Official Story
Bianca Jones Marlin is a neuroscientist and postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University. She holds a PhD in neuroscience from New York University, and dual bachelor degrees from St. John's University, in biology and adolescent education. Bianca is currently mentored by Nobel Laureate Dr. Richard Axel, and investigates transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, or how traumatic experiences in parents affect the brain structure of their offspring. As a graduate student with Dr. Robert Froemke, she examined how the brain adapts to care for a newborn and how a baby's cry can control adult behavior. Her graduate research has been featured in Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Scientific America and Discover Magazine's "100 Top Stories of 2015". She is the recipient of the 2016 Society for Neuroscience Donald B. Lindsley Award, which recognizes the most outstanding PhD thesis in the general area of behavioral neuroscience and was named a STAT Wunderkind in 2017. She is currently a Junior Fellow in the prestigious Simons Society of Fellows. A native New Yorker, Dr. Marlin lives in Manhattan with her scientist husband, Joseph, their daughter, Sage, and their cat Santiago Ramon y Cajal, who is named after the famed neuroanatomist. Dr. Marlin's research program aims to utilize neurobiology and the science of learning to better inform both the scientific and educational community on how positive experiences dictate brain health, academic performance, and social well-being.
Unofficial Story
Bianca was born in Queens, New York. Her mother immigrated from Guyana, South American and met her dad, a Queens native. Being a black American, her father faced life-threatening racism growing up, racism that prohibited him from attending his high school graduation because of death threats sent to him and his family from students in their predominately white school. After a few years in Queens, her parents moved to Central Islip, Long Island. There, her mother delivered newspaper for Long Island's "Newsday" company at night and her father started a home improvement company. One of the most tangible memories Bianca recalls of her childhood is staying up all night in the dusty newspaper depot warehouse to collate the separate paper sections for the Sunday delivery, then jumping in the car to deliver them to hundreds of neighbors before sunrise. Albeit a memory that was not always pleasant, she knows it taught her hard work and dedication to any trade. Out in Long Island her parents had more children and also started the process of being foster care and adoptive parents - a decision that influences Bianca's research program to this day. She graduated from the local high school and applied to only two colleges. Counselors at that time suggested being enrolled into the local community college, but she had heard of St. John's University through a summer mail pamphlet, and applied there as well. She had an extremely competitive resume at this stage, but was told schools such as NYU and Harvard would be too big and expensive to attend - advice that disappoints her to this day. She went to St. Johns where she dual majored in biology and adolescent education in hopes to provide better guidance in education than her failing high-school was afforded. During her first semester she scored a scholarship. During her second semester, she lost it. Her GPA fell below the necessary 3.3 as she also struggled with a nearly 3.5 hour commute to and from class. (She got kicked out of housing for not paying the deposit on time.) She was able to get her studies in order and started working in a lab once her scholarship was reinstated. She was accepted into a summer undergraduate research program at Vanderbilt University and based on her research there, she was invited to apply to a place called MIT for the undergraduate research. She hadn't heard about it before, and didn't see the allure until she watched a movie called "21", where smart MIT undergrads used card counting to beat the casino system. She decided to apply. She worked in the lab of Dr. Martha Constantine Paton. These two experiences solidified her decision to combine skills in childhood education and biology and apply to grad school in Neuroscience. Bianca was the first in her family to graduate with a bachelor's degree. She also graduated president of her campus, amongst other prestigious recognitions. She applied to three grad schools (which probably wasn't a good idea), but got interviews to all 3. She was rejected from Princeton and decided UCLA was too big of a jump for this small-town New Yorker. She decided to attend New York University. Knowing she had to pay for housing for the first few months of grad school, she worked at IHOP (one of her favorite jobs to date). During her first week in grad school, she was told by a classmate that she was only accepted because she was black - a comment that weighed over her for a large portion of her academic career. She was rejected from a rotation because she was told by the PI that there was "no space in the lab" only to have another student ask the same PI and be offered space in that same lab. She did 5 rotations, the final being that of the lab of Dr. Robert Froemke. He had just started at NYU and hadn't unpacked boxes yet. She struggled to pass classes and to get an intracellular recording from a single cell. It took four months to realize that she had been recording cells the whole time - they just didn't reflect the textbook electrical signature she had expected. That realization gave her a blast of confidence on all fronts - one that she has carried throughout her time as a scientist. She concluded that as we continue to learn more about our everchanging world - "The Standard" changes.