Science Research Experience
As a graduate student at Hunter College of the City University of New York I synthesized the topics science, technology, design and art with the traditional divisions of anthropology. Exploring these ideas as an undergraduate at Hunter I worked as a scientific programmer in physical science at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA where I worked on a project to help quantify the planetary trace (Greenhouse) gases methane and CO .
While completing my masters I worked an evolutionary morphology (anatomy) laboratory and completed an independent study in primatology on Tarsier behaviour. These experiences became my foundation in structural and dynamic movement behaviour. This work, coupled with my interests in the extreme environment of space, led me to work as a research assistant, in the summer of 1992, doing energetics experiments measuring the metabolic cost of generating force under extreme pressures in varying environments. With these interests and experiences I chose, for my masters thesis, a blind study from NASA on bone tissue mechanics. I selected the project for its possibility of aiding in the engineering of habitat environments that could regenerate an astronaut's bone on future Missions in space. Three years after entering graduate school I completed my M.A. in Anthropology (1993) with an A on my masters thesis and a 3.5 cumulative average. I wrote "Biology for Beginners" which was published in London and New York in 1995. My early design background in New York and Paris contributed to my success on many projects where I combined my design and science skills. I worked as; an industrial design intern at a biomedical industrial design firm, an exhibit specialist building animal habitats at an important zoological park, an assistant for important sculptors, was mentored by Louise Bourgeois and worked in studios in New York and Switzerland where I gained important three dimensional skills. And finally, in the year 2000, I returned to work in a neurobiology laboratory as a science imaging expert in a lab that focused on the photic response in biological clock. The experiences and techniques I learned brought me skills that have contributed greatly to my excellent abilities to do experimental research. They have proven to be invaluable in every laboratory in which I have worked on bio-mechanical structure and system mechanics. | As a visiting scholar and research associate at Cambridge University I worked on numerous projects involving motor control (neurophysiology), kinematics; mechanism and dynamical mechanical structure analysis and system mechanics on behaving invertebrates. After Cambridge, I worked in the Pacific, New England and Europe where I made significant discoveries and produced experimental data that allowed me to describe; bio-mechanical structures, kinematics, movement dynamics of behaving marine invertebrates on the micro level and, new mechanics and theoretical neural-motor mechanisms of marine cephalopods. My contributions extended to a bio-inspired robotic project sponsored by DARPA (The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) as well as mechanical structural design on the cellular level. It was during that time that my biology book was translated into Spanish and the original was available on six continents. It had been collected by libraries at; The National Geographic Society, The Smithsonian Institution, The Wellcome Trust in London and was on a reading list at Cambridge University in the UK.
When I was a young boy my greatest interests and highest academic achievements throughout elementary and middle school were in science and mathematics, with grades in the mid to high 90th percentile. While traveling to various laboratories to do research, I studied biomedical engineering design and complete calculusII. It was also a time when I made numerous visits to laboratories in Switzerland, England, France, The Pacific, California, New England and New York, At Stony Brook University as a Laboratory Lecturer I taught laboratory courses. I later received an appointment with the New York State Research Council as a Research Support Specialist, a post-doc level position in Bioengineering. From 2016 to 2018, I conducted important research on private projects in Science, Technology and Society, and Epidemiology. Wilson McCord, M.A |
Wilson McCord, M.A. 2011 NASA 1989 Cambridge University 2001 | Harvard University 1992 Hawaii 2002 |
Mr. McCord studied Anthropology with a concentration in Biological Anthropology. His Masters Thesis was a Space Medicine Research Project with AMES NASA on the Biology of Bone Adaptation to Stress Environments (on which he received an A). During the time when Wilson graduated with his MA from Hunter College, that Department of Anthropology was the best Anthropology Department in the United States. Students in the Anthropology Graduate Programs at Hunter were required to sustain a GPA equivalent or higher than 3.0 . The Anthropology Department also required each student to take 4 Anthropology core courses in Cultural Anthropology, Archaeology, Linguistics and Biological Anthropology as well as pass a written language examination where the student translated a page from an important research journal with a topic relevant to their studies in the language of their choice. The four core courses and their exams are the City University’s Graduate Anthropology Program’s equivalent to the Oral Examinations given in other PhD programs in the United States. Each core course must be passed with a B or higher. Wilson’s chosen language exam was passed in French and his GPA at the time of his Graduation was 3.41 / 3.5 if his graduate courses from Columbia University and the City University Graduate Center are taken together with his courses from Hunter College. In 1992 his summer research assistant appointment allowed him to contribute to Energetics(Metabolic Physiology) and Mechanics Experiments (background photo). |
Laboratory Skills |
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