Wheaton College Norton, Massachusetts
» Archives for Sciences
Grace Relihan ’€™12 at her internship with the Raptor Trust, based in central New Jersey.

Flying high

by

Grace Relihan ’12 with a pigeon at the Raptor Trust, based in central New Jersey.Grace Alloy-Relihan ’12 has been fascinated by birds her whole life but didn’t know it until she stepped into “Evolution and Ecology,” the course taught by Professor of Biology John Kricher.

“There is in that course a large section on the evolution and anatomy of dinosaurs, leading all the way to the evolution of modern birds,” says Alloy-Relihan. “After a particular lecture detailing the feathered dinosaurs found in Liaoning, China, I went home to my own parakeets and stared at them for an hour because I saw what they really were for the first time.

“There were two small dinosaurs in a cage in my house. I was looking into the eyes of the creatures I’d been so fascinated by my whole life.” [Read more...]

Filed Under: Features, Go Beyond, People Tagged With:

Examining research ethics

by

Wheaton Professor Teresa CeledaAssistant Professor of Philosophy Teresa Celada has a bachelor’s degree in biological science, and a master’s degree and doctorate in philosophy. The cross-disciplinary combination provides her with an insightful perspective on the ethics of research involving human participants, which is the focus of her scholarship. Last January, she shared her expertise with the members of the National Institute of Public Health and the Ministry of Health in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She worked with them to organize and conduct a two-and-a-half-day symposium on the responsible conduct of research. It was the first activity of a yearlong project aimed at developing a sustainable and culturally appropriate program in ethical research for Cambodia. We recently asked her about her work. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Panorama Tagged With:

Examining ways to improve health care

by

Sedra Davis ’14 and Claudia D’Adamo ’13 are working with doctors, scientists and other students to research computational approaches to using vital-signs data to improve patient care.

In the United States, traumatic brain injury is a leading cause of injury-related deaths. Sedra Davis ’14 and Claudia D’Adamo ’13, along with Assistant Professor of Computer Science Tom Armstrong, are hoping to change that. Through the use of technology, they are working to improve the chances for recovery in critically injured patients.

The three are examining vital-signs data to find common patterns across patients. These patterns will be used to alert health care providers about the need for medical intervention and to predict patient outcomes.

“Computing is changing the way that other disciplines approach asking and answering questions,” says Armstrong. “Opportunities like this provide experiences that will be useful regardless of the path Sedra and Claudia choose: graduate education, professional education, or industry.”

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Around the Dimple Tagged With: , ,

National Science Foundation grant supports physics and chemistry research

by

Wheaton has won a National Science Foundation grant to acquire a cutting-edge laser system that will advance the research of three Wheaton scientists and their students.

The $255,865 grant from NSF’s Major Research Instrumentation Program will finance the purchase of a tunable laser and auxiliary equipment to support the work of chemistry professor Thandi Buthelezi and physics professors John Collins and Xuesheng Chen. The instrumentation will foster Wheaton’s interdisciplinary curriculum and promote interactions among science departments.

A tunable laser can emit at a wide variety of colors, or wavelengths, and the ability to control and vary the wavelength makes this instrument a powerful research tool.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Around the Dimple Tagged With:
« Previous Page
Next Page »