What is your favorite part about your job and why?

I love being able to bring other fun parts of my life into my job, like caring about sustainability, loving J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth and listening to students’ questions about how science and religious belief can go together.

What is something people don’t understand about your job that you wish they did?

It is so cool when your students have made a new molecule that no one else has ever made before! Everything we learn about it is brand-new, and we possess the world’s supply of it!

If you could swap jobs with any other HMC employee for a day, who would it be and why?

I’d swap with someone from CIS with an awesome view from the fifth floor of Sprague. I love great window views.

If you could add anything to campus to improve the employee experience, what would it be?

An amazing new building that would offer fantastic views of what’s going on inside the building as well as views for those inside to see the world outside as a reminder of the impact of their work at Mudd.

What’s your favorite food/dish in the Hoch-Shanahan Dining Hall?

Shrimp tacos or fried plantains.

What HMC events have made you feel really connected to other HMC colleagues?

I feel most connected when colleagues share about things that don’t typically come up in normal conversation. For example, when new faculty members are introduced by the dean of faculty, we often get a fun fact about each new hire in their first faculty meeting. We also had an Office of Institutional Diversity series in which colleagues shared about their life journeys and what was important to their development as a person.

What is your favorite hobby, activity or creative outlet?

I love to follow collegiate sports, whether it’s CMS, Williams College (my alma mater) or the University of Michigan (where my parents met as grad students). Lately, I’ve been very into the CMS tennis teams, which have been featuring a lot of Mudders! CMS will be hosting the Division 3 NCAA Tennis Championships in Claremont next May, making it a must-see event!

What is the best piece of advice someone has given you, either in life or at work?

Always keep in mind who I’m really living and working for, advice I got from Colossians 3:23.

What is your most effective strategy for dealing with stress?

My top strategies for managing stress are: praying about it, getting exercise (like biking to and from work each day), and spending time with my family. All of those help and all of them together are definitely the best.

If you could have one superpower, what would it be and how would you use it at work?

I would like to talk with molecules (if they could think and talk) so I would know how they want to react in new ways. There’s so much I’d learn about chemistry and about the world!

Are you studying or learning something new?

I’m learning about New Zealand, as I’m going there for a sabbatical during the 2027–28 academic year.

What book or podcast are you enjoying right now?

I’m currently enjoying a poem by J. R. R. Tolkien called “Mythopoeia” (myth making). Tolkien’s reflections about creating new things are inspiring to me as a molecule maker.

What’s a fun fact about you?

I have several large Lord of the Rings LEGO sets in my HMC office, and they bring me joy. Come see them if you like! A couple of Mudd students pranked one of the sets a few years ago, and I have left some of the prank intact to remind me about them and their fun antics.

The 2026 Beckman Scholars are Jacob Sesate ’27, mentored by Lisette de Pillis, Norman F. Sprague Jr. Professor of Life Sciences and professor of mathematics, and Cami Tauro ’29, mentored by Maduka Ogba, assistant professor of chemistry.  

Throughout the program, scholars engage in regular check-ins with their mentors to develop their research, gain presentation and communication skills and access professional resources. The program highlights Harvey Mudd’s commitment to a high-touch environment where students work directly alongside faculty on meaningful scientific discovery.  

Tauro’s project, titled “Origins of substoichiometric loading of calcium bistriflimide in sulfur-fluoride exchange (SuFEx),” uses computational chemistry to investigate a high-yielding, environmentally friendly reaction. She and her fellow lab member Oliver Spaulding ’29 are using density functional theory to evaluate different potential reaction pathways, and their goal is to determine the operative mechanism. Pinpointing this will provide helpful insights, allowing for reaction optimization and establishing this reaction as reliable for synthesizing essential compounds for the pharmaceutical industry. 

For Tauro, having early research experience at a level typically reserved for graduate students is building critical skills and expanding future career paths. “Mudd is genuinely so unique. As students, we are the ones driving the research throughout the entire process,” Tauro said. “My labmate and I … lead everything, from initial background research to forming hypotheses, conducting experiments and interpreting our results.” 

Tauro also emphasized how much Ogba’s mentorship has shaped her plans. “The chemistry community is very collaborative, and being involved in this research has allowed me to meet mentors and build lasting connections,” she said. “I’ve been able to reach out to faculty to learn more about their work, access additional resources and discover what different academic and industry environments look like.” 

Sesate’s research on “A Validated Mathematical Model of ICI Therapy” introduces a streamlined, mathematical model of immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy. Designed to better evaluate both single and combination immunotherapies, the model offers a lightweight tool for researchers, biotech firms and clinical trial designers. It allows teams to simulate drug interactions, optimize dosing schedules and test mechanistic hypotheses before moving into human trials.  

For seniors, the program serves as a launching pad to apply advanced coursework to real-world problems.  

“All of the research I had done prior to this didn’t involve mathematics in the same way,” Sesate explained. “I decided I wanted hands-on experience applying the math I had learned in my classes. While I knew I liked research, I hadn’t yet had the chance to implement it in such a formal project. This program allowed me to put those skills into practice under guided mentorship. My mentor, Professor Lisette de Pillis, even helped me secure an opportunity to present at a conference in Arizona. Getting those kinds of opportunities is difficult without that level of support.”  

Sesate and Tauro will continue their research through summer 2027. Alongside their lab work, the pair is also organizing the Beckman Scholars Program Seminar Series set for spring 2027. 

“Instructors can promote a green chemistry mindset in their students simply by asking for every experiment: What was green? What could be greener?” says Vosburg. “By reimagining traditional protocols and substituting toxic chemicals, the approach builds a culture of environmental consciousness among the next generation of scientists.”

The article describes how the green emphasis begins the first time HMC students step into the laboratory. On day one, students are introduced to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, specifically those related to good health, quality education, clean water and responsible consumption. Students select a goal they care about and explicitly map out how their knowledge of chemistry can help achieve it. Students are trained to evaluate the efficiency of chemical reactions using standard green metrics, such as atom economy, the ratio of waste to desired product and process mass intensity. They also use industry-standard solvent-selection guides to actively identify which chemicals are recommended, problematic or hazardous.

One of the most immediate impacts of this comprehensive approach is the systematic elimination of highly toxic solvents. Chief among them is dichloromethane, a pervasive but hazardous volatile organic compound traditionally used for extractions and chromatography. By substituting this and other dangerous chemicals with greener alternatives like ethyl acetate, acetone and heptane, the laboratory drastically reduces health risks to students and instructors while minimizing hazardous waste. 

A continually evolving and expanding collection of highly innovative, eco-friendly chemical reactions are being developed or adapted for the curriculum at Harvey Mudd and shared with educators around the world. For instance, students have joined two molecules of vanillin (from vanilla beans) together in water using a natural enzyme in horseradish rather than relying on heavy-metal catalysts and organic solvents. Vosburg has even brought simplified versions of this divanillin synthesis into classroom demonstrations for high school and elementary school students. In other sessions, Harvey Mudd students have prepared the anticoagulant warfarin, the anesthetic lidocaine, the anti-anxiety drug moclobemide, and perfumes from rose or geranium oil using green chemistry techniques.

By giving students choices in their experimental pathways and involving them directly in curriculum design, they become active stakeholders in sustainable development.

Liesel Hilkemeyer ’27 says: “It has been really exciting to be part of the transition to greener labs and see the green chemistry theory we’ve learned about in the classroom actually applied, tangibly, in the lab. It is very rewarding to make our labs safer and greener.”

The significance of this educational shift extends beyond the College: Vosburg is part of a growing network of like-minded educators, the , and a related article from the Vosburg lab—with coauthors Angela Milo ’28, Lijinghan (Alice) Chen POM ’26 and Kyle Grice ’05—on “” already has over 22,000 views in just over a year. By limiting student exposure to dichloromethane and other toxic chemicals and encouraging curricular innovation, the program directly addresses global sustainability targets.

As chemical industries worldwide face increasing pressure to adopt circular, zero-waste practices, students trained under this blueprint will enter the workforce uniquely equipped to lead the transition. “Ultimately, our work is a reminder that building a sustainable future does not require sacrificing academic excellence; it simply requires asking how our chemistry can be greener,” Vosburg says.

The Astronaut Scholarship is among the most prestigious ÎŢÓÇĘÓƵ scholarships in the U.S., offering up to $15,000 in funding. Scholars also receive professional development support, mentorship and the opportunity to present their work during ASF’s Innovators Week and Gala.

Angela Milo ’28

Milo, a chemistry major, has built experience across asymmetric catalysis, organometallic catalysis, polymer chemistry and green chemistry. Her research at Harvey Mudd contributed to identifying safer, greener alternatives to dichloromethane in teaching laboratories—work that led to the 2025 Journal of Chemical Education article “Alternatives to Dichloromethane for Teaching Laboratories,” co-authored with Lijinghan Chen, Kyle A. Grice and Donald A. Strauss Professor of Chemistry David A. Vosburg. The article addresses how to eliminate the use of the toxic, regulated solvent in undergraduate laboratory settings. This work connects to the College’s broader effort to redesign chemistry lab experiments around less hazardous materials and more sustainable practices. 

Milo is a 2026 MIT Summer Research Program participant. Previously, she was a student researcher at Pomona College, a student researcher at ÎŢÓÇĘÓƵ, a Leadership Alliance Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow at Princeton University and a 2024 American Chemical Society Scholar.

She serves as sustainability director on the Associated Students of ÎŢÓÇĘÓƵ Executive Board, participates in Chemistry Academic Excellence and tutors chemistry and core curriculum courses.

After graduation, Milo plans to pursue a PhD in organic chemistry, with a focus on sustainable organic synthesis.

“I look forward to joining a talented network of current Astronaut Scholars and Astronaut Scholar alumni. I’m also looking forward to presenting my research at the Innovator’s Symposium and Gala in August and learn about the research that my peers are doing.”

Joshua Ikehara ’27

Ikehara, an engineering major with a focus in electrical engineering, conducts research in the Colm Healy Lab, where he investigates copper-imidazolate coordination polymers. Ikehara has synthesized new metal-based polymers and optimized monomer purification methods, with the goal of controlling thermal and electrical properties while developing more recyclable materials with plastic-like qualities. He has presented this work at the Southern California Conference for Undergraduate Research, and was also awarded a Science and Engineering Research Fellowship at Harvey Mudd.

Ikehara also collaborates with Sandia National Laboratories and Professor of Engineering Albert Dato to study the permittivity of ferroelectric nanoparticles suspended in silicone, with the aim of creating advanced dielectric composites for use in lighter-weight capacitors with enhanced energy storage and power conversion. Applications span space exploration, electric vehicles, solar power and broader electronic systems. The research team is in the process of submitting a paper for publication.

Additionally, Ikehara has researched and prototyped cephalopod-inspired soft robotics designed to minimize ecosystem impact and reduce oceanic microplastic waste.

On campus, Ikehara serves as a Core Scholars Tutor, an Engineering Teaching Assistant and an Experimental and Systems Engineering proctor, where he will take on a mentorship role for new student proctors this fall. He is also treasurer of Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society, on the leadership team for Science Bus and a Harvey Mudd Summer Institute scholar.

Ikehara also founded and leads a Science Olympiad youth outreach ÎŢÓÇĘÓƵ mentoring program where he and other 5C students mentor high school students in preparation for local, county, state and national Science Olympiad competitions. The mentoring program focuses on hosting hands-on lab events, guidance on building engineering devices and preparing mentees for advanced knowledge assessments.

ÎŢÓÇĘÓƵ the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation

The ASF is a nonprofit organization established in 1984 by six surviving members of America’s original Mercury astronaut corps. The Astronaut Scholarship is the nation’s largest merit-based monetary award for science and engineering undergraduates. ÎŢÓÇĘÓƵ is one of 41 partner institutions, and the only non-doctorate-granting institution among them.

Hae-Seo Kim joins the Department of Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Arts as assistant professor of science, technology and society July 1. An anthropological scholar and researcher, Kim’s research is at the intersection of political anthropology, environmental anthropology, space studies, Korean studies, anthropology of religion, and science and technology studies. Kim is interested in learning how the proliferation of outer space infrastructures and research/development space industries in South Korea shape new forms of political mobilization. She has conducted research with space activists organizing against the militarization of outer space and organizing for the peaceful interaction with outer space and environmental sustainability.

Kim is also interested in local cosmologies of outer space in South Korea, focusing on Korean shamanic and animistic ways of engaging outer space, and has conducted fieldwork with shamans and astrology readers. She looks forward to working with Harvey Mudd students and with HSA faculty who are “dedicated to creating conversations and collaborations between science and humanities,” she says.

Sara Murphy POM ĘĽ18 is an atmospheric chemist with an interest in the kinetics and mechanisms of gas-phase organic radical reactions. Murphy majored in chemistry and minored in linguistics at Pomona College, and she received a PhD from Caltech in environmental science, specializing in atmospheric chemistry. Her postdoctoral research at UCLA involved work at the intersection of atmospheric and physical chemistry. She is interested in better understanding and modeling the fundamental processes of chemistry that lead to changes in air quality and climate.

“I especially enjoy thinking about new methods to measure and explore these reactions in understudied and unique environments in the laboratory and how these results might apply to the real atmosphere,” she says. Students in her lab will have the opportunity to build instrumentation to measure the production of reactive trace gases of atmospheric importance, both in the lab and in the field. “Together, we will design and perform experiments using this instrumentation to elucidate the various mechanisms by which these reactive trace compounds are formed in the atmosphere.” Murphy will join the Department of Chemistry as an assistant professor in January 2027.

Promotion to full professor

Matina Donaldson-Matasci, a faculty member since 2014, focuses her research on collective behavior in social insects, particularly communication in honey bees and defense mechanisms in ants. At the HMC Bee Lab, she and her team of student scientists study how these colonies coordinate complex group behaviors. Recent projects in the lab include field experiments on honey bee foraging, utilizing drones and computer vision to map the local floral landscape, and conducting a mix of laboratory experiments and simulations to analyze the transportation networks of arboreal ants. Last year, the lab’s NSF-funded research investigating wood ants and their intricate networks was featured in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a project completed in collaboration with Sándor Piross of the Hungarian Ecological Research Centre.

Ambereen Dadabhoy, professor of literature since 2018, focuses both her teaching and research on the role of identity and difference in literature. She offers courses in Shakespeare and early modern English literature, first-year writing seminars and genre electives, and she teaches the Shakespeare class that culminates in a production of a play. She is the author of Anti-Racist Shakespeare and Shakespeare Through Islamic Worlds, which, received a Jerome Singerman First Book Award honorable mention from the Shakespeare Association of America. She is a member of the Modern Language Association, the Shakespeare Association of America and the Renaissance Society of America.

Erin Talvitie, professor of computer science, specializes in applying machine learning to the field of artificial intelligence, working toward the creation of artificial autonomous agents that can learn to act flexibly and competently in unknown environments. A faculty member since 2019, Talvitie approaches these complex questions by utilizing advanced tools within machine learning and artificial intelligence, focusing especially on the study of reinforcement learning. In 2016, she received an NSF CAREER grant, which funded work studying model-based reinforcement learning, specifically in settings where a given model is insufficient to capture the true, real-time dynamics of the environment. Prior to Harvey Mudd, Talvitie was a founding member of the department of computer science at Franklin & Marshall College.

Reappointment

Sarah Kavassalis, assistant professor of climate and chemistry, leads the FICUS Lab, where she investigates the fundamental chemistry that shapes air quality and climate, with a specific focus on connecting high-resolution measurements to advanced computational modeling. In addition to hands-on fieldwork, students in her lab address complex questions regarding chemical kinetics and atmospheric modeling while engaging with modern approaches to data analysis and machine learning

Lynn Kirabo, Maria M. Klawe Assistant Professor of Climate and Computer Science, investigates the future of accessible early warning systems by centering the lived experiences of disabled people. Appointed as a joint faculty member in the computer science department and the Hixon Center for Climate and the Environment, she focuses on designing practical frameworks that policymakers can leverage to fundamentally reshape and improve community resilience to disaster events. She leads the CACTI Lab, a research group that concentrates on four core areas: human-centered design, disability, mobility technologies and climate change interventions.

Schernikau’s poster, “Carbodicarbenes as hydride donor catalysts in the reduction of CO₂,” highlights ongoing work exploring the catalytic potential of carbones, zerovalent carbon compounds that can drive the multi-stage conversion of carbon dioxide into useful products such as N-methylamines.

His research, which he presented at the 2026 ACS Spring Meeting, focuses on the reaction mechanisms that enable carbones, distinct from carbenes, to function as hydride donor catalysts in carbon dioxide reduction pathways. Understanding these mechanisms contributes to broader efforts to develop more efficient catalytic systems for chemical synthesis and carbon utilization.

The award was presented during the Division of Physical Chemistry poster session, where Schernikau’s project was recognized for its scientific rigor and clarity of presentation.

“For Max to be recognized for his exemplary research during the physical chemistry division poster session at the ACS Meeting is a testament to his hard work and wonderfully highlights the high caliber of undergraduate research we do here at Harvey Mudd,” said chemistry professor Maduka Ogba.

The ACS Spring Meeting is a national conference featuring research across chemistry disciplines and keynote sessions from leading scientists in the field.

Johnson Ho ’27

Johnson Ho, a chemistry and biology major, conducted green chemistry research with Donald A. Strauss Professor of Chemistry David Vosburg. Since his first year, Ho has been researching the use of mild peptide-coupling reagents to form carbon-carbon bonds and synthesizing probes for protein assays. He has also been developing a green, one-pot method for synthesizing triazolodiazepines, a class of pharmaceutically relevant compounds.

Ho is a member of the Chemistry Academic Excellence team and is a mentor for Harvey Mudd’s Summer Institute, working with students underrepresented in ÎŢÓÇĘÓƵ. He also volunteers at Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center. After graduating, Ho plans to pursue a PhD in chemistry and explore his interests in endocrinology or cardiology. 

Cole Plepel ’27

A mathematics and computer science major, Cole Plepel conducted research across numerical linear algebra, combinatorics and quantum information. He studied randomized algorithms for tensor decomposition with Iris and Howard Critchell Assistant Professor of Mathematics Jamie Haddock, focusing on how approximate solutions to large linear systems affect the performance of the alternating least-squares algorithm.

Plepel later joined Harvey Mudd mathematics professor Andrés Vindas Meléndez’s research group, collaborating on work examining symmetries of symmetric edge polytopes. Plepel also worked with physics professor Jason Gallicchio on quantum position verification, evaluating cryptographic vulnerabilities and practical implementation challenges of protocols that use quantum mechanics and relativity to verify location.

Outside of academics, Plepel is a puzzle designer for MuddEscapes, the College’s escape room club. After graduating, he plans to pursue a PhD in cryptography.

Elio Thadhani ’27

Elio Thadhani is a physics major who has conducted research spanning astrophysics and quantum information. He improved a computational tool used to predict the long-term stability of exoplanet systems, and he is first author on a paper published in Research Notes of the AAS. Thadhani later conducted quantum information research, developing a protocol for efficient quantum communication under constrained resources. He contributed to research on quantum position verification and is working on developing and experimentally implementing adaptive entanglement witnessing protocols.

Thadhani serves as a physics tutor and grader, a Core Scholars tutor and a student mentor with the Office of Residential Life. After graduating, he plans to pursue a PhD in physics with a focus on quantum information.

All college sophomores and juniors are eligible to compete for Goldwater scholarships. Each year, the College nominates up to four students, and the Department Chairs Committee serves as the nominating body.

The Goldwater Foundation is a federally endowed agency established in 1986. The Scholarship Program honoring Senator Barry Goldwater was designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering. The Goldwater Scholarship is the premier undergraduate award of its type in these fields.

Kavassalis and the research team focus on solving an enduring challenge: Despite decades of progress to improve air quality, ozone pollution remains a persistent health risk to Southern Californians. They are examining how volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released by native plants, particularly California coastal sage scrub species, interact with nitrogen oxide pollution from transportation and industrial sources to influence ozone formation. The Los Angeles region was once covered by coastal sage scrub, but now it exists primarily in fragmented urban and coastal patches. These native ecosystems are critical for maintaining biodiversity and strengthening climate resilience.

Some native plants can emit highly reactive compounds that may accelerate ozone formation under certain urban conditions, especially during extreme heat. The team aims to identify when natural plant emissions do not meaningfully influence air quality, helping support restoration and urban greening efforts that protect both ecosystem health and community air quality. Their work could help reshape how native vegetation is incorporated into urban landscapes and may ensure that restoration and greening efforts deliver climate, water and biodiversity benefits to support healthier air for communities across Southern California.

The research connects atmospheric chemistry, plant ecology and policy, which can offer interdisciplinary opportunities that can exist even beyond the grant’s continuance. Field measurements will be conducted at the Bernard Field Station in Claremont, which hosts the only AmeriFlux tower in Los Angeles County. This tower, referred to as US-BFS, measures carbon and water exchange over the coastal sage scrub habitat. Laboratory analysis will be paired with ecosystem-scale measurements to build a more complete picture of how plant emissions respond to heat and droughts along with other common environmental drivers.

Kavassalis and the research team aim to identify distinct emission patterns among individual plants during the project period, quantify how these emissions affect the surrounding atmosphere and develop a public archive of coastal sage scrub VOC emissions for use in regional and state air quality modeling. A project goal is to produce easily digestible, culturally valued planting guidance to help cities and decision-makers select lower-emission plant variants while maintaining biodiversity and saving water.

The project provides hands-on experience in environmental chemistry, ecology and policy-relevant science, with undergraduate training incorporated throughout. The work is designed to support decision-making agencies, such as the California Air Resources Board and the South Coast Air Quality Management District, while contributing to broader efforts to understand urban air quality in a changing climate.

Co-authors Johnson, Aaron L. Odom, Remi Beaulac, Mitch R. Smith, James K. McCusker and Chip Nataro designed the textbook to fill a longstanding gap in chemistry education: a single, cohesive resource that goes beyond introductory inorganic texts while remaining more accessible and pedagogically grounded than highly specialized graduate monographs.

“This book was designed to fill a niche where there haven’t been many options,” said Johnson, Ray and Mary Ingwersen Professor of Chemistry and chair of Harvey Mudd’s Department of Chemistry. “There are good introductory inorganic books, and there are good, advanced topic books, but not an advanced, comprehensive textbook that prepares students for research.”

A Decade-Long Collaboration Rooted in the Chemistry Community

The origins of the book trace back to an American Chemical Society (ACS) national meeting in San Diego 10 years ago, when Johnson was first approached by co-author and former graduate school colleague Aaron Odom about joining the project.
Johnson said, “We felt that having authors from both R1 and primarily undergraduate institutions would be a strong selling point for the text.”

Over time, the author list expanded to include leaders across multiple subdisciplines of inorganic chemistry. Johnson’s longtime collaborator Chip Nataro joined the project as well, building on nearly two decades of shared work on the teaching resource website ionicviper.org.

Research-driven, Current and Pedagogically Grounded

Johnson began researching his chapters shortly after that initial ACS meeting, with the bulk of the writing completed during the COVID-19 pandemic. He authored the chapters on organometallic chemistry, his primary research area, as well as bioinorganic chemistry, a field he worked in during his postdoctoral training at UC Berkeley.

“Relearning bioinorganic chemistry at a deeper level allowed me to see the similarities between the two fields,” Johnson said. “It really highlighted the importance of the local structure around a metal atom in dictating its reactivity. We have a lot to learn from biology, and these naturally evolved proteins improve our own ability to have such strong control over reactivity in a laboratory-synthesized metal complex.”

Across all chapters, the authors prioritized currency and connection to the primary literature. Johnson’s chapters include references through 2024—“as current as a textbook can be,” he noted. “We wanted students to see what inorganic chemistry actually looks like today.”

Bridging Coursework and Research

The book emphasizes the development of bonding theories that go beyond introductory chemistry, including ligand field theory and symmetry concepts taught alongside group theory and projection operators.

“This level of theory is important to explain chemical reactivity, structure and spectroscopy of metal complexes, which is what the majority of inorganic chemists study,” Johnson said. “But we also outline current research efforts across the discipline, from making new materials for gas separations, to catalysts to make pharmaceuticals, to understanding how platinum anticancer drugs work.”

Johnson particularly enjoyed writing about one of his favorite topics: molecular orbital theory. “This textbook has several chapters that build on knowledge from first-year chemistry to develop molecular orbital theory such that it can be applied to more complex systems. Then, the book uses this theory extensively to explain observed reactivity and spectroscopy.”

To support both instructors and students, the textbook includes advanced optional topics, extensive worked examples, end-of-chapter problems tied to the primary literature and a full answer key.

A Teaching Perspective Informed by PUI and R1 Faculty

Johnson believes the mix of perspectives among the authors is one of the book’s greatest strengths.

“Faculty at primarily undergraduate institutions tend to think deeply about teaching and pedagogy—how material is presented and received by students,” he said. “R1 faculty often focus more on research opportunities and pushing the frontiers of science. Having both perspectives in one book allows more breadth of how the material will be presented.”