ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ professors know that many first-year students can feel vulnerable, lost, and isolated. Those feelings, while normal, can deny students what they came to college for: the collective joy of learning.  

This was on Professor of Mathematics Meredith Greer’s mind last year as she set out to create a new First-Year Seminar, a linchpin course taken by every new ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ student. 

She wanted to find a way to create a joyful classroom experience to unite her students, enhance their learning, and teach them some math. Serendipity delivered part of the answer: robots.

While volunteering in the Lewiston Public Schools during her 2022–23 sabbatical, Greer had a chance encounter with an educator who was preparing to use robotics to teach math lessons. That led to a win-win collaboration between Greer’s First-Year Seminar last fall and a team of Lewiston technology coaches. 

Thanks to the Lewiston tech team, Greer’s students got to use robots in their math class — which was a blast — and the Lewiston educators got to test important ideas about the benefits in teaching math with robots.

For example, they found that doing math-based activities with robots, because of the element of play, helps make students more resilient in the face of failure. “They are more willing to try again and again. They are more persistent,� said Jennifer LaBonte, who coordinates the technology coaches in the Lewiston Public Schools.

In developing her First-Year Seminar, Greer sought to create a space where playing games, enjoying crafts, and creating art would mean working together as members of a supportive team. 

“Some of the goals were academic. Some of them were community building,â€� said Greer. “I wanted us to enjoy our time together and be creative and just really talk about how we learn, how they learned things in the past, and, as they transition to college, how does that help them moving forward?â€� 

While on her sabbatical, Greer volunteered as a parent with the Lewiston Public Schools Math Standards Design Team to help align new math curriculums with state standards. She participated in an activity that taught math lessons using new robots purchased in 2022 with part of a $180,000 federal grant from COVID relief funds. Greer knew instantly the robots could have a powerful impact in her new course. That night, Greer and LaBonte formed their partnership.

In addition to using coding in robotics, Greer’s seminar did what its title — “Learning Math Using Crafts, Coding, and Gamesâ€� — promised. 

Specifically, Greer led her students in an investigation of “how humans think about math at age 5, age 12, or age 18 and beyond� through various activities including card games, crochet, origami, and age-appropriate computer coding.

The card games taught probability, statistics, and the concept of modular arithmetic. Crafts, such as origami, taught geometry by forcing the students to think in the abstract. Throughout the seminar, students shared personal reflections and memories of childhood games and math lessons from grade school.

“The students definitely talked with each other during class,� said Greer. “I could put anyone in any group and they collaborated smoothly. They were all actively participating in class and were actively involved. Those were the goals. I feel it went really well.�

Molly Scandrett ’27 of Cheshire, Conn., who enjoys math, called it a “nice low-stakes, low-pressure way to get introduced to college.� Scandrett also appreciated getting to work with educators from the local school system, since she’s interested in studying education.

“They wanted our feedback as much as we wanted to use their robots. It was mutually beneficial,� Scandrett said.

Last fall, LaBonte came to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ three times with the robots and technology coaches Jeff Padgett, Michael Heidkamp, and Jason Reblin, as well as Tammy Thibodeau, an instructional specialist for technology and STEM in the local school system. 

Each time they brought age-appropriate robots. For the final visit, in early November, they brought Sphero BOLT robots to Chase Hall Lounge. Designed for educational and recreational purposes, the Sphero BOLT is a programmable robot ball that the educators use to explore various math concepts through coding and hands-on activities.

For example, they use the robots to teach students the equation for speed (which is distance divided by time) by having the students program the robots to move a specific distance for a specific time. The robotics games can get more advanced, such as when students are asked to move the robot through a maze.

Since using the robots in math curriculum is a new venture, LaBonte said seeing how the 18- and 19-year-old ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students responded to and enjoyed the robots helped instruct the tech coaches on the best approach to teach new math lessons in high school.   

In the end, LaBonte said, the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students playing with the robots in Chase Hall Lounge demonstrated that there is a big difference between learning from traditional exercise books — and from games.

“The college kids loved it,� LaBonte said. “The robots help take away the dependency on doing math calculations. And the students want to play with them. The robot will collect the information and then spit out the number while demonstrating what the calculation means. It’s a fun way to introduce a math equation.�

Associate Professor of Mathematics Katy Ott was the first teacher to introduce Nerea Barranco Aramburu ’25 to the experience of learning through small group collaboration. Ott also introduced Arumbu to the idea of learning by revising assignments — many times over, if necessary.

One result is constant feedback, Aramburu says, which helps students feel more included in the classroom, which makes learning math less stressful and more meaningful — even fun. “It was completely different. And it turns out it really works.â€� 

Ott’s inclusive approach to her craft, her embrace of innovations in teaching, and the positive response from students adds up to an equation for teaching success — and a big reason she earned the college’s 2023 Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching, the college’s highest award for teaching. 

Students and alumni who nominated Ott for the award praise Ott’s teaching talents. “I learn more than ever before while remaining calm,� said one student. “She keeps stress low but learning at a high,� said another, adding a humorous note about Ott’s “baffling� ability to make math interesting in a low-stress environment, which “almost tricks you into understanding the subject.�

Ott is part of a cohort of willing ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ faculty members who are shifting their pedagogy — in dramatic fashion, in some cases — to make their classrooms and the material they teach more accessible to students of all backgrounds. 

The shift means taking on, and disrupting, longstanding attitudes about teaching, including the “deficit mindset,� says Lindsey Hamilton ’05, director of the Center for Inclusive Teaching and Learning.

With a “deficit mindset,â€� an educator believes that a students’ lack of skill or knowledge needs to be fixed or filled in. It leads students very often to say, “I can’t do this,â€� Hamilton says. A more productive approach, which Ott uses, is to “coach them to say, ‘I’m still learning how to do this.’ It’s a minor thing. But it’s impactful.â€� 

Hamilton says Ott “really takes the time to get to know her students and talk to them about all the ways they are thinking mathematically, about how they are mathematicians. And we know from all sorts of literature that if students feel they belong in the classroom, if they are happier in the classroom, they do better, they learn better, their grades show gains in their knowledge.�

Small-group collaboration is standard for Ott, but it does not start with her saying to her students, “Find a partner.� A mountain of research, says Hamilton, shows that when the instructor places students into groups, it benefits introverted, neurodivergent, and those from minoritized groups by removing the stress of finding a group partner or navigating social circles. It keeps the focus on the learning.

“Almost everything I do now is revision without penalties. Learning math is not about memorizing or performing under pressure. It’s about deep thinking and being persistent, making space to understand things.”

Associate Professor of Mathematics Katy Ott

Another of Ott’s approaches that surprises Aramburu  as she arrived at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ from Spain is the idea of unlimited revisions of homework. “In Spain I would submit something, get a grade, and move on,â€� she says. Same goes for most math teaching the U.S., too.

In Ott’s classroom, “I either get it, or I’m not there yet and I do it again, or I almost get there, and I do it again. It makes you a better mathematician, and I actually enjoy math more because I learn from my mistakes now.�

“Almost everything I do now is revision without penalties,â€� Ott says. “Learning math is not about memorizing or performing under pressure. It’s about deep thinking and being persistent, making space to understand things. I’m trying to help them put their finger on where they’re struggling. Where are the boundaries of their understanding? Don’t hide because it’s a failure. Know what to work on.â€�

While allowing unlimited revisions might seem, to traditionalists, less rigorous, the advantages are irrefutable, Hamilton said. But it also involves an immense time commitment by the instructor. “Katy got a big laugh in her talk with faculty when she said, ‘Hey, I’m not going to lie. It’s also a ton of work,’� Hamilton said. “Katy is committed.�

Ott, who also credits support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Inclusive Excellence Initiative for improving her teaching, says that when students make mistakes and are allowed to revise and revise, the process can illuminate parts of a student’s unique approach to problem solving.

When students get a clearer picture of what works for them personally, she said, they make progress. Educators should help students embrace their unique skill set, not punish them for it. 

Like many of her students, Ott said she came from a traditional math background where her high school instructors lectured at the board, then expected students to prove their comprehension by scoring well on timed exams. The final grade was the average score of all the exams. That approach was more or less repeated throughout her undergraduate and graduate math courses.

But when Ott began doing research in graduate school, en route to earning a Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Virginia in 2008, she saw another way. She recognized that there was a lot to learn along the road to finding a correct answer.

Using that experience, she tries to mimic the process of mathematical discovery. Her grading is now focused on encouraging students to revise and reflect on their work, rather than on test scores. Her classes celebrate communal collaboration, rather than hierarchy or “star� students.

An infamous contributor to the deficient mindset in education is the timed exam because students who perform poorly are often seen as lacking what it takes. “I was very lucky in that I was predisposed to liking math. So none of that turned me off. And I did well on timed exams. But I don’t think that should be an entrance to mathematics because, in the end, it’s not a skill you need,â€� Ott said. 

“It’s unfortunate for so many who really enjoy math, but are left out, turned away, or lose interest because of these high-stakes exams. I think if a class has clear learning objectives and students can  show they’ve met those learning objectives, in my view, that deserves a good grade.â€�

Today, Ott watches carefully for a defeatist mindset among her students, especially those who didn’t benefit from a strong math background, or those who see themselves lacking problem-solving skills. It’s her undying quest to put equity at the forefront of teaching.

“Mathematics is dominated by men and the representation of Black and Hispanic Americans is very, very low,â€� Ott said. “I’ve gotten a lot of professional development at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ to help create an inclusive classroom. At the beginning it all felt really overwhelming. It’s this huge systematic problem. But I started making small, local-type changes, and then adding more and more.â€�

One class she teaches that focuses on the issue is “Mathematics for Social Justice,� in which students look at problems in society through the lens of math. It is a class Ott helped to co-created in 2021 with colleague Adriana Salerno, professor of mathematics. The ability to do math is a form of power, Ott said. “In our current society, everything is about data. Knowing math and not being afraid of it puts you in a position of power.�

For Christian Cabello ’25 of La Canada Flintridge, Calif., taking Ott’s social justice course drove home how important and valuable math is for navigating daily life. He’s been able to use the skills gained from the course to help with an ongoing project that seeks to give a Hispanic community in Providence, R.I., better access to online information on critical public issues in their community. 

Cabello got connected to the project through the project’s founder, Carrie Diaz Eaton, an associate professor of digital and computational studies at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.

“My grandparents on my dad’s side are from a Latin American country, so I can relate to the older Latin-American community not knowing really how to use technology and not knowing what is accessible to them,â€� said Cabello, a math and Hispanic studies double major. “We’re trying to make them more aware of these resources, to provide really basic information that is easy to navigate.â€� 

Cabello calls Ott’s approach to teaching a winning formula, and he’s grateful to have benefited from Ott’s insights and guidance.

“She’s aware of what her students are capable of even if the student doesn’t know that,â€� he says. “She really wants us to be the best version of ourselves.â€�

The nearly 200 educators from across the country who gathered this week at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College for the Gordon Research Conference came to share new research on ways to make biology education more inclusive, diverse, and accessible in a setting aimed at fostering intense and intimate collaboration.

After just one day, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Assistant Professor of Biology Lori Banks, one of two dozen speakers at the conference, said they were already there: “We’re really feeding off each other. The nerd energy here is at an all-time high right now.â€�

In all, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ had three professors contributing at the national conference, which reflects well on the college’s growing reputation for “doing a lot of work now on how we talk about power and privilege across all majors,” said Carrie Diaz Eaton, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ associate professor of digital and computational studies and one of the conference’s co-chairs.

April Hill, who is the college’s Wagener Family Professor of Equity and Inclusion in STEM, also presented at the conference about a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ team studying ways to make STEM more inclusive, research funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Hill’s talk focused on course and curriculum reform across STEM disciplines and how equity and justice can be used as guiding principles. 

Offered at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ and 19 venues in North America, Europe, and Asia, Gordon conferences are regarded as premier scientific gatherings.

“We are very proud of our faculty contributing to a gathering of some of the best educators in the world as the community explores ways to promote excellence in undergraduate biology education through social justice,â€� said Malcolm Hill, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty. “It is a point of pride to host the conference at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, and even more so to have these fantastic colleagues as part of our community.”

This summer, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ will play host to seven Gordon conferences on a dazzling array of topics, such as chronobiology, cerebellum, and photochemistry, in addition to undergraduate biology education, which has been offered at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ twice before since being added to the GRC roster in 2015 as a biennial conference.

As co-chair of this year’s edition, Diaz Eaton aimed to gather at the GRC a wide range of experts on the subject — specifically researchers from marginalized communities. 

“I really want to see and oftentimes use the voices of the people who have been marginalized in STEM education and oppressed historically, and challenge the community to start new conversations,� Diaz Eaton said.

“The folks we invited to be on stage are its own kind of display of voices that matter. There are a variety of individuals here sharing research and practice also grounded in their social identities and experiences that we wanted to make sure are lifted up in the conversation.�

The goal of the five-day conference — one of seven held by GRC around the world this year — was to challenge the 185 participants to critique themselves as well as their colleagues as they sought new ways to teach biology more inclusively, said Stanley Lo, a lecturer at the University of California San Diego and Diaz Eaton’s fellow co-chair.

The conference featured two dozen speakers who presented unpublished research in seminars that ran into the night. Afternoon sessions in Perry Atrium resulted in informal small-group discussions about new research that was shared by participants on posters. Yellow and pink sticky notes on the posters provided feedback from educators from as far away as Utah, Arizona, Oregon, and California.  

The fact that many of the symposium’s speakers were members of the marginalized groups they studied made their research more authentic and compelling, said Sam Long, a high school biology teacher and transgender man who came from Denver to speak about gender-inclusive education.

Long helped to found a group called Gender Inclusive Biology, a trio of trans and non-binary high school and middle school biology teachers who train educators to be more inclusive in representing gender, sex and sexuality. He relished the opportunity to collaborate and network with others studying equality in STEM — as well as the chance to speak about his own work.

Long is also a wheelchair user, and so he faces a number of barriers to access and inclusion in society.

“If I were to teach my students that people with XX chromosomes are women and people with X and Y chromosomes are men, that is oversimplified,â€� Long said. “They already know that doesn’t represent me, let alone all the students in our school or people in our community. Why not give the best science education and teach the complex truth about biology?â€�

“If students don’t feel well respected in the classroom, they don’t persist in science, and that’s not what we need.â€�

Lori Banks

Banks said the research shared on the first day of the conference helped her think more critically about how to teach biology in a more inclusive way. She pointed to several unpublished studies that looked specifically at the LGBTQ+ experience and how teachers are serving or not serving that community as examples.

“It’s nice to see the data so we can think about how to update our practices,â€� Banks said. “I think the biggest thing I’ve seen on a couple of different posters is just the language that we use in classrooms and about creative ways in which we can be more inclusive. If students don’t feel well respected in the classroom, they don’t persist in science, and that’s not what we need.â€�

As Perry Atrium buzzed late Monday afternoon with educators and scholars sharing ideas, Banks spoke with several colleagues about her work focused on STEM identity. One was Hannah Nichols, a doctoral student at the University of Georgia, who was glad to be at this GRC. The mission to make science education more inclusive resonated strongly with her.

“I am a minority in my classroom. I am a Black woman and there are not many Black women in my class — or on my campus, for that matter,â€� Nichols said. “At the University of Georgia, you’d be very surprised, there aren’t that many. This has made me think about what is going on in my school and in my classrooms.â€�

Here’s the seventh and final installment of our series that profiles, in images and words, each and every resident of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½â€™ newest academic building, Bonney Science Center, as they begin to engage with their wondrous new home and the students they work with. This week’s profiles feature:

• Lori Banks, an assistant professor of biology who encourages her students’ to lead with their hearts and hands.
• Andrew Kennedy, an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry whose students have a certain glow.
• Jennifer Koviach-Côté, an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry who carries the many languages of chemistry with her.
• Jason Castro, an associate professor of neuroscience who has a nose for his research.

Lori Banks

Title: Assistant Professor of Biology

Joined ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½: 2019

Date Photographed: Nov. 30 and Dec. 3

She says: “When you put the right opportunity in front of a student, you see their personality change.�

Assistant Professor of Biology Lori Banks teaches in a Bonney Science Center classroom and conducts research in a Bonney lab. But the science she pursues is everywhere, “whether it’s mathematical modeling or physics in a pressure cooker in somebody’s kitchen.�

In her lab, Lori Banks and her student researchers explore preclinical drug development, “mostly in the area of antimicrobials for both bacteria and viruses,â€� she says. “I’m sort of a hybrid microbiologist / biochemist.â€� 

Among her current projects is one looking at the workings of a specific non-structural protein in rotavirus. (Viruses use non-structural protein to replicate themselves, among other purposes.)

In the classroom, Banks teaches courses that explore the cellular basis of life as well as cellular biochemistry and microbiology. Next fall, she’ll teach one of the department’s new CURE courses, delivering a Course-Based Research Experience, looking at microbes.  

As a teacher, Banks says she “definitely draws a lot from Ms. Frizzle,� referencing the fictional elementary school teacher of The Magic School Bus edutainment fame. (Fun fact: The theme song for the TV series was sung by Little Richard.)

“She’s just sort of this free spirit science teacher whose magic bus can take her class out to space or shrink them and let them watch molecules interact inside of a baking cake.â€�

Silly stuff, but serious intent. “To encourage people to do stuff, get your hands in it. Let them get messy. That’s how you’re really going to learn things and retain the information.â€�

To that end, Banks’ cellular biochemistry last fall had a heaping helping of community engagement, as the students helped a Lewiston Middle School class learn about the value of a healthy, vitamin-rich diet. The course culminated in a recipe contest, the youngsters choosing an omelet dish as their favorite. 

Banks also works with the STEM Scholars program, which helps students from underrepresented groups who are interested in pursuing science or math begin to think like, and believe in themselves as young scientists.

The best part about teaching, Banks says, is providing what she calls a “landing pad, a safe environment for them to screw up some stuff and figure it out.�

The Banks landing pad means that a student, after failing, can back up and try again or try something new. “You see a student trudge through a few things for a couple of weeks, and they’ll say, ‘That’s really not my jam. I don’t ever want to do this again.â€�

Banks will talk with the discouraged student, giving them a chance to reflect on what happened. From that, Banks might suggest a different area of science. 

“And when you put the right opportunity in front of them, you just see their whole personality change. They’re like, ‘I didn’t know they made this part of science before, but I’m glad they did. I want to go play!’â€�

Andrew Kennedy

Title: Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Joined ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½: 2016

Date Photographed: Nov. 17, 2021

He says: “ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students can walk right over to their own high-field NMR instrument and analyze their own data.â€�

The newspaper story was incredulous: “Put one drop of blood in a barrel of water and toxicologist, Joseph B. Swim, San Francisco toxicologist, can detect it. He uses 3- aminophthalhydrazide. He can even pronounce it!�

That was in 1937, when crime investigators first began using the chemical compound, commonly known as luminol (not to be confused with the barbiturate Luminal) to detect blood at crime scenes. Luminol is chemiluminescent, meaning it glows when it chemically reacts to something, in this case the iron in hemoglobin. 

As the 1937 story noted, and Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Andrew Kennedy confirms today, “even small amounts of iron will emit light, making the presence of blood easy to detect.�

On a Wednesday afternoon last November, Kennedy was teaching his organic chemistry students how to synthesize their own batches of luminol, a multistep process involving a few chemicals plus heat. 

As he moved about the lab, he stopped to guide Oli Seline ’24 of Delaware, Ohio, with her experimental setup, specifically how to correctly position her reaction tube, like a test tube, over a Bunsen burner.

Later, in a darkened area just off the first-floor teaching laboratory of the Bonney Science Center, Jake Johnson ’24 of Lake Forest Park, Wash., tested whether the luminol he had synthesized in the teaching lab would successfully detect iron.

And it did. As he poured mixtures from two beakers, one containing luminol and the other an iron complex, into a funnel, the mixture began glowing as it flowed into a larger beaker. Seeing was believing for Johson. “It was fascinating to see an actual reaction,� said Johnson.

The sophomores that Kennedy worked with last November may someday be the juniors and seniors who join Kennedy’s lab, which seeks to better understand the chemical mechanisms that encode and maintain long-term memory. The lab also works to create new molecules, such as Bobcat339, that possess epigenetic properties,, that govern the function of genes, including those related to memory loss.

When Kennedy taught undergraduate organic chemistry at his Ph.D. institution, “students didn’t even get to analyze samples,â€� he says, partly due to numbers and partly because undergraduates didn’t rate. “There were too many of them, and the important equipment for organic analysis, like nuclear magnetic resonance instruments, were exclusively used for the graduate-level research projects.â€�

Now, he says, “ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students can walk right over to their own high-field NMR instrument, load their own reaction sample, and analyze their own data.â€�

(Fun fact: The NMR in Bonney was made possible by Dennis Keith ’65 and Jo-Linda Leib Keith. Dennis was a chemistry major who earned a Ph.D. from Yale and had a long and successful pharmaceutical career. “Dennis took organic chemistry when Hedge Hall was the chemistry building,â€� says Kennedy. “He remembers Dana Chemistry Hall as a hole in the ground. It’s pretty incredible that he would be connected to the Bonney Science Center in this way.â€�)

Jennifer Koviach-Côté

Title: Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Joined ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½: 2001

Date Photographed: Nov. 16, 2021

She says: “Having the decal provides continuity between students who have worked in my lab in the past with students of the future.�

In Dana Chemistry Hall, now in the finishing stages of a year-long renovation to become a science teaching space, the old fume hoods have been replaced with new ductless hoods that use replaceable charcoal filters. 

The new hoods filter the fumage instead of piping fumes out of the building. The innovation will reduce HVAC costs because air won’t have to be cooled or heated as it’s brought into the building to replace the exhausted air. 

But a bit of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ chemistry history has been lost. Well, almost lost.

Around 15 years ago, a tradition was born when students of Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Jennifer Koviach-Côté’s students began to use Sharpies to write the word “chemistry�on the lab’s fume hood in the language of their home or heritage.

The Japanese word for chemistry kicked it off:

Over time, other students from other countries followed: Nepali, Russian, Korean, Spanish, French, Swahili, Hindi, Singhalese, Hebrew, Norwegian, Lithuanian, Irish Gaelic, English, German, Japanese, Chinese (traditional and simplified), Vietnamese, and Burmese.

That word-strewn hood is gone, but not forgotten. Last year, Koviach-Côté’s thesis students gave her a lab-warming gift: a decal created from a photo of all the “chemistryâ€� translations from the old sash. 

“Having the decal provides continuity between students who have worked in my lab in the past with students of the future,� she says.

Koviach-Côté teaches one of the mainstays of the departments’ offerings, organic chemistry. She also teaches an upper-level course that teaches students how to use two powerful tools, nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrometry, to glimpse and analyze the inner workings of molecules.

Koviach-Côté’s lab, meanwhile, synthesizes (creates, that is) and investigates organic molecules and carbohydrate-containing compounds. “We study compounds with antioxidant activity and others with antiviral activity,� she explains. “One compound is active against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) which mostly affects infants.�

On a Tuesday morning in November, four of her five thesis students were at work in the lab, including Sean Agrodnia ’22 of Cape Elizabeth, Maine. 

For his senior thesis, done in collaboration with Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Colleen O’Loughlin — “who now works down the hall from me,â€� says  Koviach-Côté — Agrodnia investigated the antibacterial properties of phenylpropanoid glycosides, which are . (Fun fact: PPGs can be found in gingko trees, several of which were planted just outside Bonney.)

When asked what’s better about her new lab, Koviach-Côté says, “Space. More elbow room to have multiple experiments at the same time and accommodate more students to work in the lab at the same time.�

And better HVAC, which benefits humans and chemistry alike. “It means that experiments are performed at consistent temperatures regardless of the season.”

Jason Castro

Title: Associate Professor of Neuroscience

Joined ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½: 2012

Date Photographed: April 1, 2022

He says: “Now I’m spoiled.”

Payette, the architectural firm that designed Bonney Science Center, had a specific purpose in mind for most spaces: teaching, research, office work, or storage.

But there are some purposefully purposeless spaces, like Room 283, where ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ folks can meet, discuss, laugh, and figure things out.

On April 1, the room was the scene for a lively meeting between Associate Professor of Neuroscience Jason Castro and two of his thesis students, Johnny Loftus ’22 of Palo Alto, Calif., and Juliet Bockhorst ’22 of Westwood, Mass.

There were some light moments as the trio used the whiteboard to sketch out some charts reflecting the work the students were doing in “principal component analysis,� an important technique in statistics and data science.

After a difficult, month-long project, the two “had identified what might be two new cellular subtypes,” explains Castro, “using machine-learning techniques to determine whether these cells could be classified into different types.”

He doesn’t recall the reason for the levity. “Juliet may have been talking about some of the challenges she faced when trying to label neurons” — which was key to the project — “and was making light of it.”

Castro’s lab researches how we smell. (Not if we’re smelly, but how our olfactory system works.)

Take the various and tantalizing smells that hit ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students as they walk toward Commons for a meal. Whether it’s the allure of barbecue tempe, bacon and ham pizza, paprika braised mushrooms, or tiramisu coffee cake, it’s simply chemicals hitting and stimulating the collective ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ nose.

“Although we know we can smell a huge number of volatile chemicals, we still don’t understand exactly how this information is handled by the olfactory bulb – the part of the brain that receives incoming signals about smells,� Castro says.

He and his students are testing the idea that there are different sub-divisions within the olfactory system — or “noses within the noseâ€� that are each specialized for smelling different classes of chemicals. 

Before moving to Bonney, Castro had two workplaces: His office in Hathorn Hall, and his lab in Carnegie Science Hall. “I was constantly running back and forth across campus. Now I’m spoiled — the lab is just a few paces away from my office.”

“I was struggling,� admitted Loral O’Hara.

The NASA astronaut was explaining, via Zoom, to a class of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ sophomores what they were seeing on her shared screen: a video of O’Hara wearing a huge spacesuit, fumbling around underwater in a large pool, aka NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in Houston, Texas.

To paraphrase the famous Apollo saying, O’Hara had a problem: Her safety tether had gotten tangled in some tools right in front of her. 

The tether is needed so “you don’t accidentally become disconnected and float off into space,â€� she explained. “It’s really importantâ€� (yes, astronauts still excel at understatement). Untangling it with hands wearing huge astronaut gloves is “like trying to use oven mitts to untie a knot.â€� 

At the time, O’Hara was chagrined. But she now knows that it was OK to flub a task when the consequences were low. “I could have made that mistake in orbit someday when the consequences are much higher. Being able to make a mistake, fix it, and laugh about it and learn from it — that’s a really important skill, not just for spacewalks, but also for life.â€�

It was just the sort of message that Associate Professor of Biology Larissa Williams and Assistant Professor of Biology Lori Banks wanted their students, a cohort of impressionable sophomores on the cusp of becoming science majors, to hear. 

These sophomore are STEM Scholars, in the second of a two-year academic program that helps incoming students who are interested in STEM majors begin to think like young scientists, problem-solve like young scientists, and, most of all, believe in themselves as young scientists. 

The program is part of a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ effort to disrupt an old mindset about what it takes to succeed in majors related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, known as STEM. 

The mindset, entrenched in U.S. higher education for generations, says that having the right stuff for STEM means that you survive while others fail. Indeed, introductory STEM courses are often known as just that: “weed-out� courses.

And while weeding out might be valuable in gardening, finding a great NFL quarterback, or naming the winner of a TV reality show, it’s now understood that weeding out in STEM courses only proves the shortcomings of the teaching model, not the student. 

At ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, that’s changing.

“We don’t believe that certain people can do STEM and certain people can’t,â€� says April Hill, the Wagener Family Professor of Equity and Inclusion in STEM. “If you are accepted to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College, we believe that you are fully capable of not just getting a STEM degree, but thriving along the way.â€�

STEM Scholars take a year-long First-Year Seminar, then a year-long course sophomore year. This fall’s sophomore course had 30 students, taught in two sections by Williams and Banks. This fall’s first-year STEM seminar was taught by Aleksander Diamond-Stanic (physics and astronomy) and Katy Ott (mathematics).

Instead of a divide and conquer approach, the STEM Scholars program focuses on support and community building. The STEM Scholars “is not meant to be a competitive community,â€� says Hill. “It’s where you can learn and thrive together while building your science skills.â€�

While the primary goal of the program is to better serve the demographic of students who, data show, have frequently suffered negative STEM outcomes at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ and nationally — Black students, Latinx students, first-generation students — “we also have STEM Scholars who have other reasons to be part of a community that is interested in supporting each other,â€� says Hill. 

To that end, O’Hara was asked by Edgar Sarceno ‘23, a prospective math and physics major from Santa Fe, N.M., for advise on how to overcome coursework challenges. Lean on your community, O’Hara said, such as group study sessions.

She also suggested a visualization strategy: Think about past successes to bolster confidence in meeting a current challenge. “When I get to a really hard task, I think back to when I struggled and succeeded.”

Hill meets with many of the 28 “alumniâ€� STEM Scholars who are now juniors and seniors, talking with them about STEM and, to help the program achieve sustainability, helping them train to be mentors to the program’s first- and second-year students.

“I’ve gotten the most joy in the last two weeks, talking to these students. It’s hard for all our studentsâ€� — required masks, physical distancing, and limited social and other activities — “but they’re finding their own way to thrive. They’re studying like crazy — and feeling really proud of what they’ve accomplished in these courses.â€�

During the Zoom session, O’Hara did a fine job at meeting the sophomores where they are, on the verge of deeper STEM study. In a happy coincidence, her stories echoed themes of the college’s Purposeful Work program, particularly how one’s satisfaction and success in what we pursue must be aligned with what feels purposeful. 

“Pay attention to what you really enjoy,â€� O’Hara said, “what you find most fun and exciting, as well as actively seeking new and different experiences.â€� 

Banks says she often talks to students about what feels purposeful to them — about “being aware of what your own personality is telling you, what skill sets you’re developing, what things you’re drawn to — and how you might be able to best serve the world, the community, your school, whatever, just by being you.�

This fall, O’Hara was one of 10 scholars, researchers, and other professionals that Banks, Williams, and other professors brought into their STEM Scholar classrooms.

“The speakers contributed to many of our course goals,� explains Williams, such as bolstering students’ confidence and enthusiasm in science and math, and having a growth mindset. “Loral spoke explicitly to this,� said Williams.

O’Hara, who Zoomed in from Star City, the earthbound home of the Russian space program, traced her path from her childhood in Houston to becoming an astronaut based in Russia, where she continues her training until her chance to blast off on a mission to the International Space Station.

Long gone are the Apollo days when being an astronaut meant you were either a commander or a pilot.

O’Hara’s 13-member class of astronauts includes a Navy submarine warfare engineer; a microbiologist who studies organisms in subsurface environments, such as caves and deep-sea sediments; an emergency room physician; a commander of a Navy flight test squadron; a medical surgeon and combat helicopter pilot; and a SpaceX engineer with unusual prior experience: as an ice driller in Antarctica and commercial fisherman in Alaska.

“It’s a huge diversity of backgrounds,â€� O’Hara says. “This is one of my favorite things about the astronaut office: It shows that there’s no one path to success.â€� The diversity of the astronaut class also underscores another goal of the course, says Williams, “that the best science and math is done by diverse teams.â€�

Recalling her own path, O’Hara shared how, as a child, she loved to explore, hiking in the woods and mountains. Eventually it led her to latch onto the idea of being an astronaut (growing up in Houston also helped foment the idea). 

“I wrote a letter to NASA, and they wrote me back and told me to follow my dreams and study a STEM field,â€� O’Hara said. 

After earning a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering at the University of Kansas and a master’s in aeronautics and astronautics from Purdue, she did deep-ocean engineering and operations work at Woods Hole (Mass.) Oceanographic Institution, including experiences with the and the . 

O’Hara, who became friends with Williams while at Woods Hole, was selected to NASA’s astronaut training program in August 2017. 

Careers can have a tidy and linear appearance when we look back, O’Hara says. Sitting in Star City, where she is now eligible for a mission assignment, it might seem “easy to connect the dots and see how the pieces of your life come together.â€� 

But she assured Williams’ students that when you’re 18 and looking ahead, it’s not always clear how things will fall into place. “That was definitely the case for me,â€� she said. 

“If you had asked me in high school, if I would be working on deep-ocean research vessels by my 30s, I probably would’ve given you a sideways glance and asked, ‘What’s a research vessel?’â€� 

The message resonated with Mariam Josyula ‘23 of Longboat Key, Fla.

“It’s inspiring to talk with people who come from different backgrounds and taken different paths, but have still become so successful. You have to work hard and persevere, but your dreams are possible.”

The week before Thanksgiving, a wall of concrete-form panels started to rise along the north side of the Bonney Science Center, facing Campus Avenue.

It’s a wall of forms that will form a wall, if you will — a temporary structure, the first of several, to be used in constructing the science center’s permanent three-story exterior walls. That wall work, plus the subsequent placement of interior structural steel and floor slabs, will dominate Bonney construction this winter.

One story tall, the heavily braced form panels first appeared near the corner of Campus Avenue and Nichols Street. Since then, they’ve been extended more than halfway along the building’s north side. A few more stand independently at the facing corner, at the southeast.

Long wooden props support the panel wall on the inside. Also on the inside, the “rodbusters� of Bill Dixon Rebar & Prefab of Portland, Maine, have been weaving a dense matrix of steel rebar to reinforce the future concrete. Hung at intervals are wooden frames, so-called knockouts, that leave rectangular voids in the concrete as it’s pumped into the wall forms. Those will be window openings.

Taken Dec. 5, this and several other images of a wreath and the construction team at the Bonney Science Center were presented to science center donors Michael Bonney '80 and Alison Grott '80. (Theophil Syslo/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Michelle Holbrook-Pronovost, senior academic technology consultant and manager of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½' Digital Media Studios, made this drone image of the photo session capturing the wreath-bedecked Bonney Science Center and the construction team. Note the areaway at lower left center and the wall of concrete forms along Campus Avenue. The wide-angle lens is deceptive: The drone was only a little higher than four-story Chu Hall, which was nearby. (Michelle Holbrook-Pronovost/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Colorful Bang-It brand fasteners stud the floor decking above the science center basement. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Now completely floored and decked over, the Bonney Science Center basement is shown on Dec. 5, 2019. It won't be such a wide-open space for long. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Not yet usable, here's one of two sets of basement stairs in the science center. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

When the entire setup is ready for its concrete filling, the knockouts and rebar will be sandwiched between an outer layer of panels, in place as this is written, and an inner layer whose setup began this week. (One of the rare instances of standing a sandwich on its side with no regrets.)

So when will the concrete start to flow? That happened this morning, actually. The objective for this phase is to build a wall one story high that wraps approximately halfway around the building footprint — what the construction team calls the A-side, involving three surfaces: much of the north face, the narrow east or Nichols Street end, and part of the south side.

Then, perhaps around the turn of the year, steel workers from Davis Erectors, Sainte-Marie, Quebec, will place floor joists connecting the new wall sections. Meanwhile, the Dixon rodbusters and concrete form assemblers from Consigli Construction, which is managing the Bonney project overall, will begin the prep for the remainder, or B-side section, of the first-story wall.

The state of things at the Bonney Science Center in early December 2019. In the background is a wall of concrete forms hung with rebar and window knockouts. Structural steel dominates the image. Showing at the bottom is blue insulation protecting the foundation wall. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Once that’s placed, the steel workers will shift their focus there and the concrete crew will move back to the A Side to prep for the second story. And so it will go, concrete and steel taking turns, until the walls stand three stories high.

“The critical path really goes through those walls right now,â€� says Chris Streifel, the Facility Services project manager overseeing the Bonney Science Center for ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ — “critical path” referring to the operations most important to keeping the project on track.

Got no pills for this chill: Around eight inches of snow fell on the Lewiston area Dec. 2–3, but symptoms of winter were evident on the science center construction site weeks earlier.

Human-made symptoms, that is. Joining the acres of poly sheeting that holds wind and moisture at bay are heavy industrial blankets that keep new concrete warm enough to cure properly.

And portable gas-fired heaters have been in use on site since mid-November — a colder-than-normal month whose lowest high temperature was 23 degrees, although highs in the 30s and 40s were more typical. Taking their fuel from the Unitil gas network that feeds Lewiston, these devices blow warmth into the Bonney basement through big flexible ducts.

Three space heaters at the science building. The one at left is in service, pumping heat into the basement through a flexible duct and the plastic-shrouded headhouse. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

The duct from one such heater enters the basement via a temporary hut made of wood and plastic film, conspicuous on the first-floor slab at the Nichols Street end.

This structure, which would be called a headhouse if it were permanent and provided access to a subway station, also shelters stairs going into the basement. During a Dec. 5 visit, we used these for a quick inspection.

We enjoyed looking up at the colored plastic housings of the many Bang-Its poking through the bottom of the floor decking overhead. Used to both mark future utility installations and provide a fastening point for those installations, Bang-Its are inserted through holes in the decking before concrete is placed and seated by a blow (hence the product name) from one’s boot or a hammer.

The colors indicate what kind of service goes where: blue for plumbing, red for electric, green for HVAC, etc.

Colorful Bang-It brand fasteners stud the floor decking above the science center basement. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Other than the visual fascination provided by the Bang-Its, the basement was less busy than during our look-see in late October. That’s largely because this space, though covered by the first-floor decking and slab, isn’t yet watertight. There are a few things to do, such as filling in around the bases of load-bearing steel columns with concrete, but any chores at this point need to be “water-friendly,� Streifel says.

“Until we get that area dry, we can’t really start a whole lot else,â€� he says. The basement should be waterproofed by February.

Another process happening below ground level, though outside the basement, brings us back to the topic of warmth vs. cold and to something called an earth heater. Made by Ohio manufacturer DryAir, the Greenthaw earth heater at the Bonney Center is conspicuous because of its size — roughly that of a one-horse trailer.

Ample lengths of hose filled with liquid heated by the Greenthaw are spread out on patches of earth that need to be warmed for whatever reason. When we visited the site on Dec. 5, for instance, Greenthaw hosing was deployed at the bottom of the science center’s big air intake — aka areaway — in conjunction with pumps that were removing water, kept from freezing by the earth heater. (Overnight low temperatures ranged from 6 to 26 degrees that week.)

Part of November’s progress at the Bonney Science Center was backfilling that buried the foundation walls, as well as the steel sheet piling that kept the foundation hole open early in the construction process. The white trailer is a space heater. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Speaking of the areaway, its outer wall — the building’s last deep section of foundation — was placed in mid-November. Also in that month, backfilling around the outside of the foundation was completed; and, after weeks of providing overflow space for steel and concrete operations, Bardwell and Nichols streets next to the Bonney site were re-opened to traffic. Streifel notes that while short closures are likely, we’ve seen the last of such long shutdowns for the next few months, at least.

Electrofusion: The two dozen or so workers on site Dec. 5 included several from the Portland firm Warren Mechanical. They were occupied at the Bardwell Street end of the building, where the foundation walls were completed the week prior to Thanksgiving. (The equivalent foundation walls near Nichols Street were done in early November.)

In anticipation of the placement of the slab-on-grade foundation, the Warren plumbers and pipefitters were finishing up two quite different installations. (The slab was placed Dec. 11, largely encasing the Warren work in concrete and, incidentally, completing the first-floor slab.)

One installation was not unusual: A profusion of vertical pipes, aka risers, that stuck up out of the medium-brown soil. Some of these will provide domestic water and others will carry away septic waste from a gang, i.e. multi-user, restroom. (Frankly, we think gangs should remember to go before they leave the house.)

A pipefitter for Warren Mechanical displays a piece of acid-resistant pipe equipped with sockets (top center and lower right) for electrofusion bonding. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

The other installation was new to us. The plastic piping that workers were laying out in patterns on the ground are specifically for the handling of chemical waste, and the pipes are made of an acid-proof plastic.

The really neat part was the means of connecting the black-and-blue pipes, which is a process called electrofusion. Once the mechanical joint is made, an electrical current is fed into it via a plug-and-socket arrangement. The electricity causes the pipe threads to melt and fuse together, much like Campus Construction Update’s nerves after a dose of the evening news.

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes your questions and comments about current, past, future, and current construction at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. Write to dhubley@bates.edu, putting “Campus Constructionâ€� or “Despite all your fine talk, that 8-foot ladder is nothing specialâ€� in the subject line.

Multimedia producer Theophil Syslo puts the Campus Construction Update ladder to good use on Dec. 5 as he photographs a wreath and workers at the Bonney Science Center. The image was presented to Michael Bonney ’80 and Alison Grott Bonney ’80, whose family foundation made a gift that is anchoring the building project. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Dana Professor of Chemistry Tom Wenzel, who will retire in 2020, has been honored with the establishment of a student research fund in his name and an achievement award from the American Chemical Society. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

“It’s hard to imagine a more gratifying way to end my career.”

+A Few Wenzel Awards

In this summer 2005 image of Tom Wenzel’s typically active research lab, Wenzel (left) and post-graduate research fellow Catherine Dignam (second from left) work with student researchers: from left, Matt Chodomel ’06, Shawna-Kaye Lester ’08, and Monique Brown ’07. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

A nationally recognized advocate for undergraduate research, Tom Wenzel (third from right) poses with some of his students in 2015 at the International Chirality Conference. Wenzel chaired the 2015 event, the premier conference in his research field, and ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ was the only undergrad school represented. Back row, from left, William Patton ’15, Mira Carey-Hatch ’14, Yolanda Rodriguez ’15, Tom Wenzel, Alison Dowey ’15. Front row, from left, Tayla Duarte ’17, Cira Mollings Puentes ’16, Caroline Holme ’16, Brielle Dalvano ’16, and Anna Berenson ’16.

Wenzel “touched the lives of a lot of chemistry majors.�

Tom Wenzel (center) is flanked by donors Jim Weissman ’84 and Kyoko Weissman as they celebrate the establishment in September of the Thomas J. Wenzel Endowed Fund for Undergraduate Chemistry Research. Joining them in Dana Chemistry Hall are, from left, Jake O’Hara ’21, Nick Jones ’20, Shanzeh Rauf ’21, Maddie Murphy ’20, Associate Professor of Chemistry Matt Côté, and Owen Bailey ’22.  (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Thomas Wenzel and Jim Weissman ’84 reconnect in a laboratory in Dana Chemistry Hall in September. Weissman, a chemistry major who was mentored by Wenzel and is now chief operating officer at Dicerna Pharmaceuticals, established with his wife an endowed fund in Wenzel’s name. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Funded by a $3 million gift, a new ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College professorship dedicated to STEM equity and inclusion will be held by Professor of Biology April Hill, announced President Clayton Spencer.

Hill, the college’s inaugural Wagener Family Professor of Equity and Inclusion in STEM, is an evolutionary developmental geneticist with a distinguished record of scholarship.

She brings to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ a national reputation for leading significant programs to dismantle barriers that prevent underrepresented groups from thriving in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

Professor of Biology April Hill is the inaugural Wagener Family Professor of Equity and Inclusion in STEM. (Theophil Syslo/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

“We are thrilled with the appointment of April Hill,� Spencer said. “April is a distinguished scientist, outstanding teacher, and successful academic leader who believes that creating diverse, inclusive, and equitable STEM communities is a prerequisite to redefining excellence in the sciences.�

A member of the faculty at the University of Richmond since 2004, Hill joined ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ in 2018.

“Helping to build communities of students who thrive in STEM is my vocational cornerstone, so it is a great honor to be the inaugural holder of the Wagener Professorship,â€� said Hill. “In words and actions, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ cares deeply about finding answers to STEM inequities. I hope to learn from the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ community how I can contribute to fostering inclusive excellence in the context of a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ education.â€�

The Wagener Professorship has been endowed by a $3 million gift to The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Campaign from Deborah Heitz P’17 and Shaw Wagener P’17. “The idea for our gift came through our family’s experience at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½,â€� said Shaw Wagener. “We are so pleased to see the convergence between our goals for this professorship and the college’s plans to create a more inspiring and effective experience for all students who wish to pursue studies in STEM fields.â€�

“She will be a worthy inaugural recipient of the Wagener Professorship — an exemplar of the important charge of this new endowed chair.”

Hill’s appointment follows a national search begun in fall 2017 by a seven-member ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ faculty search committee chaired by Professor of Politics and Associate Dean of the Faculty Ã�slaug Ã�sgeirsdóttir.

“The committee members are looking forward to April Hill’s leadership as we take on the questions of equity and inclusion in STEM fields,� said �sgeirsdóttir. “All evidence of her ability to foster institutional change, in addition to being an excellent scientist and a teacher, tells us that she will be a worthy inaugural recipient of the Wagener Professorship — an exemplar of the important charge of this new endowed chair.�

The founding of the Wagener Professorship comes in the same year as ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½â€™ selection, in July, for a $1 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as part of the national HHMI Inclusive Excellence initiative, which aims to catalyze national efforts to broaden participation of students from all backgrounds in the study of science.

As a researcher, teacher, and academic leader, Hill has led numerous efforts that yielded improvements in STEM education.

A first-generation-to-college student, Hill earned a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry from the University of North Texas and a doctorate in human genetics from the University of Houston. A postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, she served on the faculties of Fairfield and Yale universities before joining the University of Richmond.

During her 14 years on the University of Richmond faculty, Hill was honored as the Clarence E. Denoon Jr. Professor of Science (2009–15) in recognition of her excellence in research and teaching. Promoted to full professor in 2013, she chaired the Department of Biology from 2016 to 2018.

As a researcher, teacher, and academic leader, Hill has led numerous efforts that yielded improvements in STEM education, making major contributions to the work of three consecutive HHMI grants of more than $3.7 million at UR, the last of which made significant advances in supporting underrepresented populations in STEM.

In 2012–13, Hill served as a Vision & Change Founding Leadership Fellow for the Partnership for Undergraduate Life Sciences Education. Known as PULSE, the program seeks to stimulate systemic changes within biology departments at all types of post-secondary educational institutions. She is a past recipient of the Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching from the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges and the Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.

Her research and leadership to improve STEM education has received significant grant support from the National Science Foundation and the Thomas F. and Kate Miller Jeffress Memorial Trust, as well as the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and other sources.

A major goal of her UR research laboratory was to create an inclusive community of support that would persist beyond her students’ college years.

She was a member of the university’s Terms of Racial Justice Faculty Knowledge Community, an effort to advance public understanding of racial justice. She served on the university’s Pathways Advising Program, which places first-generation students with faculty who have received training and support to serve as effective mentors.

As a researcher, Hill uses marine and freshwater sponges as model systems to look at the evolution of genetic regulatory pathways that govern the development of animal form and function. Conducted with undergraduates, Hill’s research has been presented and published widely at research conferences and gatherings worldwide and in leading peer-reviewed journals.

A major goal of her UR research laboratory was to create an inclusive community of support that would persist beyond her students’ college years. Forty-six percent of her research students were from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in the sciences. Thirty-six of her students have been co-authors on 20 of her publications.

“I consider this form of pedagogical engagement to be my best teaching,� she said.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Andrew Kennedy has a microscope in his Dana Chemistry office that he cherishes but never uses.

It’s a gold-plated Bausch and Lomb compound microscope once owned by his great-grandfather, T. Francis Kennedy, and since passed down to him.

A prominent early-20th century physician in Rhode Island, Frank Kennedy, among other good deeds, once joined a Red Cross medical response team to the great Halifax Explosion in Nova Scotia in 1917.

Frank Kennedy took the microscope with him to Paris for several research stints at the Pasteur Institute before World War II.
Back home, Frank Kennedy’s son John Kennedy — Andrew’s grandfather — used it during his own medical studies. His wife Muriel Kennedy, Andrew’s grandmother, used the microscope at the House of Good Samaritan Hospital in Watertown, N.Y., where she was a nurse.

The microscope continued on to Andrew’s father, Thomas Kennedy, who took it to medical school in the 1960s. By then it was being used less and less — better equipment was coming onto the scene.

Andrew first saw the microscope as a teenager. One time his grandmother was visiting and she reminded him, “You can see anything if it exists and you have the right instrument.�

The quote is a metaphor for how Kennedy’s students are discovering what’s around them using the right instrument — in this case, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ and the liberal arts.

Many of his students like science, he explains, and many arrived at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ with their heart set on medical school, “but now they’ve seen new things, and are having different experiences,â€� he says.

“That’s what a liberal arts college does, right? It gives you a wide range of experiences and different paths to knowing things.�

The microscope is a liberal arts metaphor in another way, he adds. “This object has been useful to different people in different ways, and has been owned by a scientist, by a physician, and a nurse: three professions that have commonalities.â€� As a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ graduate in the STEM field, Kennedy says, you can travel in many different directions.

In his own research on understanding the chemical mechanisms that encode and maintain long-term memory, Andrew uses far more powerful microscopes than the antique on his desk.

“But in some ways, they’re less beautiful than this instrument,� he says.

His ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ mentors taught neuroscience major Alex Gogliettino ’17 of Branford, Conn., how to think like a scientist.

Headed to a Ph.D. program at Stanford University, Gogliettino describes his biggest ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ discovery: You can make a career from being curious and asking questions.