“Boaz is one of the very best undergraduates I have taught in my 35 years as an academic,” says History Professor Bert Hansen of recent graduate Boaz Adler (’11). The undergrad history major met Hansen in the professor’s upper-level elective course The History of Medicine. There Adler first encountered examples of mid-20th-century comic books that depicted, in superhero fashion, the lives of important scientists. Hansen collected and later examined these popular children’s magazines in his book Picturing Medical Progress from Pasteur to Polio (Rutgers University Press, 2009).
“No one had written about the slightly later Spanish-language Mexican comic books,” says Hansen of his collaboration with Adler and of what would become “Stories of the Great Chemists in Spanish: Children’s Comic Books in Mexico,” the cover article for the Spring 2012 issue of Chemical Heritage magazine. “The project was fully 50-50 from start to finish,” says Hansen of their collaboration.
Adler returns Hansen’s high regard. “I admire Professor Hansen’s ability to draw together materials from the different areas he has studied over the years,” he says. “His nuanced input on various issues has helped shape my academic and professional careers.”
In fact, Baruch has Hansen to thank for Adler’s return to the College to earn a Master of Public Administration degree in health policy and analysis. Upon graduation in 2013, Adler hopes to secure a position in a government organization affecting public health.
—Diane Harrigan
Read the online version of Hansen and Adler’s article “Stories of the Great Chemists in Spanish”
Adler’s collaboration with Hansen has borne additional scholarship. In fall 2012, Adler’s article “Illustrative Lives in Spanish: Mexican Comic Books About Scientists as Inspiration for Science Education” was published in The International Journal of Comic Art.