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Department Facilities

Departmental Facilities

The Department of Biology's facilities span across Barnard's campus and are available to students and faculty to support research and teaching. The department is home to two on-campus biodiversity learning sites — the Arthur Ross Greenhouse on top of Milbank Hall and the Sibyl-Levy ('38) Golden Ecological Learning Center on top of the Diana Center — and spans across the 9th through 13th floors of Altschul Hall. The site of faculty and staff offices, teaching labs, and research labs, our facilities in Altschul are also home to a digital microscopy lab, tissue culture room, core genetics lab, cold room, darkroom workshop, and a standard mouse room. The rooftop of Barnard Hall is home to Professor Jon Snow's bee hives.

Select one of the facilities below to read more about it.

Arthur Ross Greenhouse
Sibyl-Levy Golden ('38) Ecological Learning Center
Snow Bee Hives
Digital & Confocal Microscopy Labs
Core Genetics Labs
Biodiversity

The Arthur Ross Greenhouse

The Arthur Ross Greenhouse, dedicated on October 8, 1998, is a state-of-the-art plant growth facility built on the roof of Milbank Hall for Barnard's Department of Biological Sciences. It replaces and occupies the site of a greenhouse built in 1928 for Edmund W. Sinnott who taught at Barnard from 1928 to 1940 and went on to become the Sterling Professor of Botany at Yale. He performed his classic studies on the developmental genetics of squash in the Barnard greenhouse. Although the greenhouse was actively used for research and teaching by both faculty and students, as time went by, its antiquated heating, plumbing, and ventilation systems and deteriorating equipment and structure greatly limited its utility.

The new facility has a custom-designed aluminum and glass shell and fully computerized heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting, and watering systems to provide independent, automatic climate control. Space was reconfigured to provide a central corridor so that each room could be entered independently, a more accessible staircase, and, for the first time, a small passenger elevator to provide access for the disabled and to facilitate transport of plants and supplies. Both staircase and elevator open directly into the greenhouse complex.

There is a central "peaked" room that acts as a general public space and conservatory, housing the teaching collection. The conservatory is flanked by two pairs of research bays that provide dedicated space for specialized research. Opposite the growing spaces are an office for the greenhouse coordinator, and a potting shed. The complex occupies about 3,400 square feet with more than 2,100 square feet under glass.

Visiting Hours: Fridays 1 - 3 pm

For groups wishing to visit the Arthur Ross Greenhouse, please email the Greenhouse Coordinator, Nick Gershberg (ngershbe@barnard.edu)

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Biodiversity

The Sibyl-Levy Golden ('38) Ecological Learning Center

Topping The Diana Center is a green roof that in late summer is abuzz with pollinators (including our very own Jon Snow's honeybees!) that are visiting the roof's Pollinator Garden ⁠— home to beds of black-eyed Susans, deer-tongue grass, sky blue asters, and goldenrod. Plant life mainly from the Hempstead Plains plant community on Long Island and the Rocky Summit plant community in the Hudson Valley can also be found on this space as these grasses are used to growing under the types of harsh conditions that can exist for life on a New York City rooftop.

This garden space above Barnard's Diana Center was named the Sibyl Levy Golden ’38 Ecological Learning Center, thanks to her daughter’s thoughtful memorial to a woman whose passion for nature was well known and passed on to her. Committed to ecologic studies, Sibyl R. Golden says, “This green roof is a place of scientific investigation for both students and teachers. It provides a unique opportunity for students to do ecology field work directly on campus.” Visitors to the green roof, which parallels Broadway, can also enjoy the stunning views of both the Barnard and Columbia campuses.

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-Gold certified Diana Center was built with this green roof on top in order to help extend the life of the roofing membrane, to provide energy savings through the reduction of heat transfer through the roof, to limit rainwater surges destined for the overburdened sewer system, and to create valuable public green space on campus. Importantly, the green roof also provides Barnard students with a unique place to conduct ecological studies and experiments. Both environmental studies and biology students can use these facilities to conduct independent research projects as part of their senior theses.

Hilary Callahan, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Biology and director of the Arthur Ross Greenhouse, is co-director of the green roof along with her colleague Martin Stute, Professor of Environmental Science.

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close up of bees in a hive

Snow Bee Hives

Apis melliferra

Resident beekeeper and assistant professor Jonathan Snow investigates the molecular mechanisms of honey bee (Apis melliferra) disease. Students in the Biology department who conduct research in his lab collect and study these bees, which reside in colonies upkept by Professor Snow on the rooftop of Barnard Hall.

In BIOL BC1503 Introductory Lab in Cell & Molecular Biology, students have the opportunity to study honey bee anatomy and their alarm-response through dissection and the observation of their behavior in a specialized hive.

digital view of a mouse embryo

Digital & Confocal Microscopy Labs

Fluorescence Microscopy and Electrophysiology

The Digital Microscopy Lab (10th Floor, Altschul Hall) contains four workstations, each equipped with a Nikon compound fluorescence microscope and PhysioStation for cellular electrophysiology. Each workstation also has a digital camera and an associated software analysis program.

A high-resolution data projector is connected to all workstations, allowing students to view images from any of the microscopes (separately or simultaneously) on the screen in front of the lab. These workstations are used extensively in upper-level lab courses, and in student and faculty research.

Confocal Microscopy

The Confocal Lab (4th floor, Milbank Hall) contains a a Zeiss LSM 510 Meta confocal microscope. This state-of-the-art system offers students and faculty the ability to image a variety of fluorophores at high-resolution, and to reconstruct three-dimensional structures from obtained images.

close up of hands using equipment in the core genetics lab

Core Genetics Labs

Molecular Biology

Our Core Genetics Labs on the 12th and 13th floors of Altschul offer state-of-the-art instruments to meet all of your molecular biology research needs. Our faculty provide students with training, assistance, and technical expertise in order to help them acquire and analyze the highest quality data. Research instruments include, but are not limited to:

and many more!

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