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.

What is your favorite part about your job and why?

I most enjoy the enthusiasm and creativity students bring to music and also the support and friendship of my colleagues.

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

My professional work, which in many departments is called “research,” consists mostly of composing and performing new music. Don’t tell anyone, but I would do it even if it wasn’t part of my job.

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

The person who determines benefits for upcoming retirees.

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

I’m vegetarian and appreciate the many veggie options at Hoch-Shanahan. Not so much the brussels sprouts.

What is your favorite hobby, activity or creative outlet?

Because my professional work is also my creative outlet, I don’t need to describe my favorite. However, I also like playing Baroque harpsichord music, hiking in the mountains and having a beer with my wife and friends after a long week.

What is your most effective strategy for dealing with stress?

Whacking pieces of bronze over and over with a wooden hammer.

Are you studying or learning something new?

I’m working on my skills editing video and programming VR with the musically named C#.

What book or podcast are you enjoying right now?

Besides music, I enjoy reading fiction—recently, it’s James Morrow, Angela Carter and Jonathan Lethem. I also like reading Scientific American (I came to the right place!).

What’s a fun fact about you?

When I was in college, I wrote musicals and majored in computer science.

Montañez presented the paper “Measuring Task Difficulty via Information Costs,” co-authored with Harvey Mudd alumnus Bill Zhu ’21. The research addresses fundamental questions at the intersection of machine learning, search and information theory, and introduces information cost as a universal, bit-based currency for evaluating task difficulty across diverse computational domains.

Their research explores why machine learning works from a search and dependence perspective. Establishing information cost as a standardized metric allows researchers to quantify and compare task difficulty directly across domains—from molecular biology and artificial intelligence models to genetic algorithms.

Montañez, director of the at Harvey Mudd, highlighted real-world applications of the framework, including quantifying the information cost of game-rule knowledge in systems, like DeepMind’s AlphaZero, and evaluating information constraints in large language models.

“The changes in the Earth’s climate are foremost in many of our students’ minds, so it is important that the Center’s curricular offerings continue to grow to meet their needs,” says Tom Donnelly, Hixon Center director. “We will educate our students about the science, impact and mitigation of climate change, and help to prepare them for a future in which they will make critical contributions to addressing its implications for humanity. I am particularly thrilled that we have climate and mathematics professor Robert Sanchez here to anchor the new joint major.”

Mathematical models underpin both our understanding of global climate change and the assessment of potential paths forward. By blending rigorous mathematical theory with comprehensive climate science, the joint major will train students to translate complex data into actionable environmental solutions. Graduates of the program will be well-prepared to uphold the College’s mission as they develop skills, confidence and intention in applying advanced mathematical theory to understand and address one of the most important interdisciplinary problems of our time.

Distinct from traditional, specialized atmospheric and oceanic dynamics programs, the curriculum is designed to help students develop a holistic understanding of climate change. The coursework places a heavy emphasis on the intricate interactions within and between physical and human systems.

The program’s design is the result of extensive conversations with HMC faculty, alumni, leaders in climate science, and experts in climate change communication. These external consultations yielded a consistent recommendation: Train students deeply across both disciplines while ensuring they maintain a broad view of societal impact.

Students pursuing the joint major will complete foundational coursework in discrete mathematics, statistics, differential equations, analysis and computational mathematics. To tailor the major to their specific career paths, students will select advanced math electives such as statistical theory, partial differential equations, dynamical systems or operations research.

Because the current Core curriculum does not fully prepare all students for advanced climate dynamics, the major builds a deliberate bridge to climate literacy. Students will navigate a curated menu of climate courses that fulfill requirements across multiple dimensions of climate and environmental science, alongside critical foundational training in thermodynamics.

“We are super excited for students to participate in this major,” says Sanchez. “Each component of the joint major has significant depth, so students will be well prepared for careers in climate modeling, environmental risk analysis, data science and operations research. We also intentionally kept the major electives flexible so that students could explore how math is applied to fields ranging from oceanography to ecology.”

The mathematics and climate program expands Harvey Mudd’s growing portfolio of interdisciplinary environmental degrees. It joins the College’s other climate-related joint majors: chemistry and climate, biology and climate, computer science and climate.

“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.

“There’s something really joyful about being in a space where maybe you’re working on something for an engineering class project and someone else, who’s in the space at the same time, is working on an art project, while another person is making a birthday present for a friend,” Mendelson says. “You learn so much when you see people using the same resources for drastically different things.”

Mendelson came to Harvey Mudd after finishing her doctorate in mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “While earning my PhD, I was heavily involved in teaching a course that was similar to Mudd’s Clinic program,” Mendelson says. “But it’s the teaching and mentoring that happens at small, student-centered schools that I’ve always valued.”

As director, Mendelson will also oversee the makerspace stewards. These employed students from across The Claremont Colleges oversee and run the makerspace. They are experienced with the types of tools and machinery found in the makerspace, support peers in their making endeavors, foster a culture of collaboration and curiosity and ensure a safe and welcoming environment.

“I’m excited to work closely with our stewards and the makerspace manager Elissa Avelar,” Mendelson says. “I think our makerspace is really unique, being strongly student-run, and I’m excited for the collaboration aspects of that. I’m also looking forward to seeing our stewards really be the leaders in that space and to support them.”

One of Mendelson’s goals is to get the makerspace in a good spot to foster an even broader community. She noted that the makerspace has recently experienced a strong period of rapid growth in its user base as well as in collaboration requests from campus partners.

“We want to keep growing, but we also have to make sure that we can do that without becoming shells of ourselves because we’re stretched too thin or have no time to foster that organic community,” Mendelson says. “Continuing to grow, thrive and be a space that we want to be in is very important.”

As the College enters a comprehensive capital campaign, Mendelson looks forward to promoting philanthropic support for the makerspace.

“It’s so important because the campaign will allow us to do everything we want to do with the space and create those high-impact, interdisciplinary and community-focused learning opportunities for our students,” Mendelson says. “We’re a maturing organization, and things are old enough that we need to start having regular maintenance cycles with repair and replacement plans. Startup funding is winding down and we need to move into operating and sustaining a well-funded organization so that we can continue to offer all of the resources and tools that we do.”

Mendelson continues, “I think the community will support our philanthropic goals because the work we do here is something that will resonate both with our donors and our supporters.”

The makerspace is particularly special to Mendelson because she sees that a lot of what people do in the space is create something that they themselves have conceptualized and designed.

“You’re not just making something that someone else has told you to make,” Mendelson says. “You’re actually going through that whole process from dreaming it up to the finished product. The makerspace helps students be holistic, creative people, which both enriches life on campus and fosters this mindset in their long-term futures.”

During her tenure, Mendelson plans to create makerspace connections outside of the 7Cs. “I want to see us build unity in the broader Claremont community, regionally in the Los Angeles area, the maker-creative ecosystem, the academic makerspace community,” Mendelson says. “I believe we have an interesting perspective to offer these other communities and organizations, and we would also learn a lot by being engaged in those different partnerships.”

The findings, published in Physical Review Letters, could have implications for nuclear physics, semiconductor design and materials science.

Trions form when three quantum particles bind together. While they appear across many branches of physics, the rules governing how they interact and self-organize have remained poorly understood. The new theory, led by Kaden Hazzard, professor of physics at Rice University, with contributions from Ibarra GarcĂ­a Padilla, professor Richard Scalettar at UC Davis, and Rice graduate student Jonathan Stepp, predicts not only the conditions under which trions form but also how they behave once they do.

“Our theory sheds light on how trions form and interact with each other,” Hazzard says. “It predicts the strength of the interactions needed to form the trions, and that, after formation, they arrange themselves in a checkerboard pattern.”

For Ibarra GarcĂ­a Padilla, whose research uses computational methods to study quantum many-body systems, the work reflects the kind of collaborative, theory-driven physics research that connects Harvey Mudd faculty to questions at the frontiers of modern science.

To visualize the phenomenon, imagine a space filled with equal numbers of red, blue and yellow balls. A trion forms when one ball of each color sticks together. Once bound, the trions space themselves out in a precise pattern, each adjacent to an empty space rather than another trion, giving each formation room to move without interference.

The team’s simulations showed this checkerboard arrangement emerges only under a specific Goldilocks density, meaning that, like Goldilocks’ porridge in the classic fairy tale, the density needed to be just right for the trions to form the checkerboard pattern. With too many or too few particles, the behavior shifts toward a liquid or gas instead.

The team used a Monte Carlo computational algorithm, which runs millions of simulations to converge on accurate predictions of trion behavior. Working backward from the simulation outputs, the researchers identified the simple underlying physical principles that produce the checkerboard structure.

“That’s the beauty of physics,” Stepp says. “It’s the same underlying equations describing how things behave in systems as cold as nanokelvin systems to ones as hot as the sun, whether it’s one particle or billions.”

The theory opens new experimental directions. Physicists can now design targeted experiments to test the predictions, refining their understanding of trion behavior across quantum systems, from ultracold atomic gases to semiconductors used in modern electronics.

“Our results are exciting because our findings are experimentally accessible with ultracold molecules and open the possibility of understanding trion formation across other branches of physics such as transition-metal dichalcogenides, which are two-dimensional semiconductors widely studied for their possible applications in nanoelectronics and photonics,” said Ibarra García Padilla.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the W.M. Keck Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy, with computational support from Rice University’s Center for Research Computing.

The three-year project, titled “RUI: Genetic mechanisms that regulate surface protein remodeling during life cycle transitions in the African trypanosome,” targets the molecular inner workings of Trypanosoma brucei—the parasite responsible for African sleeping sickness, a tropical disease transmitted by the tsetse fly that imposes a severe human and economic burden across Sub-Saharan Africa. Current medical treatments are limited and can be toxic. Schulz’s lab is looking to change that by studying how the parasite adapts to survive in different hosts.

When the parasite enters a mammal’s bloodstream, it constantly changes its “surface coat” (surface proteins) to outsmart and evade the host’s immune system. However, once it moves back into a tsetse fly, it switches to a single, unvarying coat.

“If we could understand that switch from the varying surface protein to the invariant surface protein at a molecular level,” says Schulz, “we might be able to force a switch to the invariant coat while the parasite is still in the mammalian host. That way, host antibodies would be effective, and the immune system could eliminate the parasite.”

The NSF grant builds on a discovery by the Schulz lab that mapped exactly where and when the protein Bdf3 binds to the parasite’s DNA during this lifecycle transition. The funding will allow researchers to investigate the precise genetic machinery—including histone acetylation (chemical modifications that alter gene expression) and candidate protein complexes—that recruit Bdf3 and control this vital switch.

Powered by Undergraduates

At Harvey Mudd, high-caliber research is driven by students. Over the last four years, HMC students generated the vital preliminary data required to secure this federal funding. Students have been co-authors on papers describing how Bdf3 might be pharmacologically inhibited and what Bdf3 might do in insect cells. “However, we don’t know what Bdf3 is doing once it binds the DNA, and we don’t know how it gets recruited,” says Schulz.

This emphasis on publication-track research is a staple of the Schulz lab. Recent publications from the lab featured eight student co-authors, and subsequent methodological papers included multiple HMC students and collaboration with Pomona College professor Jo Hardin.

Expanding ÎŢÓÇĘÓƵ Pedagogy and Community Outreach

The grant will support four to six undergraduates each academic year and two students each summer for a 10-week intensive research period. Student researchers will have the opportunity to perform primary experiments, draft methods sections, design scientific figures and travel to regional and national conferences to present their data to professionals in the field.

A distinct element of the grant is its integration with the wider community, stretching from local high schools to regional health facilities.

• High School Summer Mentorship: The grant funds a four-week summer program for one high school student annually, giving them a look at a professional laboratory environment.
• Innovation Accelerator Lab: The funding will bolster HMC’s newly established Innovation Accelerator Lab for Emerging Health Technology, which supports faculty and student research fellows who bridge high-level research with community education. Schulz is collaborating with HMC faculty peers to deploy student and faculty fellows into local K–12 schools and skilled nursing facilities for annual science events. Current projects pair students with math professor Susan Martonosi to present on the dynamics of vaccine attitudes and disease outbreaks, and with engineering professor Nancy Lape to explore bioengineering concepts related to how drugs are absorbed through the skin.

By weaving together cutting-edge parasitology, undergraduate mentorship and local civic engagement, Schulz’s project embodies Harvey Mudd’s mission to cultivate technical excellence alongside a commitment to global impact.

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.