Category: News

Amherst College Science Center

“Building Equity”: A Talk with Prof. Janice Hudgings

telescope

In the early weeks of Fall 2016, Prof. Janice Hudgings of Pomona College tasked the sophomores in her Modern Physics course with identifying the scientists whose work was presented in the course textbook. The results: of the credited scientists, 99% were male, and 98% were white. These statistics are only the beginning. Since the late…

Planetary cradles: UMass/FCAD colloquium speaker Feng Long presents ALMA view of early solar systems

solar system

Solar systems like ours begin as pancakes of dust and gas left over after a star forms. Over time, the dust within these “circumstellar disks” coagulate into planetesimals that will eventually form planets like the Earth. During this early stage of solar system evolution, these circumstellar disks are called “protoplanetary disks” because planets have not…

The Math and the History Behind the Archimedean Solids

In his colloquium “Polyhedra: Plato, Archimedes, Euler,” Professor Robert Benedetto explains the mathematical history of the Archimedean solids – which include geometric forms like the truncated icosahedron, very reminiscent of a soccer ball but with flat faces instead of imposed on a spherical surface – and the proof that defines this set of 13 polyhedra….

“Merely Bystanders”: Professor Sanderson’s Lecture on the Psychology of Courage and Inaction

Would George Floyd still be alive if J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao took action against Derek Chauvin violently asphyxiating Floyd for eight whole minutes? Would countless numbers of women have been saved from sexual harassment if Quentin Tarantino spoke out against the acts of Harvey Weinstein that he was very much aware…

Introducing the McGeoch Fellows!

Named in honor of Professor McGeoch, who passed away in 2019, the ,,McGeoch Fellows assist the computer science department by holding TA hours, grading assignments, and serving as a support system for other students. This month, I caught up with Lesley Zhang ‘21, Jessica Yu ‘22, Maggie Drew ‘22, and Conrad Kuklinsky ‘21. Zhang works…

Food and Chemistry: An Interview with Professor O’Hara

Pat O'Hara

Professor O’Hara is the chair of the Amherst College Biochemistry-Biophysics department. She investigates aspects of the intersection of food and human biochemistry in her lab, as well as other topics of research. Outside of the lab, Professor O’Hara engages with questions relating to food in other, fascinating ways in her scholarship and teaching. I spoke…

Mathematics is like Minecraft, filled with dark caves and unexplored worlds

Ivan Contreras

In his talk “Stranger Things (In Math)”, Professor Ivan Contreras sets out to explore the ‘Nether’ of mathematics: Non-commutative Algebra. In our daily lives, many of our basic operations are commutative, which means the order of the components does not affect the result. For example, 2 + 3 is the same as 3 + 2,…

Inclusivity and Diversity in STEM

On September 15th, the Biology Steering Committee held a student-led discussion on ways to make the STEM departments at Amherst more inclusive. The event was an opportunity for students to reflect on their experiences navigating STEM courses at Amherst and to call for change. The discussion consisted of a student panel with varying majors and…

Supporting PEERs in Biology: An Interview with Prof. Josef Trapani

Joe Trapani

Prof. Trapani joined Amherst College in 2011. He is an Associate Professor in the Biology Department and also contributes to the Neuroscience program. He has chaired the Biology department since July this year. His research involves the use of the model organism larval zebrafish to look at how hair cells encode information which leads to…

“What We Think”: Psychology Lecture on Children’s Social-Emotional Development During COVID-19

On September 17th, 20 students hopped onto a Zoom call to learn about how COVID-19 has impacted children’s social and emotional development. Professor McQuade of the psychology department was joined by Amherst alum Adaora Achufusi ‘13. Specializing in play therapy, Achufusi works in New York as a treatment coordinator at a therapeutic preschool for children…