Category: Interviews

Amherst College Science Center

Episode 10: Conversation with Apoorva Mandavilli

Hosts: ASN E-board On May 4th, 2021, Amherst STEM Network (ASN) hosted a conversation on science communications with Apoorva Mandavilli. As the Health and Science journalist for The New York Times, Mandavilli has been key in disseminating crucial information about COVID-19 this past year. Through this podcast, she answered questions regarding the rewards and difficulties…

Looking Forward: Professors Sally Kim and Marc Edwards’ Microscope Grant

This article is published in collaboration with The Amherst Student. Professors Sally Kim and Marc Edwards of the Biology Department received a Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) grant recently from the National Science Foundation for the acquisition of an integrated Zeiss 980 microscope with Airyscan 2 and Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy (FCS) in order to create an…

Metal and Making Change: Professor Jeeyon Jeong’s CAREER Grant

This article is published in collaboration with The Amherst Student. Assistant Professor of Biology Jeeyon Jeong was recently awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER). The CAREER award provides faculty early in their career with five years of funding for research and educational resources. It is considered…

A New Approach to Data Analysis: Chloe Wohlgemuth Thesis Spotlight

The following was adapted from an interview between Chloe Wohlgemuth ’22 and Max Hauschildt. Could tell us a bit about yourself? Why did you decide to do a senior thesis? I am a computer science and physics double-major. Aside from one AP class, I had never taken computer science before coming to Amherst. Coming to…

Following the Script: Kelly Huang Thesis Spotlight

Kelly Huang ’22 is a mathematics and psychology major from Arcadia, California. Her thesis explores the relationship between anger scripts and psychological adjustment, specifically looking at depression, anxiety, and stress. A script is an assumption or expectation that people have in their heads about how different kinds of interactions are supposed to go. These expectations…

Traversing Biology at Amherst with Kindness: An Interview with Professor Clotfelter

Ethan Clotfelter has been a professor of biology at Amherst College for eighteen years. Some of his courses Form and Function, Animal Behavior, Adaptation, and the Organism, and Tropical Biology. What is your degree in and what was your educational path to achieving it? I graduated from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill…

Reaching for the Stars: William Balmer Thesis Spotlight

William Balmer is a senior astronomy and physics double major. They took time out of their busy end-of-term schedule to talk about their thesis with the astronomy department: measuring the orbit and brightness of a young star embedded in a disk of material around another young star. The following was adapted from an email interview…

Environmental Justice: An Interview with Professor Ashwin Ravikumar

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The Roots of Environmental Justice Professor Ashwin Ravikumar is an assistant professor of Environmental Studies. His research interests involve deforestation in the Amazon. This semester, he is teaching a class entitled “Environmental Justice” about the intersections between environmentalism and other forms of social justice. I sat down with him (over Zoom) to talk about environmental…

The Moss Quantitative Center: An Interview with Director Dr. Innes

With final exams coming up, students are looking for all the extra help they can get. This help can be found at the Moss Quantitative Center, where undergraduate tutors and staff can help with STEM subjects. The Q Center has an interesting history, as Dr. Innes explained: “It actually was created, in its earliest form,…