Dr. Kassandra Ford
The Avid Birder and Postdoctoral Researcher
A portrait of Dr. Kassandra Ford with a wood duck selected for banding.
Dr. Kassandra Ford successfully defended her PhD dissertation, “Mosaic Evolution of Craniofacial Morphologies in Apteronotid and Mormyrid Weakly Electric Fishes,” in summer 2021. She then flew to Switzerland to begin a short-term postdoctoral research position at the University of Bern. In April 2021, the National Science Foundation also awarded a postdoctoral research fellowship in biology, which began in June 2022 at George Washington University.
Portrait of Dr. Kassandra Ford with her spark bird, the American Robin. Illustrated by Daniel J. Middleton.
Kassandra Ford was born in San Antonio, Texas, on March 30, 1993. Her family moved to Green Bay, Wisconsin, where she grew up. Kassandra often went camping during childhood, and she enjoyed playing outdoors. Her love of nature began with those experiences and led to her desire to enter the field of biology. But like many other aspiring black biologists of her generation, Kassandra believed the only career open to her was veterinary medicine.
She attended Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School, Vincent T. Lombardi Middle School, and graduated from Southwest High School in 2011. While in college, she realized she could get a PhD in Biology and conduct research for a career. Kassandra spent four years at the University of Wisconsin pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Genetics as a Chancellor’s Scholar. During that time, she gained three years of scientific research experience. During her undergraduate studies—which included a class that focused on animal husbandry—Kassandra realized the veterinary path was the wrong one for her. She set her sights on biological research instead.
Dr. Kassandra Ford receiving her doctoral diploma from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2021.
Initially, Kassandra considered pursuing a master’s degree, but her desire for a biology doctorate led her to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She completed her PhD in Environmental and Evolutionary Biology in 2021 under advisor Dr. James Albert. Her research focused on head and skull shape evolution in electric fishes from the tropics. Her time in Louisiana also resulted in her love of birds.
I spent many weekends birding, hiking, and participating in bird banding. It was these interactions that introduced me to some of the other amazing black birders in the U.S.”
Kassandra has since established herself as an ichthyologist (a biologist who studies all aspects of fish biology), a biomechanist (one who studies the movement in living things), and a functional morphologist (a person who studies the form and shape of organisms). Upon completing her postdoctoral research in Bern, Switzerland—where she studied the evolution of African cichlid fishes—Kassandra plans on moving to Washington, D.C., to begin her postdoctoral research position at George Washington University, which will also focus on electric fishes. Elaborating on her plans for the future, Kassandra stated:
“Most of my influences or mentors over the years have been incredibly influential and helped me get to where I am today. But I plan to stay in academia and become a professor who teaches and performs research so that I can be a mentor to future students who look like me. I want those students to see someone who has been successful and done what they want to do, but who also looks like them.”
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This article appears in 12 Modern Black Birders.
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Tykee James has been a member of the birding community since his late teens, and he helped organize the first #BlackBirdersWeek in 2020.