Category: Campus

Amherst College Science Center

Klara Matuszewska ’26 Wins at the Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Awards

A woman with dyed pink hair talks to another woman in a red sweater in a cavernous room with an electronic poster board propped up between them.

By Ryogo Katahira Klara Matuszewska ’26 won a Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Award for 2024. The award is to “recognize exemplary research by undergraduate and graduate students” and is selected by the American Astronomical Society (AAS). Matuszekska is a physics and astronomy double major from Warsaw, Poland and works in Professor Daniella Bardalez Gagliuffi’s research…

Nobel Prize Winner Moungi Bawendi Lectures at Amherst College

Moungi Bawendi, Nobel Prize winner

On Friday, April 5, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner Moungi Bawendi lectured at Amherst College. The lecture was held in Lipton lecture hall and was titled “Quantum magic and quantum dots: a synthesis unlocks a nano-world of opportunities.” Bawendi opened his talk by explaining how electrons have different properties at the quantum level.  “So…

Amherst Math Research: SURF and REUs from the Faculty Perspective

An aerial shot of a sunny room with windows in the background. Students mill about posters on eisels set atop a gray carpet.

Photo by Maria Stenzel Article by Olivia Fann As prospective math majors may have noticed, a certain department was notably absent from 2024 SURF opportunities. This year’s lineup of nine disciplines and 36 total labs participating in Amherst’s Summer Science Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF) did not include any members of the math faculty, raising some…

The Two-Holed Donut?! Prof. David Zureick-Brown Presents a Smorgasbord of Open Questions in Number Theory

A two-holed donut sits against a tan background. The light glints off the glaze.

By Bibi Hanselman a2 + b2 = c2. Whether it’s a distant high school memory or it has found its way into your physics homework somehow, there’s no denying that the Pythagorean theorem — timeless and profound, seared into all our memories — is practically a cultural touchstone in addition to a mathematical one. On…

ASN Interviews Famed Science Writer Ed Yong Ahead of LitFest

Man in printed shirt gazes into camera for formal portrait

By Kyle Hur and Nora Lowe Ed Yong is a science journalist and the author of two New York Times bestsellers. He has received national recognition for his science writing, including winning the Pulitzer Prize in explanatory journalism and the Victor Cohn Prize for medical science reporting. The Amherst STEM Network had the pleasure of…

Professor Alex Sushkov’s Odyssey Into Dark Matter and Precision Measurement

The Bullet Cluster. Splotches of blue and magenta against a black background.

Cover image courtesy of ESA: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2007/07/The_Bullet_Cluster2 Article by Olivia Fann and Fernanda On October 17, 2023, the bottom floor of the Science Center was filled with professors and students enjoying refreshments and conversation. It was time for the weekly Physics Colloquium, a public talk given by a visiting scholar on a topic relevant to their…

Eli Luberoff, CEO of Desmos, Visits Amherst

A screen grab of Desmos graphing online with an oblong 3D shape shaded red.

By Ryogo Katahira On October 6, a man in his thirties wearing a hoodie and jeans entered a mechanics course classroom in the Science Center. He glanced at the blackboard with its simple energy diagrams while students and professors filed in. His demeanor was entirely casual, but he was the subject of the highly anticipated…

Exploring Generative AI in Business, Data Science, & Emerging Technologies

A robot shakes hands with a human.

(Cover Image by rawpixel.com on Freepik) By Albina Jambulatova Muratovna  In a world driven by technology and innovation, the intersection between generative AI, data science, emerging technologies, and entrepreneurship is a captivating frontier that promises to revolutionize various industries. Recently, Phil Edmundson, an Amherst alumnus and the founder of Corvus Insurance Holdings, shared his insights…

Can Math be Magical? A Mathemagician Shows How

A flow diagram: The letter N has an arrow pointing up toward N+X and down toward N-X. The resultant for the top is funneled into subtracting X2 from N2-X2, resulting in an isolated N2. The top text says, "WHY? Algebra: (N+X)(N-X) = N2-X2.

By Bibi Hanselman and Bryan Shi On October 16, the Science Center lobby buzzed with a lively atmosphere, packed with students enjoying snacks as they huddled around several of their peers and watched them pull off a variety of card tricks. But among these performers was the true star of the show: Dr. Arthur Benjamin,…