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Carleton recently expanded its Employee Recognition Celebration by introducing the Impact Awards, a new tradition designed to honor four staff and faculty for extraordinary contributions. We are proud to announce two of our own STEM faculty were among this year’s winners!
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Intellectual Engagement Award: MurphyKate Montee
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Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor of Mathematics
This award recognizes an employee who has significantly deepened the intellectual life of Carleton's campus. |
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“Mathematics is often portrayed as the ultimate ivory-tower pursuit: pure thought wrapped in language impenetrable to all but experts,” one nominator wrote. “Through her work in her first five years at Carleton, MurphyKate Montee has helped puncture this myth. Through many initiatives, she has shown how mathematical ideas and mathematical pedagogy are in fact vibrantly connected to diverse aspects of human inquiry.”
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Student Hero Award: Claudio Gómez Gonzáles
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Assistant Professor of Mathematics
This recognition focuses on those who have made a transformative impact on student experience and wellbeing. |
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“Claudio Gómez-Gonzáles takes to heart the ideal that education at a liberal arts college engages the whole student,” one nominator said. “They curate a very challenging but deeply compassionate environment in their classrooms.”
But as many nominators noted, Gómez-Gonzáles’s teaching and compassion do not end at the classroom door, or even just in the math department. Their office is often filled with students who aren’t even studying math that term, instead sharing stories of family, college life, and concerns over tea.
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Tuesday, May 12 | Quasicrystals of Ultracold Quantum Matter
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7-8pm • Olin 149 • Physics and Astronomy
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Join Dr. Charles Brown, Assistant Professor of Physics from Yale University, for this year's Frank Verbrugge Memorial Lecture. This talk will describe the design of an apparatus in which a quantum gas is confined within a 10-fold rotation-symmetric quasiperiodic optical lattice and will mention planned first measurements. Learn more about Brown's talk.
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Tomorrow, Tuesday, May 12
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Physics Table - Check Radiations Newsletter for location, noon-1 pm
If you are interested in Physics or Astronomy, join other folks for a community lunch! If you're off board or on a limited plan, let the cashier know you're there for Physics Table, and we'll treat you to lunch!
Math and Stats Comps Presentations and Posters - Olin 141 from 3-5:30pm and Anderson Atrium from 5:30-6pm
Presentations include "Across the Resilience Boundary: Framing Stochastic Flow-Kick as a Markov Chain," "Thinking Inside the Box: CAT(0) Cube Complexes and their Symmetries," and more.
Chemistry: Visiting Assistant Candidate #2 Pre-Talk - Anderson 323, 6pm
Join us for an interactive discussion with the candidate, followed by dinner. Please RSVP.
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Chemistry Periodic Table - Anderson, Mohrig space, noon-1 pm
If you are off board, the department will cover your lunch. Go to the Schulze Cafe and ask for the chemistry charge. Questions: contact Danielle Morisette.
Biology Comps Presentations - Olin 141, noon-1pm
Speakers in this session include Esme Song and James Texter.
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Using my powers for good: What physicists do in biophysics and high school teaching - Anderson 036, 3:30-4:30pm
Join Allison Churnside, a teacher at Niwot High School, for her perspective on a nonlinear but satisfying career path. She will give an overview of the biophysics projects that she worked on in graduate school, at a federal lab, and in industry. And, she will highlight her work as an International Baccalaureate (IB) physics and math teacher at a high school.
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Campus Events and Resources
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Thursday, May 14 | Interdisciplinary Curiosity As A Path to Inclusion
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noon-1pm • Weitz 236
The student organizations Gender Minorities in Math and Stats (GeMMS), Women+ Interested in Thinking Critically about History (WITCH), and Lovelace are hosting a lunch to build community among Carls. RSVP by May 12. |
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Saturday, May 16 | Beaver Fest
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1-3pm • Mai-Fete Island
Beaver Fest is a student-run event celebrating beavers. We'll have educational booths, treats, crafts, and lawn games. Stop by to learn about beavers! |
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Friday, May 15 | Bike to Work Day
The Sustainability Office invites you to bike to work, enjoy the weather, and save money on gas!
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Carleton Job Opportunities
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Weather Station
The Physics and Astronomy Department is hiring student programmers for a 10-week summer position to maintain and upgrade the historic Carleton Weather Station. This 40-hour-per-week role focuses on using Django to finish the weather website, managing MySQL databases, and working with hardware like Arduino and Raspberry Pi. If you have coding experience and are eager to contribute to the oldest official weather records in Minnesota, apply by contacting Tom Baraniak or visiting Anderson 026!
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If you branch off the paved path at Postage Stamp Prairie in the Upper Arb, you may find a single-track trail with fantastic views of early spring wildflowers.
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The trail runs a few hundred meters along the hill overlooking Bell Field, between the paved path and Spring Creek. Though it is absent from most maps of the Arb, the trail is well-known among nature lovers for a first peek at emerging plant life after a cold winter. The trail is in Stork Forest, which was planted in the 1930s—one of the earliest native-forest restorations in North America. Read about wildflower row in this article by Max Posner '27, Cole Student Naturalist.
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Considering Grad School: What You Need to Know Before Senior Year
Monday, May 11, 5:30-7pm, Anderson 121
This presentation will review what factors to consider when exploring if graduate or professional school is right for you and which programs you want to apply for. We will focus on a timeline for exploring and applying, what types of graduate degrees exist, and how graduate/professional school differs from your undergraduate experience.
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Recent Carleton Geology alumni Bretwood Higman ’99 and Noah Finnegan ’99 were featured in The New York Times for their critical work on landslide-generated tsunamis in Alaska. As climate change causes glaciers to retreat and permafrost to thaw, mountain slopes are becoming increasingly unstable. Higman, part of an international research team, investigated a massive 2025 landslide in Tracy Arm fjord that sent a 1,500-foot wave up a mountain wall—the second-largest tsunami runup ever recorded.
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Visit Carleton Integrated Math and Science for additional news and research opportunities in Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Environmental Studies, Geology, Mathematics & Statistics, Neuroscience, Physics & Astronomy, and Psychology.
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This Week in Science is produced by the Center for Integrated Math and Science. For questions about the newsletter, please contact Kari McMartin.
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