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| March 3, 2023 | Submit a Note |
 Family Weekend Dean's Reception and Undergraduate Research and Creative Expression Forum, clockwise from top left: Mathematics and Computer Science, Theatre and Dance, History, Biology, Public Health, Art and Art History, and Ethnic Studies (center). More photos. Photos by Adam Hays
As always, we have a great issue highlighting the work of our faculty, staff, and students. We even have an alumna featured this week! Big congratulations to Bachana Lomsadze (Physics) for the NSF early CAREER award he recently received. He is the fourth faculty member in six years to receive this recognition. Our faculty are truly excellent! This upcoming Tuesday, the Office for Multicultural Learning is holding an event on the future of SCU’s diversity core requirement and how that will affect the Ethnic Studies Department - time and location information can be found in the calendar section below. I encourage you all to participate in this incredibly important topic, especially as the College teaches a significant percentage of SCU’s core classes. I am continually inspired by the accomplishments of our College community. Please keep submitting notes so that we can all celebrate our hard work together. Sincerely, Daniel Highlights
Dean Daniel Press (Environmental Studies and Sciences) was an advisor on a study of grassland restoration in California. The resulting article co-authored by Justin C. Luong (UCSC), Daniel Press, and Haren Holl (UCSC), "Lessons learned from an interdisciplinary evaluation of long-term restoration outcomes on 37 restored coastal grasslands in California," has been published in Biological Conservation.
Two books were published last month that included chapters by Tim Urdan (Psychology). He had two chapters in an edited book examining controversial issues in motivation research. The book was edited by three eminent scholars in motivation science and published by Oxford Press. One of Tim's chapters focused on the interplay of conscious and unconscious motives and the other chapter examined remaining unanswered questions in motivation science. The second publication was a book he co-edited with his colleague Eleftheria Gonida (Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, Greece). This book honored the work of Tim's former co-editor, Stuart Karabenick. It includes a chapter by Tim and alumni Daniel Teramoto '22 (Psychology) about using cognitive pretesting to improve the validity of survey measures. Image: Advances in Motivation and Achievement, Vol. 22, edited by Tim Urdan and Eleftheria Gonida
In January, the in-person “Enhancing Science Courses by Integrating Python” (ESCIP) workshop was held at Santa Clara University. Grace Stokes (Chemistry and Biochemistry) received a $25,000 grant from Research Corporation for Science Advancement in 2019 to establish this group. She received an additional $5000 grant to host this meeting of 37 chemists and physicists from across the U.S. in order to promote collaborations and share best practices and innovative tools. Stokes partnered with the National Science Foundation’s Molecular Science Software Institute (MolSSI) to provide education and training for these faculty to learn about new Python libraries and tools.
David Coad (English) co-edited a collection of classroom activities for the college writing classroom, Dynamic Activities for First-Year Composition, which was published this month by the National Council of Teachers of English! He recently presented on the book at the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), where the book sold out on the first day of the conference. Image: David Coad and his co-editor Michal Reznizki with their new book
Juliet Kulusic '22 (Psychology, Theatre Arts) has been working on performing arts therapy with alzheimer and dementia patients at the Hearts and Minds Activity Center. Juliet says "I was blessed enough to be given the opportunity, through Santa Clara University’s Experiential Learning and Social Justice Core Requirement, to be placed in a local activity center to engage in performing art therapy with dementia and alzheimer patients. I experienced the strength and power of performing art therapy in real time through my work with my alzheimer clients at this local center in San Jose. After only about two weeks, it was incredible to hear from the staff that through the work we were doing such as rehearsing monologues from their favorite movies, singing, dancing and playing instruments, the clients were able to remember my name, my appearance and personality and even the days of the week I would visit to teach.... the performative therapy we were engaging in was not only aiding in the client’s memory recollection but also improving their outlook on their diagnosis and was bringing more hope to their families."
Bachana Lomsadze (Physics) received a prestigious NSF early CAREER award. With this support, Bachana and his research group will develop a new tool that combines near-field optical microscopy with frequency comb-based multidimensional coherent spectroscopy (a method that he co-invented) to improve both the spectral and spatial resolutions for super resolution imaging for better understanding of the chemical and physical properties of two-dimensional materials. They will use this new tool to investigate nanoscale properties of two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides that have emerged as very attractive systems for applications in opto-electronic devices, including solar cells, light-emitting diodes, and photo-transistors. This new tool also has the potential to be used outside the laboratory for practical applications in many fields ranging from forensics, medical imaging, and field analysis. Bachana Lomsadze will also develop classroom activities for non-science majors to help students understand and appreciate basic science and technology that is impacting society today.
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Professors from colleges and universities across the U.S. attended a workshop at Santa Clara University in January 2023 to learn about and innovate course materials that teach Python coding in physics and chemistry courses.
Lang Chen (Psychology, Neuroscience) and his students, Jonathan Tablante '22 (Neuroscience, Biology), Lani Krossa '23 (Computer Science), and Tannaz Azimi '22 (Neuroscience) recently published a research paper titled “
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