SCIENCE CENTER PROGRAMS

The Science Center links the Bronfman Science Center with the Thompson Biology, Chemistry, and Physics Laboratories, Schow Library, and the Morley Science Laboratory wing; Clark Hall completes the Science Center complex. Serving as the home for astronomy, biology, chemistry, computer science, geosciences, history of science, mathematics and statistics, physics, and psychology, this facility fosters interdisciplinary interaction among all members of the Science Division. This interaction is facilitated through the sharing of core research equipment and services; through interdepartmental programs; and, to a great extent, by the spatial juxtaposition of faculty with common interests regardless of their departmental affiliation. Several Science Center activities promote this further by specifically encouraging discourse among scientists at Williams. This is carried out in a number of ways, including informal faculty presentations at Tuesday lunches (during both the summer and academic year), the maintenance of a weekly science calendar, the publication of the Report of Science at Williams, and the faculty lectures sponsored each semester by the local Sigma Xi chapter.

The programs based in the Science Center encompass the coordination of grant proposals to federal agencies and private foundations, the distribution of more than $400,000 of research funds annually, and the allocation of space within the science division. In 2009-2010, individual Williams College science faculty received over $1,000,000 from active federal grants for the purchase of equipment and support of research projects. Faculty and student research projects and summer research opportunities supported by internal divisional funds, as well as those supported by external grants, are detailed below and in the various departmental reports.

Summer Research Fellowships were awarded to 173 individuals at Williams in 2010. Many of the summer research students are entering their senior year and beginning work that will lead to senior honors research. A large number of research fellowships were awarded to rising sophomores and juniors who were getting their first taste of independent research. The summer research program also included students from outside Williams. Students from a variety of other institutions were sponsored by an NSF/REU site grant to the mathematics and statistics department and worked with Williams College faculty members. As participants in a chemistry department exchange program, two students from the University of Leiden worked with chemistry professors at Williams while two Williams chemistry majors worked with professors at the University of Leiden.

The summer is a relaxed, yet concentrated time for research, without the competition of course work to interrupt collaborative efforts between students and faculty. In addition to the actual research experience, the Science Center sponsors a weekly Tuesday luncheon featuring a member of the faculty lecturing on current research, an annual science division picnic, and a poster session at the end of the summer where summer research students present their results.

Support for summer research, a $3700 stipend for 10 weeks plus housing, comes from a variety of sources including College funds, external grants to individual faculty, foundation grants, and endowed fellowships provided by generous donations from alumni and friends of the sciences. The Wege-Markgraf endowment, gifts from Peter Wege and the Class of 1952 in honor of J. Hodge Markgraf ’52, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, supports summer research fellowships in chemistry. The John A. Lowe III 1973 fund also supports summer research fellowships in chemistry. The Betty and Lewis Somers ’48 Student Summer Internships Fund and the Thomas Synnott fund support summer research fellowships in physics. The Williams Bicentennial Psychology Scholarship Fund supports summer research fellowships in psychology. The Whitehead Scholarship Fund, a gift from John Whitehead ’67 to provide an opportunity for Williams students and faculty to interact with scientists at the prestigious Whitehead Institute, supports summer research fellowships for Williams biology students to spend the summer doing research at the Whitehead Institute. The Arnold Bernhard Foundation Endowed Summer Science Fellows Program, made possible by the generosity of Jean Buttner, Williams Trustee from 1982-1997, and the Class of 1951 Summer Research Fellowship fund supports summer research fellowships across the division.

Full or partial federal, foundation and alumni support for summer student stipends was provided by the following sources:

A luncheon is provided every Tuesday for participants in the Summer Science Research Program. Faculty members from the science departments give talks on their research at these lunches, with opportunity for discussion afterwards. The speakers this summer were:

Dr. Anne Skinner, Chemistry Department

Safety - Your 2009 Stimulus Project
Professor Allison Pacelli, Mathematics and Statistics Department

Algebraic Number Theory, an "Ideal" Subject
Professor Hank Art, Biology

Hopkins Forest Permanent Plot Study: A 75-year Window on the Past and Future
Professors Garrity and Adams, Mathematics and Statistics Department

The Great Calculus Debate
Professor Oyinda Oyelaran

Investigations into the Link between Blood Type and Severe Malaria
Professor Mihai Stoiciu, Mathematics and Statistics Department

The Hofstadter Butterfly and the Transition from Order to Chaos
Professor Frederick Strauch, Physics Department

From Cuckoos to Qubits: Quantum Computing by Exciting Oscillators
Professor Brent Heeringa, Computer Science Department

To P, or to NP: that is the question
Professor Karen Kwitter, Astronomy Department

Why Astronomy Is Good for You: the Cosmic Origins of Carbon, Nitrogen, and Iron

During the academic year, the science faculty meets for lunch on Tuesdays in the Science Center to discuss matters of interest to the sciences as a whole, and to hear informal reports on faculty research and other science developments. The following talks or discussions were held during 2009-2010.
Professor Paul Karabinos, Geosciences Department

Enhancing 3-D Visualization of Structural Geology Concepts
Professor Bill Dewitt, Biology Department

How Do Living Things Keep Time? Very Accurately
Professor Stewart Johnson, Math/Stat Department

Sex Ratio Dynamics in Small Populations

Indonesia: Exploring Science on the Other Side of the Globe
Dr. Anne Skinner, Chemistry Department

The Mysterious Middle Stone Age
Professor Mihai Stoiciu, Math/Stat Department

Fractal Sets of Fractional Dimension: Interpolating Between Points and Lines
Professor Betty Zimmerberg

Landscapes of the Mind: Teaching Science with Art
Professor Dan Lynch, Biology Department

Discussion of College Finances and Faculty Compensation
Professor Amanda Beeson, Math/Stat Department

Did Escher Know What an Elliptic Curve Is?
Professor Hank Art, Biology Department

The Great Serengeti Migration
Professor Dan Lynch, Biology Department

Update from the Faculty Compensation Committee
Professor Tom Garrity, Math/Stat Department

A Thermodynamic Classification of Real Numbers
Professor Laurie Heatherington

Psychotherapy Research: The Science of the Art
Professor Chip Lovett, Chemistry Department?

Designing Drugs to Combat Antibiotic Resistance in Bacteria
Dr. Steve Souza, Astronomy Department

Monitoring Hot Emission-line Stars
Professor Jay Pasachoff, Astronomy Department

Recent Solar Eclipses
Professor Oyinda Oyelaran, Chemistry Department

Synthesis and Evaluation of Glycodendrimers as Inhibitors of a Malaria Parasite Protein

In its twenty-third summer in 2010, the Summer Science Program (SSP) provides an enriching and intensive five-week immersion in science, mathematics, and English for a talented group of science-oriented incoming Williams students. SSP targets members of groups that have been historically underrepresented in the sciences, and the goal of the program is to promote and encourage continuing participation by SSP students in science and science related studies at Williams and ultimately careers in research science and science education.

Nineteen students took classes in chemistry (including a major laboratory component), biology, mathematics and English (literature and expository writing). Although not replicas of Williams academic year offerings, the Summer Science Program classes are taught at a college level, thus introducing participants to the rigors and demands of college academics. In addition to the regular classes, the students participated in geology laboratory and field experiments. They also engaged in a variety of extracurricular activities including the Williamstown Theatre Festival and a weekend trip to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Enthusiasm for the program has been high. Participants have taken full advantage of the opportunity to study at Williams in the summer. As a result of the Summer Science Program, their academic year experiences have been successful and many of the students have continued their studies in science or mathematics. A significant number of former participants have returned to campus in the summer as full-time research students in science and mathematics, have become tutors for the Summer Science Program, or have secured positions elsewhere in science research institutes.

Professor Charles M. Lovett, Director of the Summer Science Program, taught the chemistry lectures and Professor David P. Richardson conducted the laboratory sessions. Professors Olga R. Beaver and Susan Loepp taught the mathematics component. Professor Daniel Lynch taught the biology lectures. Professor David L. Smith taught the English sessions and Professor David Dethier conducted the geology in-the-field laboratory.

The Summer Science Program has been funded primarily by Williams College as part of its commitment to encourage the participation of traditionally underrepresented groups in the sciences. Since 1991, SSP has received additional funding from a biological sciences grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. This grant contributed support for several SSP components, and has provided summer research stipends for SSP students after their first year at Williams. Special thanks go to the many science faculty and students of Williams College who, during the summer as well as during the academic year, have contributed to the success of the program and of its participants.

The Williams College Sigma Xi Chapter has played an active role on the Williams Campus since it was founded as the Sigma Xi Club in 1969. Sigma Xi is a national society honoring and encouraging research in science. The Williams Chapter also sponsors outreach programs designed to stimulate interest in science among grade school, junior high and high school students. The officers for 2009-2010 were Professor Jay M. Pasachoff of the Astronomy Department, President, and Associate Professor Lois Banta of the Biology Department, Secretary/Treasurer.

This year, as usual, the local Sigma Xi chapter sponsored two excellent sets of talks directed to broad community audiences. In the fall, we were honored to have as our special guest astrophysicist Michelle Thaller, Assistant Director for Communication at the NASA Goddard Flight Center. In her first lecture, “Galileo’s Heretical Observations: A Story of Personalities, Politics, Science, and Dogma,” Dr. Thaller wove history, art, and social commentary together in her retrospective look at both the lore and the historical facts surrounding several prominent astronomers of the Renaissance. Her second lecture, “On the Precipice of a New Universe: A Review of NASA’s Discoveries of the Last Decade,” brought to life the seemingly unfathomable dimensions of new areas of astrophysics research. Dr. Thaller’s research interests include hot stars, colliding stellar winds, binary star evolution, and evolved star companions. She divides her professional time between astronomical research and public education, and has made numerous television appearances on the History, National Geographic, and Discovery channels.

In April, Joan Edwards, the Washington Gladden 1859 Professor of Biology, spoke about her research in botanical explosions. The first of her pair of lectures, entitled “Darwin’s Abominable Mystery,” explored the puzzle of why flowering plants diversified rapidly and explosively over the course of evolution and became the dominant plants in most terrestrial habitats. In the second lecture, “In the Blink of an Eye: Ultra-fast Plants,” Professor Edwards showed how she and her students have used high-speed images (up to 100,000 frames per second) to capture ultra-fast plant movements such as pollen dispersal. These videos are used to analyze the biophysics of these movements and to study how they relate to the extraordinary diversity of flowers. Both sets of lectures were followed by the usual lively and well-attended receptions in the Thompson Biology Building lobby.

The Sigma Xi Chapter sponsored a High School Science Award for a student at Mount Greylock Regional High School, Williamstown, MA, in recognition of a high level of motivation and accomplishment in science courses. This year the award was given to Marta Liesl Kowitz.

One of the primary purposes of Sigma Xi is to recognize graduating science students who have demonstrated exceptional ability and promise for further contributions to the advancement of scientific research. These students are elected as associate members of Sigma Xi and are then inducted into the society at a ceremony during commencement weekend. On Class Day, the chapter honored 49 newly elected associate members from the class of 2010 in a ceremony in the Bronfman Auditorium. The names of this year’s honorees are listed below and detailed descriptions of the research projects of these students are presented in the student abstracts section of this report. Continuing the astronomy theme of our programming this year, we were privileged to have Stephanie Wilson, a local native and honorary degree recipient this year, join us at the ceremony. A NASA astronaut, Wilson has been aloft three times on the space shuttle and presented a banner she has flown into space for Williams College.