Barnard ranks #9 in the U.S. in graduating women who go on to earn doctoral degrees in STEM-related fields.
• In summer 2021, 243 Barnard students conducted scientific research with faculty from the College, Columbia University, or elsewhere in the City through Barnard’s 10-week Summer Research Institute (SRI).
• Since its launch, SRI — which includes one of the largest gatherings of women scientists in NYC — has facilitated and funded research opportunities for more than 650 students.
• 84% of recent Summer Research Institute (SRI) participants are pursuing an advanced degree or are working in a STEM field, and between 2014 and 2021, participation in SRI increased by over 100%.
• Columbia student enrollment in Barnard’s natural science* courses increased 48% between 2010 and 2019.
  * Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Environmental Science, Physics & Astronomy, Psychology
• Many Barnard alumnae have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
• Our two newest programs — Neuroscience and Behavior and Computer Science — are among Barnard’s top 10 most popular majors. Barnard has moved from having just four CS majors in 2013 to currently more than 100 declared CS majors.
• Barnard’s science faculty have been awarded more than $10 million in grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health in the past few years.
• Barnard is one of the only colleges to require every student, regardless of major, to take a course on engaging critically with data — quantitative, qualitative, and spatial.
• 60% of Barnard’s STEM faculty is female.

» Download the fact sheet

Jacqueline K. Barton ’74
National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Medicine
Pioneer in the study of DNA chemistry; recipient of a MacArthur “genius” Fellowship; first woman to chair the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology; recipient of the National Medal of Science. 

Joan S. Birman ’48, faculty member emerita
National Academy of Sciences
Mathematician specializing in low-dimensional topology. She has made contributions to the study of knots, 3-manifolds, mapping class groups of surfaces, geometric group theory, contact structures, and dynamical systems. Birman is currently research professor emerita at Barnard.

Jacqueline E. Darroch ’68 
National Academy of Medicine
Nationally and internationally respected researcher, writer, and public speaker in reproductive health behavior, services, and policies; Senior Fellow at the Guttmacher Institute.

Carol Dweck ’67
National Academy of Sciences   
Groundbreaking psychologist behind mindset theory; Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University.

Helene D. Gayle ’76
National Academy of Medicine
Medical doctor and CEO of The Chicago Community Trust, one of the nation's leading community foundations; for almost a decade, Dr. Gayle was president and CEO of CARE, a leading international humanitarian organization.

Karen I. Goldberg ’83, P’22
National Academy of Sciences
Chemist, currently the Vagelos Professor in Energy Research at the University of Pennsylvania; most known for her work in organometallic chemistry and catalysis; Barnard trustee.

Ellen R. Gritz ’64 
National Academy of Medicine
Psychologist, nationally and internationally established leader in cancer prevention and control research; emerita professor and (former) chair of the Department of Behavioral Science, and Olla S. Stribling Distinguished Chair for Cancer Research at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Rochelle Reibman Hirschhorn ’53
National Academy of Medicine 
Leader and role model in the advancement of women in medicine and genetics; Research Professor and Professor Emerita of Medicine, Cell Biology, and Pediatrics at NYU Langone Medical Center.

Evelyn Hu ’69
National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Engineering
Tarr-Coyne Professor of Applied Physics and of Electrical Engineering at Harvard University; serves on the editorial board of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; recipient of the 2021 IEEE/RSE James Clerk Maxwell Medal.

Dusa McDuff, faculty member
National Academy of Sciences
Mathematician who works on symplectic geometry; first recipient of the Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize in Mathematics and a Fellow of the Royal Society in the UK; the Helen Lyttle Kimmel ’42 Professor of Mathematics at Barnard, currently teaching "Introduction to Higher Mathematics" as well as courses in geometry and topology.

Elizabeth M. McNally ’83
National Academy of Medicine
The Elizabeth J. Ward chair and director of the Center for Genetic Medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine; uses genetics to define pathways that mediate heart and muscle degeneration leading to cardiomyopathy, heart failure, and skeletal myopathies.

Elissa L. Newport ’69
National Academy of Sciences
Professor of neurology and director of the Center for Brain Plasticity and Recovery at Georgetown University; specializes in language acquisition and developmental psycholinguistics.

Elena Ottolenghi Nightingale ’54 
National Academy of Medicine
Academic administrator, geneticist, educator; distinguished career at the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the Carnegie Corporation; Adjunct Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics, George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences.

Joan V. Ruderman ’69
National Academy of Sciences
A cell and developmental biologist; Professor emeritus at Harvard Medical School and Lecturer at Princeton University.

Susan C. Scrimshaw ’67 
National Academy of Medicine
Medical anthropologist focused on gender, race, ethnicity, and culture and their impact on public health; following a faculty career at Columbia University and UCLA, served as president of Simmons College and The Sage Colleges.

Barbara J. Stoll ’71 
National Academy of Medicine
Pediatrician and internationally known champion of pediatric health; served as the first woman dean of McGovern Medical School, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).

*Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy and completeness of this list. Kindly notify the Office of Development and Alumnae Relations of any errors or omissions.

Ruth T. Gross ’41 +
National Academy of Medicine
First woman to receive an endowed professorship at Stanford when she was named the Katharine Dexter and Stanley McCormick Memorial Professor of Pediatrics; pioneered general pediatrics at Stanford School of Medicine.

Eva J. Neer ’59 +
National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Medicine
Revolutionized the study of cell biology; one of the first women to be named a full professor at Harvard Medical School and first tenured female professor in the Department of Medicine; recipient of the Basic Research Prize from the American Heart Association and the Excellence in Science Award from the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. 

Helen M. Ranney ’41 +
National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Medicine
Physician-scientist who pioneered research in hemoglobin genetics; first female chair of an American department of medicine at University of California-San Diego; first female president of the Association of American Physicians and American Society of Hematology. 

Ora Mendelsohn Rosen ’56 +
National Academy of Sciences
Cell biology researcher specializing in the study of insulin’s influence on cell growth.

Myriam Paula Sarachik ’54 +
National Academy of Sciences
Experimental physicist; joined the faculty of City College of the City University of New York as an Assistant Professor of Physics (1964); promoted to Professor (1970) and Distinguished Professor (1995).

Anne A. Scitovsky ’37 +
National Academy of Medicine
Nationally recognized for careful patient-by-patient analysis of cost and treatment patterns, decision points, and long-term trends; her research conducted at the Palo Alto Medical Research Foundation impacted both public and private health care policies.

+deceased
*Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy and completeness of this list. Kindly notify the Office of Development and Alumnae Relations of any errors or omissions.

Stephanie J. Barron ’72 
Senior curator and department head of modern art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), where she has been responsible for more than 100 exhibitions

Jacqueline Kapelman Barton ’74  
Pioneer in the study of DNA structure; recipient, MacArthur "genius" Fellowship; first woman to chair the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology

Helen M. Berman ’64
Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University; founder and director of the Nucleic Acid Database; former director of the RCSB Protein Data Bank

Joan S. Birman ’48
American mathematician specializing in low-dimensional topology; made important contributions to the study of knots, 3-manifolds, mapping class groups of surfaces, geometric group theory, contact structures, and dynamical systems; currently research professor emerita at Barnard

Carol Dweck ’67   
Groundbreaking psychologist behind mindset theory; Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University 

Nancy Farriss ’59 
Historian; professor emerita at the University of Pennsylvania; specializes in the colonial history of Mexico; founded the Latin American Cultures Program at Penn in 1986

Katherine E. Fleming ’87 
Deputy provost and vice chancellor, New York University, as well as Alexander S. Onassis Professor of Hellenic Culture and Civilization in the Department of History at NYU; permanent professeur associé in the Department of History at the École Normale Supérieure, Paris

Ellen Futter ’71 
President of the American Museum of Natural History; president of Barnard College 1981-1993; youngest person ever to assume the presidency of a major American college

Susan Gal ’70 
Mae & Sidney G. Metzl Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology, Linguistics, and Social Sciences at University of Chicago; director, Center for Eastern European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies
 
Lynn Garafola ’68 
Professor of dance at Barnard; dance historian, critic, and the author of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and Legacies of Twentieth-Century Dance

Helene Gayle ’76
American doctor; CEO of the Chicago Community Trust, one of the nation's leading community foundations

Nancy Gertner ’67
Former United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts; professor of practice at Harvard Law School

Karen Goldberg ’83, P’22
American chemist, currently the Vagelos Professor of Energy Research at University of Pennsylvania; most known for her work in inorganic and organometallic chemistry; Barnard trustee

Susan R. Goldman ’70 
Distinguished professor of psychology and education in the University of Illinois at Chicago’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; founding co-director of UIC’s Learning Sciences Research Institute

Rebecca Goldstein ’72 
Author; former Barnard professor who taught courses in philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, the rationalists, the empiricists, and the ancient Greeks; recipient of a MacArthur “genius” Fellowship and the National Humanities Medal 

Ursula Goodenough ’64
Professor emerita of biology, Washington University in St. Louis, where she engaged in research on eukaryotic algae

Maria Hinojosa ’84 
Mexican American journalist; anchor and executive producer of Latino USA on National Public Radio; founder, president, and CEO of Futuro Media Group

Evelyn Hu ’69
Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering at Harvard University; reviewing editor at the journal Science; recipient of the 2019 IEEE Andrew Grove Technical Field Award

Frances Kamm ’69 
American philosopher specializing in normative and applied ethics; currently the Henry Rutgers University Professor of Philosophy and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University; the Littauer Professor of Philosophy and Public Policy Emerita at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government; professor emerita, Department of Philosophy at New York University

Helene Kaplan ’53
Of counsel to the firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP; served in the not-for-profit sector as counsel or trustee of many scientific, arts, charitable, and educational institutions and foundations

Darcy B. Kelley ’80
American neurobiologist; Weintraub and HHMI Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University

Linda K. Kerber ’60 
May Brodbeck Professor in Liberal Arts & Sciences at the University of Iowa; teaches courses in gender and legal history

Dorothy Y. Ko, faculty member
Professor of History at Barnard; cultural historian who specializes in the study of gender and body in early modern China

Helen Longino ’66 
Clarence Irving Lewis Professor of Philosophy, Emerita at Stanford University; argued for the significance of values and social interactions to scientific inquiry; written about the role of women in science; central figure in feminist epistemology and social epistemology

Susan Lowey ’50
American biophysicist researching the structure and function of contractile proteins; professor, Department of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics at the University of Vermont

Elizabeth McNally ’83
Elizabeth J. Ward Professor of Genetic Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago; uses genetics to define pathways that mediate heart and muscle degeneration leading to cardiomyopathy, heart failure, and skeletal myopathies

Elissa L. Newport ’69
Professor of neurology and director of the Center for Brain Plasticity and Recovery at Georgetown University; specializes in language acquisition and developmental psycholinguistics

Sigrid Nunez ’72 
Author of eight novels, including A Feather on the Breath of God, The Last of Her Kind, Salvation City, The Friend (New York Times bestseller; 2018 National Book Award winner), and, most recently, What Are You Going Through

Jessie Ann Owens ’71 
Distinguished Professor, Renaissance Music, History of Theory, Early Modern Studies, Emerita, University of California, Davis

Marjorie G. Perloff, Ph.D. ’53 
Sadie Dernham Patek Professor of Humanities, Emerita, Stanford University; teaches courses and writes on 20th- and 21st-century poetry and poetics, both Anglo-American and from a Comparatist perspective, as well as on intermedia and the visual arts

Anna Quindlen ’74, TE
American columnist and novelist; third woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for commentary (1992)

Joan V. Ruderman ’69
American molecular and cell biologist; professor emerita, Harvard University; visiting senior biologist at Princeton University

Kim Lane Scheppele ’75 
Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International Affairs in the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University; her work focuses on the intersection of constitutional and international law, particularly in systems under stress

Susan Stamberg ’59 
Nationally renowned broadcast journalist and special correspondent for NPR; first woman to anchor a national nightly news program; winner of every major award in broadcasting 

Twyla Tharp ’63 
Award-winning choreographer; recipient, MacArthur “genius” Fellowship 

Judith Weisenfeld ’86
Agate Brown and George L. Collord Professor of Religion at Princeton University; African American religion scholar

Irene J. Winter ’60 
Professor emerita, retired William Dorr Boardman Professor of Fine Arts, Harvard University; art historian, working primarily on archaeological materials of the ancient Near East

+ deceased

** This list includes all currently known members. If a member is missing, please contact kmartine@barnard.edu.

Barnard students and faculty collaborate with a range of research institutions, including but not limited to:

• Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
• Environmental Health Sciences (EHS) at Columbia University
• Columbia Mailman School of Public Health
• Columbia University, Nevis Laboratories
• American Museum of Natural History
• National Museum of Mathematics (MoMath)
• New York Academy of Sciences
• Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum
• The Skyscraper Museum
• Center for Architecture
• Rose Center for Earth and Space
• New York Aquarium
• The Lower East Side Ecology Center
• SIMS Municipal Recycling
• Museum of Illusions
• NASA
• American Museum of Natural History
• City University of New York
• Harvard Medical School
• Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
• New York University Langone Health
• Weill Cornell Medicine