Carnegie Mellon University

Kevin J. Gilmartin and Barbara L. Bessey

April 02, 2021

A Legacy of Love

By Tina Tuminella

“Because of the rats” is not a common answer to almost any question, let alone “Why did you choose a graduate degree program?”

But for CMU alumna Barbara Bessey, it was very much about the rats. In fact, she chose her undergraduate university primarily because it offered a rat program.

“You should have seen the look on my mother’s face,” she remembers.

Barbara studied physiological psychology, which — most memorably — involved a lot of experiments with rats to study their behavior.

Both of Barbara’s parents taught physics — her father at Carnegie Tech and her mother at Margaret Morrison Carnegie College — but it wasn’t her parents that influenced Barbara’s choice of CMU for her graduate education. Again, it was all about the rats.

She applied to a rat and monkey summer program between her junior and senior year. After that six-week intensive program, Barbara declared CMU “the one for me.”

Mutual Respect Leading to Love

She fondly remembers her labs and the scientific principles she learned in them, but what she most appreciated about her CMU education was the people she got to know, including her future husband, Kevin Gilmartin. She was one of only three female students, but she always felt included. And her professors and senior classmates would help her if she needed anything.

“If I wanted to do something, they would help me find a way to do it,” she recalls.

Kevin and Barbara became friends over a mutual love of music, and she found ease in their conversations and time together.  “It was natural that we became a couple,” Barbara says. “We both looked at each other and found something good in what we saw.”

They studied different subjects — physiological psychology for her and cognitive psychology for him — but shared a great appreciation for what the other did.

The Psychology Department community helped her find a research opportunity with the Pittsburgh Zoo. She got the chance to work alongside a chimpanzee, a memorable and educational one-on-one experience.

That support spurred Barbara years later to establish an endowed psychology scholarship, in honor of Kevin, who died in 2011.

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