New year. New semester. New classes. New start. The bisected rhythm of an academic year is something special. It affords faculty, staff and students two yearly markers for two new beginnings that most other entities and professions do not. In academia, new starts come at the end of summer (and the official start of a …
Category Archives: Natural and Applied Sciences
Saving Sands for Time and Life
In the interdunal wetlands along the Lake Michigan’s eastern coast, Suzanne DeVries-Zimmerman ’82 and her students are conducting research, through the help of significant external funding, to help save sands for time and life.
Hope Formula SAE: Right on Track
Hope’s team fared well on the Formula SAE stage last week at Michigan International Speedway. One-hundred-and-fifteen entries from across the country and around the world represented strong competition and Hope finished 77th overall. Many of the teams were from comprehensive research universities with long-established Formula SAE programs. Hope, participating for just the second time in six years, was one of only two liberal arts colleges at the event.
Student Research and Development from Day1
After its first year, Day 1 students have achieved and experienced what Hope science educators hoped they would – an early and deep-seated love and appreciation for cutting-edge research that has real-world relevance while thriving in community.
Breaks Away: Jenny Hampton
At the Energy Materials Center (EMC2) at Cornell University last year as a visiting scientist, Dr. Jenny Hampton went back home in a way to help discover new energy materials and methodology. Hampton’s sabbatical research reminds us that other Earth-abundant materials – such as sodium or potassium – have the potential to help with energy usage and storage, too.
Breaks Away: Jonathan Peterson
Whether in the field at the Michigan-based AuSable Institute of Environmental Studies (AIES), or in a lab at the prestigious Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), or in the classroom of a Great Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA) interdisciplinary program, Dr. Jonathan Peterson spent much of his year-long sabbatical being fully convinced of this: things in life are interesting and important to the degree that they relate to other things.
Breaks Away: Graham Peaslee
On a scale of sedentary to prolific, the yearlong sabbatical work of Dr. Graham Peaslee, the Elmer E. Hartgerink Professor of Chemistry and Environmental Science, can be only best described as super-productive. If there were ever such a thing as a barometer for breaks away, Peaslee crushed it.
Lights, camera… faculty
Had you walked into Dr. Ken Brown’s lab early yesterday morning, you would have been witness to this scene: Dr. Brown on camera, enthusiastically sharing his experience as an A. Paul Schaap Research Fellow. It is always great to hear our faculty express such passion for their work (whether they’re on camera or not!). Every day, that …
Breaks Away: Tom Bultman
Sheep in New Zealand have a friend in Dr. Tom Bultman. And Dr. Bultman, professor of biology, was happy to oblige the massive, wooly industry that is valuable in a country where sheep outnumber humans by about 10-to-1.
Carbon Molecules and Pink Flamingos
Dr. Jeff Johnson’s research may be complicated but it’s also creative, ambitious, and elementally fun.