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“It’s a Google and two clicks to get to the [Bon Appétit] menu,” Chris Lee ’16 noted, “and that’s just annoying.” Lee, a computer science major, isn’t being lazy; he understands that in the age of smartphones, convenience often determines usefulness. With this in mind, Hamilton App, available on both the App Store and the Play Store, aims to “centralize information to one useful app for the benefit of students, alumni, faculty and staff.”

Ten women participating in summer research in the Hamilton College Chemistry, Computer Science and Physics departments have been recognized as Clare Boothe Luce Undergraduate Research Scholars. Funded through a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation and matching funds from Hamilton College, these awards provide stipends and funding for equipment, supplies, and travel to encourage women to either begin or continue research projects in the three disciplines.

Computer science majors Jason Fortunato ’17 and Linnea Sahlberg ’17 are attempting to improve upon expensive biometric technologies this summer through a research project titled Remote Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy. Working under Stephen Harper Kirner Chair of Computer Science Stuart Hirshfield, their research is focused on the creation of relatively unintrusive alternatives to Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) equipment, utilizing lasers to operate remotely instead of the common skin-contact reliant systems of traditional equipment.

“Using Noninvasive Brain Measurement to Explore the Psychological Effects of Computer Malfunctions on Users during Human-Computer Interactions,” co-authored by Leanne Hirshfield ’02, Stephen Harper Kirner Professor of Computer Science Stuart Hirshfield, Mathew Farrington ’12, Spencer Gulbronson ’12 and Diane Paverman ’13, was published in Advances in Human-Computer Interaction.

Stephen Harper Kirner Professor of Computer Science Stuart Hirshfield, along with seven students, attended the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) of Women in Computing Conference Oct. 2 – 5 in Minneapolis.

Information, regardless of its accuracy, spreads rapidly through social media, reaching and influencing millions of readers.  In special instances, stories achieve viral status, where a large number of people receive the material within days, if not hours. Unfortunately, oftentimes information is incorrect, yet people accept it as true.

During her four years at Hamilton Diane Paverman ’13 worked on multiple computer science projects using technology to analyze human emotions. Now a recent graduate, she’ll be turning that experience into a career, beginning as a technology consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton as part of a team dealing with cybersecurity.

George Orwell’s iconic dystopian novel 1984 famously featured cameras capable of discerning a person’s state of mind – their contentedness, truthfulness or trustfulness – simply by looking at their face. The year 1984 came and went without such a technology emerging, but as demonstrated by Diane Paverman ’13 and Eric Murray’s ’13 summer research on the functional near-infrared spectrometer (fNIRS), scientists are getting closer to achieving Orwellian-like surveillance capabilities.

Spencer Gulbronson, a candidate for May graduation from Hamilton, has been awarded a prestigious Thomas J. Watson Fellowship for 2012-13. Her project, titled “The Universal Language: Exploring Creative Approaches to Math Education,” was among 40 national winners of the Fellowships.

The total number of students on Hamilton’s campus may be smaller than an entire graduating class at big research universities, but that doesn’t mean Hamilton’s research opportunities are any more limited. In fact, as Matthew T. Farrington ’12, Diane Paverman ’13, Spencer Gulbronson ’12, Peter Lauro ’12 and alumnus Sam Hinks ’11 are discovering, research at Hamilton is just as engaging as it can be at large universities. The students are working with Professor of Computer Science Stuart Hirshfield to determine if computers can recognize the unique “signature” of a user’s brain.