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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
Updated: Oct 16, 2020 On September 8th and 15th, the Physics and Astronomy Department colloquium showcased the summer research of 21 Amherst students during a series of “Flash Talks.” These three-minute presentations gave the students the opportunity to demonstrate their newfound knowledge and share their summer experiences. Despite COVID-19, students worked at a variety of labs…
What’s the one thing that STEM students obsess over for a whole summer, spend eons in the lab trying to figure out, and lose hours of sleep over? Data collection. And yet what’s one thing that STEM students put off doing until their poster presentations, slapping together a few graphics in Photoshop and calling it…
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,…
On June 10, many SURF labs postponed that days lab work and instead educated themselves on the racism within STEM and defined a plan to commit to antiracist practices moving forward. These labs were among the over 5,000 scientists that stopped business as usual as part of the nation-wide #shutdownstem event. #Shutdownstem is, as defined…
Despite the cancellation of numerous summer internship programs across the country due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Amherst College Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) will still take place remotely, leaving us to wonder how this new platform might change the program. In the words of Jess Martin (the Administrative Director of the Science Center) “The…