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Is there life on other planets? What does the term ‘Viking’ really mean? Is Earth due for another reversal of the magnetic field? Expert faculty members from several departments, including history, east Asian languages, art history, geosciences, government, and physics, share a little-known fact about their discipline.

An article about the renovation of Hamilton’s solar classroom, co-authored by Eileen Wilcox ’21 and Assistant Professor of Instruction in Physics Adam Lark, was published The SPS Observer, the magazine of the Society of Physics Students.

From coups to COVID-19, faculty, staff, and students have presented their views and expertise in major news outlets throughout the year addressing myriad topics reflecting the breadth of their research.

Assistant Professor of Physics Viva Horowitz interviews science faculty about their research on her podcast “Significant Figures,” which airs on WHCL radio every Monday from 11 a.m. to noon. We asked her a few questions about the series.

Hamilton welcomed 51 new faculty members including eight new tenure-track in addition to visiting professors, lecturers, and teaching fellows for the 2021-22 academic year. The College is in the midst of a 10-year period, begun in 2015, during which nearly half of its faculty will reach average retirement age.

While most campus activity remained virtual this summer, three Hamilton faculty members brought colleagues and students from around the globe together by hosting academic conferences. Assistant Professor of Physics Kristen Burson co-chaired the 81st Physical Electronics Conference (PEC), Associate Professor of Sociology Jaime Kucinskas convened a Social Mindfulness Symposium, and Associate Professor of Philosophy Russell Marcus co-organized the American Association of Philosophy Teachers (AAPT) summer series.

Assistant Professor of Physics Viva Horowitz was working as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard when she began to take a more serious interest in the dynamics of a cell’s cytoplasm. “In physics, we have equations that allow us to model things and predict how things will move,” Horowitz said. “And it turns out that the cytoplasm completely breaks those rules — there’s motors pushing things around.”

A typical student research project might build on information found in various online or print resources. Hongyu Zhang ’24 is working with data from a slightly more extraterrestrial source: NASA’s Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) telescope.

Andrew Projansky ’21 will enter a physics Ph.D. program at Dartmouth College this fall. Here he talks about his interest in the subject and what led him on his path.

“There’s a lot of really cool things that you can study with physics, but I feel that if we don’t solve our energy crisis within my lifetime, none of that’s really going to matter. ... I want to help with that matter, help with that push, by either working on renewable energy or carbon capture that can really make in impact before it’s too late,” said Catherine Ryczek ’21, who will soon join the physics doctoral program at the California Institute of Technology.