My.EOU Portal Current Students Faculty/Staff
Apply Visit Request Info Give Now
By Katy Nesbitt
The recipient of University of Oregon’s Doctoral Research Fellowship, Jeremy Bard, ’16, is finishing his doctorate in chemistry this spring and just secured a teaching position for fall. Supportive undergrad faculty and involvement in an EOU club helped set him on his path to success.
A La Grande native, Bard said he hadn’t taken chemistry in high school and was considering a career in math or engineering. He said the enthusiasm of the chemistry faculty and the nature of the topic quickly piqued his interest
“When I took general chemistry at Eastern it kinda clicked,” Bard said.
He said he went on to finish the general chemistry sequence. For his efforts the faculty recognized him as the department’s Outstanding Freshman Chemist.
Bard said, “I liked chemistry and the award made me realize I was able to succeed in it.”
The faculty is credited for exciting his interest in chemistry, but it was the Chemistry Club that started his path of mentoring and teaching.
“Growing up in La Grande taught me that even little actions can help an entire area,” Bard said. “EOU was one of the first places I could find an established way to do that—through the Chemistry Club.”
Club members travel to schools in small cities and towns throughout the intermountain regions of Oregon, Washington and Idaho. As a senior at EOU, Bard became the club’s president.
“Chemistry and science are daunting topics for a lot of people and perceived as too hard to even pick up,” Bard said. “People are afraid or intimidated, but if you can break down that barrier something difficult can be a lot of fun, too.”
The fun part of chemistry, according to Bard, was the opportunity to work with kids on experiments and demonstrations—methods he said broke down the science into digestible bites.
Eager to continue his journey with chemistry, Bard went directly into U of O’s doctorate program. In his first year, he worked as a teacher’s assistant for labs and lectures, creating a heavy load on top of his own studies and lab hours.
“My first year was a huge hurdle, but EOU was a great launching pad and taught me how to recognize challenges and overcome them,” Bard said. “I became confident and learned how to finish something I put my mind to, which created a good attitude for grad school. It’s tough, especially the first year, where you are learning chemistry at a much deeper level, and much more is expected of you.”
Beyond what he called a marathon of learning and teaching, Bard said much of his time revolved around research, primarily working in a lab making molecules that emit light. The applications of his work, he said, are in cell imaging, detecting certain molecules in soil and water and can be used from medicine to agriculture.
Most of the time, Bard said, what he mixes together doesn’t work. He described his research as iterative.
“There’s a difference between something not working because I did it wrong and when the chemistry simply doesn’t work,” Bard said. “Synthetic research can turn out 10 different ways even if you do something exactly the same way.”
His induction into the world of research was fast and furious—becoming the most senior grad student on his research project in just his second year at UO.
“I was given a lot of responsibility and there was an expectation to be a true chemist in a research lab, as well as navigating the stresses of grad school,” Bard said.
The recipient of good mentoring, Bard said leadership skills were quickly instilled in him—before long he was a mentor to many undergraduate and first-year graduate students. Squeezed into his intense schedule, Bard also spent two years on a grad student advocacy group gathering the opinions of his colleagues through surveys.
“I have spent much of my time mentoring so the new students have a less rocky start than they may otherwise,” Bard said. “When there were rumblings that the student body was unhappy and wanted something changed I would bring it up to faculty.”
Bard organized a virtual panel discussion last fall with three fellow alumni, all of whom are now in grad school, to talk to current EOU students about their research and grad school experiences.
Combining leadership, research and a passion for mentorship, Bard began applying for faculty positions while preparing to defend his thesis.
“I want to end up at a place similar to EOU,” Bard said. “I enjoy the combination of research and service. I see it as ‘paying it forward’: making new chemists for prospective research, much like the faculty at EOU did for me. They inspired me and encouraged me—that’s the kind of position I want to be in, where I am allowed to have the creative freedom that research entails and pursue an idea that is your own.”
In March, Bard found out he’ll get to do just that as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Roanoke College in Virginia.
« A living legacy | Two pals, four paws and one dream »