Natural Sciences and Mathematics

Some people look at the sunlight wandering across the bottom of a swimming pool and see only glare. Kiko Galvez, Charles A. Dana Professor of physics and astronomy, sees the fascinating effect of electromagnetic beams bouncing and sliding through watery matter. The innate curiosity that leads Galvez to look beyond the obvious has served him […]

Party balloons can no longer be taken for granted: there’s a worldwide shortage of helium. Prices quadrupled between 2000 and 2012, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. But a new helium-recovery system will put Colgate’s science laboratories at the forefront of efforts to conserve the dwindling supply of this increasingly expensive gas.

Colgate professor Eddie Watkins published a new paper in the journal Brittonia with Rehman Momin ’15, Wes Testo ’12 and Jarmilla Pitterman, a professor at UC Santa Cruz. Brittonia is a specialized botanical journal managed by the New York Botanical Garden. The article outlines the discovery of a rare new hybrid fern in Costa Rica.

Sohee Ryuk ’15 is one of just 50 students awarded a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship for a year of independent, purposeful exploration and travel outside of the United States on a self-designed topic of their choosing. Ryuk receives $28,000 for the 12-month fellowship beginning in July, 2015. Including Ryuk, 70 Colgate University nominees have received this […]

The Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) recently published a paper co-authored by Jason Keith, assistant professor of chemistry. The paper is titled “Covalency in Lanthanides. An X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy and Density Functional Theory Study of LnCl6x– (x = 3, 2).” It can be viewed at the JACS website. 

A Colgate University alumna with more than 25 years of experience in higher education, Denise A. Battles ’85, will become the new leader of SUNY Geneseo starting in July, the State University of New York Board of Trustees announced today. Battles, a Central Square, N.Y., native, is currently provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs […]

Using the night sky to explain the culture of different societies is a practice familiar to Professor Anthony Aveni. In early December, the distinguished astronomy and anthropology professor co-hosted a symposium intended to spark a dialogue about Native American sacred sites and exploring their connections to cosmic events.

A microscope, test tubes, and dissected organs — these aren’t typically found in a prison. But, when Colgate professor Jason Meyers signed on to teach a biology course at a local correctional facility, these learning materials made their way into a rather unlikely classroom.

It’s not news that Colgate is committed to sustainability, but it might be surprising to hear that, unlike many other higher education institutions, Colgate has launched management practices for its on- and off-campus forests to reduce the university’s carbon footprint, another important step toward achieving carbon neutrality by 2019. “Most campuses are completely ignoring their […]

A confluence of art, engineering, and mathematics led to the creation of Colgate Professor DeWitt Godfrey’s latest sculpture, Odin, a giant steel structure now nestled in the courtyard between Olin Hall and the Robert H.N. Ho Science Center. The sculpture shares a name with the ruler of Norse gods for a reason. Godfrey’s Odin weighs […]