Beverly Blazar

Beverly A. Blazar
bblazar@wellesley.edu
Faculty emerita
B.A. Brown University; M.A. Harvard University; Ph. D. Brown University

Beverly A. Blazar

Associate Professor Emerita of Biological Sciences

Retired professor whose research and expertise was focused on immunology.


Beverly A. Blazar, Associate Professor of Biological Science, is a specialist in immunology with particular interest in viruses and the immune response to them. She  was a member of the Department of Biological Sciences at Wellesley College.  She received her Bachelor’s degree from Brown University, a Master’s degree from Harvard University and her Doctoral Degree in Biology from Brown University.  While at Harvard she was a fellow of the National Science Foundation.  After receiving her Ph.D. she was a postdoctoral fellow  in the Department of Tumorbiology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden where she received support from the Fogarty International Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. (Before joining the Wellesley faculty in 1986 she was an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School).

At Wellesley, her teaching responsibilities included immunology, cell biology, cellular physiology, and seminars on cell-virus interactions. Additionally she supervised numerous honors students for their research projects in viral immunology. She was Biology Department Chair from 1994-1997.  She also served on numerous college committees including: Budgetary Affairs, International Study committee, Extramural Graduate fellowships, Faculty Awards and the  Medical Professions Advisory Committee.   Her research focused on the Immunology of virus infection and in particular Human B Lymphocytes with their abnormal growth properties following infection with Epstein-Barr Virus.  Her research was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the American Cancer Society, the Cancer Research Institute, the Concern Foundation, Aid for Cancer Research and the Leukemia Society  While at Wellesley she was a visiting professor in the Department of Infectious Disease at the Dana Farber Cancer Center in Boston, MA and a visiting professor in the Department of Microbiology at the Hebrew University-Hadassah Hospital Medical School in Jerusalem, Israel.   Dr Blazar’s professional affiliations include the American Association of Immunologists, the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society for Microbiology and the Wellesley Chapter of Sigma Xi.  She has published numerous scientific articles and as well as multiple book chapters.

She loves traveling and visiting interesting places in the world. She and her husband have lived in both Sweden and Israel for extended periods of time.  Her recreational interests have included skiing, scuba diving, tennis and swimming  which she enjoyed as long as she was able to participate.  She has three children and six beautiful granddaughters.

After retirement she moved to Rhode Island where she became very active in Hadassah, serving as President of the Rhode Island Chapter from 2007-2010.  For five of the past seven years during the winter Professor Blazar and her husband participated in a Hadassah volunteer program in Israel in which their major goal was to facilitate the use of conversational English by Israeli High School seniors.