Luke Bamburoski '19
Luke Bamburoski ’19, a Brockport, NY, native, was one of the first applicants to Geneseo’s interdisciplinary neuroscience major. Strategic as an incoming student, he selected psychology as his major (he’s also an Edgar Fellow) giving him a running start for neuroscience that started accepting majors at the end of his first year.
“It’s a very new, small, intimate program and I’ve been able to study all the parts of all that I’ve wanted to study,” Bamburoski said with a huge grin. “I’ve been able to integrate the natural and social sciences in an interesting way. And it’s exciting because there’s so much potential in how the field can progress.”
Since his first year, Bamburoski has worked as a research assistant in the Human Cognition and Memory Lab of Jason Ozubko, an assistant professor of psychology at Geneseo. “I came here because I wanted to get involved with research. That was one of the big appeals — the strength of the program given its size,” Bamburoski said.
The senior says much of what he learned came from the first-hand experiences he had working with Ozubko. “I’ve learned how to program, how to write grants — I didn’t think I’d be doing that as an undergrad. And I didn’t think I’d be working on a project funded by the National Institutes of Health [NIH] and playing an active role in the project development,” Bamburoski said. “The range of experiences I’ve had speaks to Geneseo’s uniqueness.”
Bamburoski says that he’s developed a broad base at Geneseo thanks to his liberal arts courses and “rigorous science” work. “I feel very prepared moving forward in a multitude of possibilities.”
Beyond his courses and lab work, Bamburoski served as a Resident Assistant during his sophomore and junior years. “I was nervous at first. I was responsible for three hundred freshmen in Onondaga Hall — I was barely a year older than they were,” he confessed, wide-eyed. “I learned that when you form personal relationships with people, it’s your biggest asset to handling incidents or when something goes wrong. When you build community it really is that positive relationship that can help solve major problems,” he said. “I became more calm and was calming when I advised students to take things day-by-day.”
Bamburoski recently concluded serving two years as the president of Alpha Phi Omega — a co-educational service fraternity. The fraternity grew by a third under his leadership to about 150 members.
“It’s been great in helping me to understand what it means to be a servant-leader, and how that’s morphed into my professional philosophy,” he said. “I see myself as a servant first, who is devoted to the organization and in tune with the efforts of the people whom I’m responsible to lead and represent. With that type of relationship, I’m able to have influence with them based on the respect I’ve earned,” Bamburoski said. “I met my best friends there.”
Bamburoski’s affinity for both research and service has motivated him to pursue educational experiences that will help him accelerate the development of medical therapies from the lab bench to the patient’s bedside. He’s currently applying for master’s programs in business analytics and he’s interviewing for life science business consulting positions. “I hope that my experience and future instruction will allow me to contribute to a multidisciplinary approach to solving complex problems within the healthcare industry.”