On the path to research, teach, and curate

As a high school senior from the Miami area, Lauren Bartel ’26 knew about Harvard’s rich array of museums. She finally got to experience their collections in person after traveling to campus for Visitas, a welcoming event held every spring for those admitted to the College.

Bartel was so taken that she joined the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture’s (HMSC) student board as a first-year. The group creates opportunities for their classmates to engage with the University’s museums outside of the classroom. In the spirit of HMSC’s mission to enhance public understanding of and appreciation for the natural world, science, and human cultures, Bartel has helped host student-focused tours and events while designing programming that invites undergraduates into the collections.

“It is always so meaningful to see new faces and introduce students to the museums at Visitas and beyond,” Bartel said. “Some of the students ended up joining the board, just like I did.”

The integrative biology concentrator has brought the same level of commitment to her research. Under the guidance of Scott V. Edwards, Alexander Agassiz Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and curator of ornithology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, she completed a senior thesis that produced one of the first direct measurements of large-scale DNA mutations in any wild vertebrate. Based specifically on families of Florida scrub-jays, a striking blue bird endemic to Bartel’s home state, her thesis reveals how genetic change emerges across generations, advancing evolutionary theory and conservation biology.

“By directly measuring structural mutations in wild populations, we show how evolution can be read at its most intimate scale, where family histories illuminate genetic change and help conservation biology anticipate the future of threatened species,” Bartel said.

Over the past four years, Bartel has received more than 20 research grants and merit scholarships, including from the Museum of Comparative Zoology and the Harvard College Research Program. Her biology research has been published in two academic journals. As a first-year, she earned the College’s Veritas Award for outstanding student leadership. Her senior honors thesis won Harvard’s Bowdoin Prize for Undergraduate Essay in the Natural Sciences.

Bartel, who completed a secondary in social anthropology, has also served as president of the Harvard Undergraduate Design Collective, co-chair of several Harvard Art Museums lecture series, and a guest lecturer in a College humanities course on folklore and mythology. She works remotely, conducting research for major science exhibits, as an associate at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

But the HMSC student board, with its dodo bird logo, has been the cornerstone of her College experience. Particularly meaningful were her contributions to the group’s social media presence. “The student board Instagram account has been rewarding because it lets me engage in science and culture communication in a public-facing way,” Bartel shared. “I lead with my mind as a scientist, my heart as a humanist, and my soul as an artist. My ambition is to be a university professor, researcher, and science communicator — that sense of purpose shapes so much of what I do.”

Bartel brings “the energy and ideas behind our student board Instagram and elsewhere,” said Wendy Derjue-Holzer, HMSC Education Director and co-lead of the student group. “Lauren brings her whole self to projects, and we’ll miss her next year.”

“Her enthusiasm for the museums, the natural world, and Harvard is infectious,” added Ryan Wieboldt, who co-leads the student board with Derjue-Holzer and acts as visitor services student supervisor at HMSC. “I can’t wait to hear about all the amazing adventures Lauren has in the next phases of her life!”

This summer, Bartel will present at the Evolution 2026 and American Ornithological Society annual conferences and continue her work with Edwards, expanding her thesis into a manuscript for publication. In the fall, she will begin pursuing her M.Phil. in biological science at the University of Cambridge, where some of the world’s most distinguished biologists have studied.

“I still cannot quite believe I will be walking in the footsteps of alums Charles Darwin, Jane Goodall, and Sir David Attenborough — ​naturalists I have spent my whole life admiring,” Bartel said. “After Cambridge, my goal is a Ph.D. and an academic career that integrates university teaching, research, and museum curation.”