College of Arts & Sciences Good News – Natural Science Division Edition
October-November 2023
Faculty News
Josef Goetz (Computer Science) served as session chair at the International Conference on Technology, Engineering and Life Sciences – ICTELS 2023 and at the International Conference on Life Sciences, Engineering and Technology – ILSET 2023.
He also supervised the senior project of Antonio Flores Marquez that resulted in the paper presentation entitled Certificate Management Application at the International Conference on Life Sciences, Engineering and Technology (ISLET 2023)
Additionally, he supervised the senior project of Christopher Grime that resulted in a paper presentation entitled Course and Faculty Management system at the International Conference on Life Sciences, Engineering and Technology – ISLET 2023.
Student & Alumni News
Christopher Grime (Computer Science alum) was admitted to California State University, Fullerton in the Master of Computer Science program.
Antonio Flores Marquez (Computer Science) along with Josef Goetz, presented a paper entitled Web Framework at ICTELS 2023 – International Conference on Technology, Engineering and Life Sciences, in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Neema Badihiam (Computer Science alum) and his team won the first place in the Harvey Mudd College’s Computer Science “hackathon” in 2018. He graduated from USC in the master’s program for Quantum Information Science in 2023 and for recommendations for USC, UC San Diego, UC Santa Cruz, and University of Maryland.
September 2023
Faculty News
Gail Tang (Mathematics) participated as a Teacher at Sea. Gail set sail from Honolulu aboard NOAA Ship Oscar Elton Sette for the Hawaiian Islands Cetacean and Ecosystem Survey (HICEAS.) Her research will enable her to create math lessons using research methods, data collection, and data analysis learned aboard the ship. Read her blog at: https://noaateacheratsea.blog/author/gailmtang/
Additionally, Dr. Tang presented Inside Out and Outside In: The Cycle of Theory and Thought to Implementation and Evaluation at the Math Organization Conference.
Photo: TAS ’23 Gail Tang at the “Big Eyes” binoculars aboard NOAA Ship Oscar Elton Sette.
Victor Carmona (Biology) and his students will be presenting two projects at the SENCER (Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities) West Coast Regional Conference for “Broadening Participation in Undergraduate Climate Education” at Harvey Mudd College.
Ariela Kaspi-Kaneti (Chemistry) recently gave a talk at the American Chemical Society (ACS) conference titled “Seeing beyond binary: Utilizing the power of continuous symmetry and chirality measures in describing molecular processes.”
In addition, she presented the collaborative work with the Department of Entomology, ARO, Volcani Center of Israel in a poster titled: “Citrus pesticides unmasked: A surprising discovery on their effect on heathland ladybird chilocorus bipustulatus.” The poster was selected to be presented in the sci-mix session (Sci-Mix presentation is considered an honor as it represents the best 10% of what the division has to offer in terms of science and presentation).
Additionally, she participated in and presented another project at the 19th annual meeting of the medicinal chemistry section of the ICS in Israel, a poster titled “Are Ferricyanide Core Complexes a Promising Option as Cisplatin Prodrugs?”
Victor Carmona (Biology) and his students will be presenting two projects at the SENCER (Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities) West Coast Regional Conference for “Broadening Participation in Undergraduate Climate Education” at Harvey Mudd College.
Christine Broussard (Biology) attended two invitation-only conferences in the Washington DC area this summer. Both conferences’ foci intersected with national initiatives regarding Teaching Evaluation in Higher Education and ULV’s JEDI in STEM Project
(funded by TIII HIPSS and HHMI IE3).
Student & Alumni News
Diego Gonzalez (Mathematics) was selected for an extremely competitive summer undergraduate research program called the SIAM-Simons Undergraduate Research Program. His research topic was “Mathematical Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Patient Detox Journey.
Six Math majors (Kayla Berger, Diego Gonzalez, Nancy Jaramillo, Samuel Offiah, and Allison Pari), along with Gail Tang, were accepted to attend a 2-day conference at Argonne National Laboratory: Bridges for the Next Generation: MATHematical Science Research and Our Future (BRING MATH).
David Lara (Mathematics 2022) has been accepted into the master’s program for Mathematics at California State University, Fresno.
Academic Year 2022-2023
Spring
The Physics Program will be providing 6-10 paid internships in the fields of planetary science, heliophysics and optics to physics, math, computer science and biology majors this summer funded by an NSF grant.
Faculty News
Gail Tang (Mathematics) received the NOAA Teacher at Sea placement for the summer. Her research with The Hawaiian Islands Cetacean and Ecosystem Assessment Survey (HICEAS) project will survey the Hawaiian archipelago with a focus to study whales, dolphins, seabirds, and their ecosystem (i.e., oceanography sampling). Ideally, this project happens ~6-8 years and provides vital information about the ~25 whale and dolphin species that are seen in Hawaiian waters. To date, NOAA has conducted three HICEAS surveys – 2002, 2010, and 2017 – and each survey has been ~180 sea days aboard 2 NOAA ships. General day-to-day science operations include: sunrise to sunset visual survey for marine mammals and seabirds, sunrise to sunset passive acoustic survey for cetacean acoustics, and systematic CTD sampling.
Jennifer A. Clarke (Biology) had a research paper published in the Journal of Mammalogy,an international, peer-reviewed publication of the American Society of Mammalogists: Nelson-Reinier, T., & Clarke, J. A. (2023). Dialects in North American elk bugle calls: comparisons between source and translocated elk populations. Journal of Mammalogy 104 (2), 316–323.
Yousef Daneshbod (Mathematics) presented a talk with the title: “A Brief History of Calculating Machines” at the Claremont Center for Mathematical Sciences Colloquium Lecture Series.
Vanessa Preisler and Jignesh Patel (Physics) constructed and installed the optical table shelves and accessories in the optics lab. These shelves helped free up a lot of valuable space and students now have access to both an AC/DC Faraday Optical Rotation experiment as well as a Rubidium spectroscopy experiment. They were purchased through a grant.
Seta Whitby (Computer Science) recently closed another successful STEAMCODER chapter, the last class for the semester. The class has around 20 students (5th-8th graders) and three ULV Computer Science and Information Technology students (Andres Pranza, Daniel Reilly, Ameren Roberts) volunteered to assist run the class on Sundays. This class was extra special because the Cybersecurity (SySec) Club did a Cybersecurity awareness outreach. Madison York (club president) and Lauren Lazos (club member) taught the class on Cybersecurity.
Student & Alumni News
Diego Gonzales (Mathematics) was accepted into the first cohort of SIAM’s Simons Undergraduate Research Program. As part of the program, students will “learn how to conduct scientific research, effectively communicate mathematics and computational science principles, and will gain an improved understanding of how they can pursue a career in applied mathematics and computational science”.
Sai Sondh (Biology) presented at the Alpha Chi convention in Albuquerque, NM. Alpha Chi is The National College Honor Society that inducts the top 100% students from each chapter. Sai won the Bonnie Revelle Prize in Molecular and Cellular Biology for an oral presentation of her research., Effects of Rotenone in Reactive Oxidative Species Formation in Embryonic Thymocytes of C57BL/6 Mice. Competition included undergraduates and a graduate student from Cornell.
Alpha Chi Convention Photo Gallery by NSD Office (Ameren Roberts)
Gabriella Rojas and Dakoda Talamantes (Biology) received the Keck Graduate Institutes’ 2023 Summer Undergraduate Research Experience Fellowship.
Nancy Jaramillo, Sara Gonzalez, Allison Pari, Tara Francis, and Daniel Gutierrez (Math) were accepted into the Facilitated-Graduate Application Process (F-GAP) program through the Math Alliance. The program is designed to increase student representation from minoritized groups at the Math graduate school level.
Diego Gonzalez was accepted as an Alliance Scholar, also through the Math Alliance. He will be eligible for F-GAP next year.
Dylan Giliberto (Computer Science/Engineering) has been accepted to his Masters of Science in Data Science program from the University of London.
Rose Albu Mustaf (Physics) was accepted into the Physics Ph.D. program at Rice University.
Nicholas San Juan (Physics) was accepted into the Physics Ph.D. program at Auburn University.
Kareem Albadawi (Physics) was accepted into the Applied Physics M.S. program at the University of Oregon.
Gabriel Palacios (Physics) was accepted into a summer 2023 internship “Fabrication of nanostructures for Quantum Communication and Sensing” at the Technische Universität Dresden, Germany.
Nicholas San Juan (Physics) will be presenting a paper “Analysis of Geomagnetic Storms and Solar Indices” at the 2023 Coupling, Energetics and Dynamics of Atmospheric Regions Program (CEDAR) conference in San Diego in June.
Araceli Martin, Chrystal Olazabal, StevieRay Razo, and Juliana Bricarello (Biology) all presented their senior research at the West Coast Biological Sciences Undergraduate Research Symposium at LMU on April 22, 2023.