Bobbie Reed was chosen as the 2017 Distinguished Alumna by her alma mater, Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Pennsylvania. The award was presented on October 15 as part of the 50th reunion celebration for the Class of ’67. Bobbie graduated that year with a B.S. in Chemistry.
She continued her education, earning a MS and PhD in organic chemistry from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. She completed postdoctoral studies in analytical chemistry and pharmacology at the University of North Carolina and the Research Triangle Institute before taking a teaching position at the State University of New York.
In 1972, she was appointed a research scientist at the M.I. Bassett Hospital, a teaching hospital affiliated with Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. During her 30 years there, she received numerous grants for her research in protein chemistry. She published over 50 peer-reviewed scientific papers and presented her work at many national and international conferences.
She oversaw the laboratory component of several national research studies on diet and heart disease. She was the honored as an American Heart Association Fellow and participated in the Seminar on the Epidemiology and Prevention of Cardiovascular Diseases in 1994.
She was elected to the Board of Directors of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry in 1998 and in that role helped launch a website designed to help consumers understand their laboratory tests.
She served on the editorial board of that website for 10 years, watching it grow to serve millions of users and seeing it translated into 13 different languages as it was introduced in 15 different countries. The site (labtestsonline.org) remains one of the premier websites for medical information.
While working at Bassett Hospital, she encouraged both high school and college students by sponsoring summer programs for them to work in her lab. At Lebanon Valley, she started an endowed program to provide funding for students to work in the college research labs during summers. At the October reunion, she had a chance to meet the first student sponsored by the Reed Summer Scholarship.
A Sun Lakes resident since 2003, you can find her busy in retirement. Bobbie teaches classes and is on the governing council of New Adventures in Learning – a lifelong learning program geared for retirees. She has served on numerous IronOaks HOA committees and is one of the 2016 Crystal Award winners who helped launch The Crystal Card Project which recycles greeting cards to raise money for charity.