Monday
Catherine McFadden – Harvey Mudd College
Coral Communities of the Future
Catherine S. McFadden has been a faculty member at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California since 1991, where she holds the position of Vivian and D. Kenneth Baker Professor of Biology. She is also a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History. Her research interests lie in the patterns of distribution and mechanisms that generate biodiversity in the marine environment, with a specific focus on the anthozoan corals, especially octocorals (soft corals and sea fans). Her research group develops and uses molecular and genomic approaches to understand species boundary problems as well as deep phylogenetic relationships and trait evolution in octocorals.
Tuesday
Leah Mendelson – Harvey Mudd College
Fish Out of Water
Dr. Leah Mendelson holds a B.S. from Olin College (2011) and a M.S. (2013) and Ph.D. (2017) from MIT, all in mechanical engineering. At Harvey Mudd College, Dr. Mendelson teaches classes and mentors students in engineering design and solid and fluid mechanics. She also directs the Flow Imaging Lab at Mudd (FILM). Her research interests include biological fluid mechanics, bio-inspired mechanism design, and techniques for fluid flow measurement in both research and educational settings.
Wednesday
Hal Van Ryswyk – Harvey Mudd College
Printing Solar Cells
Hal Van Ryswyk is a materials chemist doing fundamental research on low-cost photovoltaics with undergraduate coworkers at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California. A graduate of Carleton College with a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he has served as chair of the Department of Chemistry at Harvey Mudd, as a member of the American Chemical Society Committee on the Petroleum Research Fund, and as a visiting professor at MIT, Stanford, Northwestern, and ETH-Zürich.
Thursday
Albert Dato – Harvey Mudd College
Can Tiny Carbon Flakes Solve Big Environmental Problems
Albert Dato is an Associate Professor of Engineering at Harvey Mudd College (HMC). His undergraduate research program at HMC focuses on the synthesis and applications of advanced materials that can address challenges in climate, energy, and the environment. His work on polymer-matrix nanocomposites is supported by a National Science Foundation CAREER award. Under the mentorship of Prof. Michael Frenklach, he received his Ph.D. in Applied Science & Technology in 2009 from the University of California, Berkeley, which is where he discovered the substrate-free gas-phase synthesis of graphene. After receiving his Ph.D., he founded one of the first companies to bring graphene to market. He also worked in the Silicon Valley as a process development engineer at Novellus Systems Inc. and as a scientist at Air Liquide Electronics US LP. His decision to join the faculty of HMC in 2014 was driven by his deep desires to (1) teach undergraduates, (2) mentor students in scientific research, and (3) increase diversity in science and engineering.
Friday
Xanda Schofield – Harvey Mudd College
Making Sense of Text with Topic Models
Xanda Schofield is an Assistant Professor in Computer Science at Harvey Mudd College. She completed her B.S. in Computer Science and Mathematics at Harvey Mudd in 2013, and her Ph.D. in Computer Science at Cornell University in 2019. Her work focuses on practical applications of small-scale natural language processing (NLP) to research in the humanities and social sciences. She is also passionate about improving ethical and inclusive practice in her field.
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