Bianchi was a volunteer in the Emergency Room at Albany Medical Center.

When Drew Bianchi enrolled at the University at Albany four years ago, he admits he “didn’t have a clue” what he wanted to do with his life. That was before he spent half of his junior year living in a tent and carrying out independent research in the rain forest of Madagascar.
Now, as his undergraduate career draws to a close, Bianchi knows he will eventually return to one of the world’s developing countries as a medical doctor.

“Madagascar was what influenced me to pursue medicine. It’s one of the poorest countries of the world, and yet so beautiful,” said Bianchi, a Presidential Scholar from Brooklyn with a 3.90 overall Grade Point Average.

In a cooperative project with the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Bianchi lived in the field and studied medicinal plants in Madagascar’s Ranomafana National Park as a member of Stony Brook’s Institute for the Conservation of Tropical Environments. The research, which he carried out under the tutelage of the Institute’s Patricia Wright, a nationally known primatologist, and Elizabeth Balko, another Stony Brook anthropologist, focused on the medicinal uses, population densities and frequencies of occurrence of certain plants, most of them unique to Madagascar. One highlight of the research was Bianchi’s interview with the local ombiasy, or witch doctor.

“It was a great experience because I was able to conduct my own research on the flora and fauna of Madagascar,” said Bianchi, adding that 85 percent of the plants and animals on the island 250 miles off the southeast coast of Africa are found nowhere else in the world. “What I discovered after I got there is that I really fell in love with the people and the culture.”

After studying at the University of Sydney during the spring semester of his junior year, Bianchi returned to UAlbany last fall for his senior year. To gain some practical experience, he worked last spring as a volunteer every Thursday afternoon in the Emergency Room of Albany Medical Center. It turned out to be a reality check. “The first time I went, we had three trauma patients. One of them was a stabbing victim who later died,” he said. Bianchi remains committed. This fall, he plans to complete his undergraduate requirements in chemistry and physics in Columbia University’s Post-baccalaureate Premedical Program, then apply to medical school.

Bianchi is a big jazz fan and collector of vinyl records, mostly jazz favorites from the 1960s and ‘70s. He is also a skilled guitar player and drummer, as well as a disc jockey. He relaxes by putting on his headphones to “listen to some beats.”

— Christine McKnight