Harvey Mudd College Magazine, summer 2013

B UL L E T IN

Summer 2013

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

INSIDE

F uture l e ade rs l i ve w hat the y l e arn

14 In Step with Student Researchers

18 A Half-centur y of Learning by Doing: Clinic Program 50th Anniversar y

22 The Team Advantage

24 Clinic’s Future

Michael Storrie-Lombardi P13

IMPRESSIONS

Summer on Mars?

For Summer Research students Sean Messenger ’15, Samuel Yim ’14, Katherine Yang ’15, Alberto Ruiz ’14 and Shreyasha (Sasha) Paudel ’14, one method of searching for life on Mars involved a trip to the Mojave Desert and the Mars-like Pisgah Crater. With professors Greg Lyzenga ’75 (physics), Chris Clark (engineering) and adjunct assistant professor Michael Storrie-Lombardi P13 (physics), the students field tested a robot that uses intelligent pattern recognition to obtain optical biosignatures.

This information is used to determine the presence of living organisms in rock. A joint effort by HMC’s physics and engineering departments and the Kinohi Institute, the project served as a proof of concept for autonomous, cooperative rovers navigating, mapping and searching for life in Martian caves. View the video of their July expedition at www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDKFKQuPW2A&feature=youtu.be .

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE “I have from my personal experience gained the idea that engineering is like dancing; you don’t learn it in a lecture hall, you learn it by getting out on the dance floor and stepping on people’s toes.”

— Jack L. Alford, professor of engineering emeritus, co-founder of Engineering Clinic

P

Steps to Success

rofessor Alford’s eloquent statement illustrates a critically important distinction about the Harvey Mudd College experience: you learn best when you are not afraid to take a chance and try something new. Fear of failure stops so many people from attempting great things. At Harvey Mudd, our students get many opportunities to fail—and to gain experience from those failures—so they can learn both to ask for help and to give it.

But they also learn a great deal more.

Through the experiential learning opportunities the College offers—whether through our Clinic Program, Summer Undergraduate Research Program, individual and small-group study or community engagement activities—our students work with others, ask challenging questions, try different solutions and, in doing so, develop new cognitive capabilities.

This year, we are celebrating 50 years of HMC’s Clinic Program. Originally founded in 1963 by professors Alford and Mack Gilkeson, the Engineering Clinic has continued to flourish, while new Clinic programs have been added in mathematics, computer science, physics and environmental studies. With the addition of the Global Clinic in 2005, the College launched opportunities for international collaboration. Learn more about the past, present and future of Clinic (beginning on Page 18) as well as why teamwork is such an essential component (Page 22).

The College’s experiential learning dance card isn’t just about clinics. Through our year-round undergraduate research program (full-time during the summer), students have invaluable opportunities to work with our amazing faculty, explore topics and suggest new approaches to challenging problems. Participation in events such as the Putnam Mathematical Competition (Page 12) and clubs such as the Society of Professional Latinos in STEMS and Science Bus (Page 13) encourage students to have a positive impact while sharing their passion for science, technology, engineering and math.

This summer, we moved into the new R. Michael Shanahan Center for Teaching and Learning—an innovative building that will continue to improve the way we deliver a Harvey Mudd education. With updated spaces for teaching, collaboration and interaction, the new facility marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter in the history of the College. I hope you’ll join the celebration on Sept. 28 when we hold the official opening of the Shanahan Center (Page 5).

Through the generosity of alumni and friends, we are continuing to build upon the excellence that pervades Harvey Mudd College. I’m so proud of our graduates and all those who dare to take those first intimidating steps and strive for success.

Maria Klawe, President, Harvey Mudd College

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Summer 2013 Volume 11, No. 3 The HMC Bulletin is produced three times per year by the Office of Communications and Marketing Vice President for College Advancement Dan Macaluso Assistant Vice President of Communications and Marketing Timothy L. Hussey, APR Director of Communications, Senior Editor Stephanie L. Graham Art Director Janice Gilson Graphic Design Susan Landesmann Contributing Writers Rich Smith, Koren Wetmore Proofreaders Kelly Lauer, Koren Wetmore Contributing Photographers Shannon Cottrell, Keenan Gilson, Kevin Mapp, Cheryl Ogden, Dale M. Peterson, Michael Storrie-Lombardi P13 The Harvey Mudd College Bulletin (SSN 0276-0797) is published by Harvey Mudd College, Office of Communications and Marketing, 301 Platt Boulevard, Claremont, CA 91711 www.hmc.edu.

Nonprofit Organization Postage Paid at Claremont, CA 91711 Postmaster: Send address changes to Harvey Mudd College, Advancement Services, 301 Platt Boulevard, Claremont, CA 91711.

Copyright © 2013—Harvey Mudd College. All rights reserved. Opinions expressed in the HMC Bulletin are those of the individual authors and subjects and do not necessarily reflect the views of the College administration, faculty or students. No portion of this magazine may be reproduced without the express written consent of the editor.

Find the Bulletin online at www.hmc.edu/hmcmagazine

The Harvey Mudd College Bulletin staff welcomes your input: communications@hmc.edu or HMC Bulletin Harvey Mudd College 301 Platt Boulevard Claremont, CA 91711

Summer 2013

TABLE OF CONTENTS E xperiential Learning / Clinic Program 50th Anniversar y

DEPARTMENTS

FEATURES

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18 A Half-century of Learning by Doing A review of this year’s Clinic projects shows the depth and creativity that contributes to a thriving program.

4 Campus Current New building opens; Commencement; Annenberg speaker Colin Bodell P14; Trustee Update Faculty News Staff News

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10

Student News

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22 The Team Advantage Working on a Clinic team positions students for future success.

26 Mudderings Alumni Association Awards; Alumni Weekend; New to the Alumni Association Board of Governors; Fall Calendar; Pooled Scholarships

A sam plin

sea g of student re

rch

24 Marching to a Different Drum An innovation of Harvey Mudd College, the Clinic Program was a daring experiment that worked. The program’s future is no less intriguing.

30 Class Notes Alumni Profile: Gregg Harr ’94 and Jeff Drummond ’94/95

This magazine was printed in the USA by an FSC-certified printer that emits 0% VOC emissions, using 30% post-consumer recycled paper and soy-based inks. By sustainably printing in this method, we have saved…

7,304 Lbs. of wood, which is equivalent to 24 trees that supply enough oxygen for 12 people annually.

11,382 Gallons of water, which is enough water for 660 eight-minute showers.

7 million BTUs of energy, which is enough energy to power the average household for 29 days.

2,312 Lbs. of emissions, which is the amount of carbon consumed by 26 tree seedlings grown for 10 years.

665 Lbs. of solid waste, which would fill 121 garbage cans.

Cover illustration by BARBARA LASZLO

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Find the Bulletin online at www.hmc.edu/magazine

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College News

Room with a View NEW BUILDING OPENS; STUDENTS NAME ROOFTOP CLASSROOM

The R. Michael Shanahan Center for Teaching and Learning is readied for occupancy in July.

The new building has a name—the R. Michael Shanahan Center for Teaching and Learning—and a rooftop classroom unlike any other. At a May 4 event, students were offered the opportunity to showcase their creativity by naming what may become one of the favorite spots on campus.

Put to a Vote The naming opportunity arose through the generosity of Bruce Worster ’64 and his wife, Susan, two of the College’s most ardent supporters, who have created an endowed faculty chair in physics, two endowed scholarships in honor of each of their parents as well as support for annual scholarships, for Hoch-Shanahan Dining Commons and many other priorities.

The couple helped fund the new building, which afforded them the honor of naming the rooftop glass classroom. Rather

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than naming it themselves, they invited all students who supported the student fundraising initiative (see Page 11) to suggest a name that best reflects something meaningful to current students. (The room is one of 63 naming opportunities in the building. At press time, 28 spaces had been named or reserved.)

One of 28 classrooms in the building, the glass-encased room rests atop the third-floor terrace, features exposed ceilings and provides occupants a view of the outdoor teaching area.

Students submitted nearly 100 clever suggestions for consideration. After selecting their three favorites, the Worsters put the potential names to a live vote attended by students, members of the Alumni Association Board of Governors and other community members.

The runaway favorite was SkyCube.

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College News

Susan and Bruce Worster ’64 considered nearly 100 suggested names for the rooftop classroom. SkyCube was the overwhelming favorite.

The Visionaries The Worsters are part of a growing group of people who are lending support to the College’s 70,000-square-foot, $43-million campus centerpiece. Major contributors also include former board Chair R. Michael Shanahan (for whom the building is named) and his wife, Mary. Wayne Drinkward ’73, chair of the board of trustees, the Founding Class of 1961 and the late Malcolm Lewis ’67, former HMC board chair and a board member of the U.S. Green Building Council. Lewis was an internationally recognized expert in the design of energy efficient buildings and led construction of more than 150 Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified projects, including HMC’s Sontag Residence Hall and the Hoch-Shanahan Dining Commons. Due to the sustainability characteristics of the Shanahan Center for Teaching and Learning, the College anticipates LEED Gold certification.

In addition to offices (President’s, Admission and Financial Aid, and Department of Mathematics), the new building features technologically advanced and flexible classrooms, lecture halls and public spaces.

Tours, performances and lectures will be featured Sept. 28 during a celebration to recognize donors and partners responsible for the Shanahan Center’s design (Boora Architects) and construction (MATT Construction).

Join the Celebration

By the Numbers: LEED Facts 74,200 Estimated dollars saved in annual energy costs. As a percentage, the energy savings is 48 percent above code

90 The percentage of regularly occupied spaces with exposure to natural daylight 900 Approximate number of allowable occupants 3,600 Estimated dollar amount saved annually by incorporating daylighting into classrooms and offices 75 The percentage of regularly occupied spaces with operable windows.

The Board of Trustees of Harvey Mudd College invites you to the formal opening of the R. Michael Shanahan Center for Teaching and Learning.

Saturday, Sept. 28, 2013 | 1:30 p.m.

A special lecture, open house and celebration reception will follow the dedication ceremony.

Inquiries: stewardship@hmc.edu

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College News

Poise and Positivism COMMENCEMENT 2013

Now, Meet the Entering Class of 2017 Enrollment: 219

53% men 47% women Public School: 68% Private School: 32% Geographic Distribution

11 Foreign Countries 31 States California 35% West (excluding CA) 5% Northwest 13% Southwest 3% Midwest 10% Northeast 14% South 6% Outside of the U.S. 14% Clockwise from top: Haak Saxberg ’13; Will Ferenc ’13; President Maria Klawe, keynoter Carl Wieman and Dean of Students Maggie Browning; My Ho ’13, Katarina Hoeger ’13, Richard Hsieh ’13 and Kenny Huang ’13.

They had not yet formally stepped foot into the real world.

Still, the graduating Class of 2013 was clearly prepared to enter it, judging by the remarkable degree of poise and positivism on display May 19.

Student speaker Alec Storrie-Lombardi ’13 (engineering) urged classmates to leap fearlessly into whatever murky waters lay ahead because this crop of HMC grads is “going to make quite a splash.”

President Maria Klawe said she knew of “no other institution that pushes its students to do so much hard thinking…”

Nor could she name another school where “helping others succeed…is probably the most valuable thing you will take with you for the rest of your life, because people who make others successful are sought after.”

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Rigorous scholastics were celebrated by keynoter Carl Wieman, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics (he created the first Bose-Einstein ultra-low-temperature condensate), former White House Office of Science and Technology Policy associate director and founder of science-education institutes at the universities of Colorado and British Columbia. Said Wieman, “…When the brain’s pushed hard, it responds by changing and getting better….So, there’s real value in all that very hard work that you did.”

Mathematics is Focus of Two Grants

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Built from Scratch ANNENBERG SERIES SPEAKER COLIN BODELL P14 Behind the phenomenal success of Amazon.com is a simple credo: find an itch and scratch it—first yours, then everybody else’s.

Colin Bodell P14, Amazon’s vice president of Itches can lead to innovation, said Colin Bodell P14. website application platform and builder tools, shared this insight during the spring Annenberg Leadership and Management Speaker Series, a forum for candid talk by prominent senior executives.

“The notion of scratching your own itch, of being your own customer, and then going out and solving problems for the rest of the world is…very interesting and also very important because it’s led to some tremendous innovations,” said Bodell, who joined Amazon in 2006 after a turn as chief technology officer for VA Software.

Speaking as the leader of Amazon’s online platform development and operations teams and as technical representative for the company’s Open Source Group, Bodell indicated that one of his employer’s current big itches revolves around efforts to eliminate barriers to innovation and business change—barriers that exist both within Amazon and among its many partners worldwide. “Amazon is very much a large umbrella company with lots of very individual entrepreneurial businesses that lie within it,” he said, noting that the shopping cart, payment functions, user review sections and forums work independently of one another, yet must be able to fluidly interact.

What’s Your Itch?

One itch Amazon can’t seem to scratch enough is its desire to promote entrepreneurism, said Bodell, himself a holder of 10 patents pending in the areas of website operations, email subscription management and DDoS protection.

He said, for example, that Amazon rents its cloud computing capabilities to software developers who have big ideas. This arrangement gives them affordable access to the tools and supports infrastructure they need to go from concept to reality, all the while avoiding the financial risks associated with venture capital.

College News

Trustee Update Four members were welcomed July 1 to the Harvey Mudd College Board of Trustees.

A Time Magazine “Global Influential,” Eric B. Kim ’76 recently retired from his position as CEO and president of Soraa Inc. Kim, a physics alumnus, was previously executive vice president at Samsung Electronics Co. A native of Seoul, South Korea, he earned a master’s in engineering from UCLA and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Private real-estate investor Cherif Sedky P14 is a graduate of Stanford University (economics) and Georgetown University Law Center. He was senior advisor and chief legal officer for Al-Murjan Private Office in Saudi Arabia and was a principal of real estate advisory firm Greystone Capital Alliance LLC. Jocelyn Goldfein is director of engineering at Facebook, where she oversees teams responsible for many popular Facebook features. Prior to Facebook, Goldfein, a Stanford University computer science graduate, was vice president and general manager at VMware and director of engineering at MessageOne. Shamit Grover ’05, an investor at MSD Capital in New York, joins the board as a Young Alumnus Trustee.

Other board transitions Returning members: Bruce Worster ’64, Norman Sprague Advisory trustees: Neil Chriss, Peter Muller, John Vickery ’90/91 Emeritus Trustees: Richmond (Dick) Hoch ’63, Clifford Miller

Bodell asked, “What’s your itch, what’s your passion? What’s the problem that you have to deal with on a regular basis? ...If you can solve it for yourself, and you do so in a great way and you’re very pleased and very thrilled with it, there’s a very high likelihood that other people will also get the chance to benefit from it as well.”

For Annenberg Series speakers information, including links to talks

by Bodell and Whitney Johnson, visit http://bit.ly/157vUvh.

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Faculty News

Voice of Reason G. WILLIAM DAUB NAMED MUDD PRIZE RECIPIENT

William Daub (right) shares a mirthful moment with chemistry Professors Hal Van Ryswyk and Robert Cave. President Maria Klawe presents the Henry T. Mudd Prize to Daub at Commencement.

Chemistry Professor G. William Daub was recognized for his extraordinary service to the Harvey Mudd College community May 19 during the 55th Commencement Ceremony.

President Maria Klawe presented Daub, who is Seeley Wintersmith Mudd Professor of Chemistry, with the annual Henry T. Mudd Prize, which recognized his years of service and lauded his expertise, his kind heart and his being a “quiet voice of reason.” Daub expressed gratitude to those who nominated and chose him for the Mudd Prize and then offered some words of wisdom.

“Faculty don’t work in a vacuum. They’ve got a strong and supportive board of trustees and administration, they’ve got great colleagues, they’ve got wonderful staff, but, most importantly,” said Daub, gesturing toward the graduates, “they have you guys, the students. Without you, this place wouldn’t be nearly as much fun. So, let me give you just one bit of advice as you move on: Life is short; remember to laugh.”

Daub joined the HMC faculty in 1978, following a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University. His service to the College includes teaching general and organic chemistry, mentoring students and faculty, and serving in a variety of leadership roles. He has served as the freshman division

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director (1994–1995) and Department of Chemistry chair (1995–2008), and he is the Core Curriculum director. Daub also served on the Department Chairs Committee and as an advisor to the deans of students.

The Mudd Prize is awarded to a member of the College community whose service to HMC and its mission is deemed exemplary. Henry T. Mudd (1913–1990), the son of Harvey S. Mudd, was instrumental in the creation and early development of the college named for his father.

Michael E. Moody Lecture Series Friday, Oct. 11 Jennifer Quinn, University of Washington, Tacoma Thursday, April 3, 2014 Anette “Peko” Hosoi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Moody Lecture Series illuminates the joy, wonder and applicability of mathematics. Watch your mail and email for details.

Mathematics is Focus of Two Grants

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Faculty News

Faculty Updates RESEARCH, AWARDS, ACTIVITIES Su Elected MAA President The Mathematical Association of America—the largest professional society focused on undergraduate mathematics—elected Francis Su as president. When he begins his two-year term in 2015, Su will become the youngest president in MAA history (he serves as president-elect through 2014).

The organization recognized Su with awards in 2013, 2006, 2004 and 2001, including two for outstanding teaching. His research interests include geometric and topological combinatorics and applications to game theory and the social sciences.

HMC’s Fourth Alder Recipient Rachel Levy received the 2013 Henry L. Alder Award for Distinguished Teaching by a Beginning Faculty Member. She is the fourth HMC faculty member to receive this award from the Mathematical Association of America (HMC is notably the only college to appear more than once on the Alder Award list). Levy has served as chair of the HMC Teaching and Learning Committee, was recently appointed editor-in-chief of the online publication SIURO and is part of an HMC team investigating the efficacy of an “inverted” classroom teaching model.

Music Appreciation Learning how to appreciate the music of different cultures is the topic of Bill Alves’ book Music of the Peoples of the World, now in its third edition. A survey of 11 musical cultures, the text explores geography and history, allowing students to connect the music to its social context. Alves, a teacher, composer, scholar of non-Western music and associate professor of music has been an active performer of non-Western music, mostly in various Javanese and Balinese gamelan orchestras but also West African drumming. He is codirector of the MicroFest Festival of Microtonal Music and director of the American Gamelan and Electronic Music ensembles at The Claremont Colleges.

Lewis on NPR Colleen Lewis made a cameo appearance on a National Public Radio program spotlighting HMC’s success at inspiring women to study computer science. The May 1 broadcast was one in an ongoing NPR series called “The Changing Lives of Women,” and it aired on the network’s flagship “All Things Considered” program.

An accompanying article NPR prepared for its website described a teaching technique Lewis employs to great effect: tying assignments to pop culture.

Stronger Alloys Engineering Professor Lori Bassman is leading a National Science Foundationfunded project that pairs HMC with the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, to collaboratively investigate the development of stronger metallic alloys.

The NSF grant is intended to support undergraduate student involvement in the fabrication, study and modeling of high-entropy alloys.

Reading Frenzy Shark-tracking research by Chris Clark, associate professor of engineering, triggered a reading frenzy when it appeared on the pages of two prominent science publications: the May/June issue of The Journal of Field Robotics (“Tracking and Following a Tagged Leopard Shark with an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle”) and the May edition of Science World (“Shark Chasers” cover story). Clark is studying underwater robots with collaborators from California State University, Long Beach and the University of Delaware plus more than 10 student researchers, including physics graduate Chris Gage ’13. continued on Page 10

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Faculty & Staff News

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A Positive Force BINDER PRIZE GOES TO EVA GOMEZ If you’re an HMC employee, it’s quite likely that Eva Gomez knows your name. As human resources assistant, she handles key areas, including benefits enrollment, dependent tuition scholarships and using the College’s payroll system.

Her interactions so impressed her managers and colleagues that she was selected to receive the 2013 Mary G. Binder Prize, an award that recognizes support staff committed to helping others.

The Binder Prize—which carries with it an award of $750—was bestowed on Gomez in May at the annual yearend celebration of and for HMC employees.

“For me, winning the Binder Prize is the highest form of recognition I could receive from my peers and colleagues,” Gomez said. “I was overtaken by emotion. It is humbling to read what people think of you as a person and your contribution to the HMC community. It is an honor and a wonderful moment in my career.”

An invaluable resource Friendly and knowledgeable, Gomez works with a caring, upbeat attitude. In particular, she is known for a willingness to go above and beyond in assisting students, faculty, staff, parents, applicants and visitors. She speaks fluent Spanish, which makes her an invaluable resource to employees for whom Spanish is their first language.

Mary G. Binder was the mother-in-law of Professor Emeritus Sam Tanenbaum. He and his wife, Carol, established and

“Winning the Binder Prize is the highest form of recognition I could receive from my peers and colleagues.”

Eva Gomez

endowed the prize in 1997 as an expression of gratitude to HMC’s support staff and in keeping with Binder’s belief that the greatest virtue in life is to help others.

Faculty News, continued from Page 9

Outstanding Paper Published research co-authored by mathematics Professor Andrew Bernoff was recognized in July as outstanding by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). “A Primer of Swarm Equilibria”—appearing in the SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems and written in collaboration with Macalester College mathematics Professor Chad Topaz—encapsulated nearly five years of work in the modeling of locust-swarm configurations.

It explained how solutions could be found to one of the most common models used to describe biological swarms.

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Formula for Enchantment For the third year, mathematics Professor Talithia Williams (shown, right, with mathematics Professor Rachel Levy) organized a successful conference to empower middle- and high-school girls— African-Americans in particular—by introducing them to role models from academia, business and other professional fields.

Held in April, the Sacred SISTAHS math and science conference attracted more than 100 students. Williams sees creatively taught mathematics as a formula for teen enchantment with numbers, a gateway to developing their interest in disciplines of all types.

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Student News

Leading by Example STUDENT LEADERS CELEBRATED

Student-led Giving Campaign Successful

Student leaders Brady Sutton ’13, Megan Wheeler ’13, Adam Brown ’13, Hannah Groshong ’13, Christian Stevens ’14 and Dustin Zubke ’13.

Student leaders have established the College’s colors, Honor Code and many other traditions (Wednesday Nighters, Foster’s Run and Skirt Day, to name a few). The College supports and encourages these leaders, who selflessly perform many outstanding services, act as responsible role models and work to foster in others greater integrity, compassion and accountability.

To formally acknowledge these standout members of the community, the Dean of Students Office and the Associated Students of HMC presented the first Student Leadership Awards celebration in May. Honorees included those who have provided exceptional service as leaders on campus, plus scholarship and internship recipients. Maggie Browning, vice president and dean of students, led the proceedings.

Student Leadership Awards Selected to receive the group Student Leadership Award for their community outreach efforts and dedication to social equality in the sciences were Science Bus volunteers Priya Donti ’15, Kacyn Fujii ’13, Ji Su Lee ’15 and Aarthi Sridhar ’15.

Receiving an individual Student Leadership Award were Linde Activities Center Supervisor Garrett Menghini ’13 and HMC Math Club/SIAM student chapter Treasurer Elly Schofield ’13.

Dean Sundberg Prize Chosen as recipients of the $500 Dean Chris Sundberg Prize (established in 2009

by Dana Mohamed ’06) were President’s Scholar and Future Achievers in Science and Technology aide Sophia Williams ’15 and Science Bus volunteer Donti (who also served as its co-president).

Strauss Internship for Social Understanding HMC students interested in working with a community service organization participate in the 10-week Strauss Internship for Social Understanding, which includes up to $4,000 in support.

Participants and their organizations are Natasha Allen ’16 (Potential Energy), Brittany Borg ’15 (Uncommon Good), Thendral Govindaraj ’16 (Claremont Home Energy Retrofits Project) and Emma Zang-Schwartz ’15 (The Wellness Community). continued on Page 13

Instead of engaging only seniors in a giving campaign, all students were encouraged to work together to raise funds for something of great importance: an endowed ASHMC Scholarship.

The idea for a joint effort was suggested, and discussions began between students and President Maria Klawe, Dean of Students Maggie Browning, Advancement Vice President Dan Macaluso and advancement staff. Discussions focused on developing a program that was primarily student driven and staff supported. The nearly 60 students involved in the effort, including ASHMC, developed a community-focused campaign that ran from April 10 to 24.

The students raised $5,183 toward the scholarship and reached 36.2 percent in overall student participation (274 students). By class, participation was 45.3 percent for seniors (surpassing last year’s rate of 40 percent), 29.2 percent for juniors, 33.3 percent for sophomores and 36.5 percent for first years (giving the seniors a close race right to the end).

The Alumni Association Board of Governors provided incentive funds to help the students increase their total toward the endowed scholarship.

Several faculty and staff members also contributed to the ASHMC scholarship to help the students meet the $10,000 minimum to begin awarding the funds during the upcoming academic year.

With the additional gifts from faculty, staff and alumni, the student campaign total was $12,383.

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Student News

Recognition Round-up STUDENT SCHOLARSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, AWARDS Goldwater Scholarships. Samuel Gutekunst ’14 and Sheena Patel ’14 were awarded the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship worth up to $7,500 for the academic year ahead. Voting theory has long been a research focus for mathematics major Gutekunst. Patel, a physics major, is attracted to magnetism research. Gutekunst and Patel were among 271 Goldwater recipients out of 1,107 mathematics, science and engineering students nominated by colleges and universities nationwide.

Mathematics and physics major Andrew Turner ’14 received honorable mention. His research may shed light on aspects of laser chemical vapor deposition.

Whitaker Fellow. Selected as a 2013–2014 Whitaker International Fellowship recipient, Kate Crawford ’13 will spend the next academic year in Istanbul exploring the structural properties of a receptor-ligand pair implicated in cancer growth—an investigation that might lead to a chemotherapy treatment breakthrough. “I want to devote my life to cancer research,” said Crawford, before departing for Turkey’s Bogaziçi University.

While an undergraduate, Crawford participated in cancer research at the University of Washington and MIT, and bioengineering research at HMC, where she also helped create a novel scaffold material on which to grow cells for a tissue-engineering “brain patch” project. HMC’s third Whitaker Fellow since 2005, Crawford is eligible for up to $35,000 in tuition reimbursement.

Astronaut Scholar. The stellar work of rocketry enthusiast Joshua Edelman ’14 earned him recognition as a 2013–2014 Astronaut Scholar. The engineering major—who, as a De Pietro Engineering Fellow, helped design, build and launch an 80.4-inch-long reusable rocket during last year’s NASA University Student Launch Initiative—was one of 28 students nationwide to receive the $10,000 award from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.

NSF Fellows. Kenny Buyco ’13, Kyle Carbon ’13, Kacyn Fujii ’13, Andrew Loeb ’13 and Kiley Sobel ’12 were awarded prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships. Each will receive a three-year, annual $30,000 stipend along with $12,000 for tuition and fees as they pursue advanced degrees and conduct research. Buyco will study civil engineering at Caltech; Carbon, aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University; Fujii, electrical and electronic engineering

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Goldwater Scholars Samuel Gutekunst ’14 and Sheena Patel ’14, and Astronaut Scholar Joshua Edelman ’14.

at Stanford University; Loeb, applied mathematics at Cornell University; and, Sobel, human-computer interaction at the University of Washington.

Putnam Competition. HMC students once again scored exceptionally well in the annual William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, held late last year. A team consisting of Sorathan (Tum) Chaturapruek ’14, Kevin O’Neill ’13 and Peter Fedak ’13 took 11th place among 578 rival squads.

Chaturapruek ranked 14th against 4,277 entrants from across the U.S. and Canada (a performance that earned him recognition and a $1,000 cash prize). Tongjia Shi ’15 ended the grueling, six-hour competition in 32.5th place—a score that qualified him for Honorable Mention. Joining Fedak and O’Neill on the Putnam Top 500 list were Andrew Carter ’13, Michael Earnest ’13, Emil Guliyev ’13, Henry Huang ’15, Joel Ornstein ’14, John Phillpot ’16 and Jeremy Usatine ’14. Fortytwo HMC students participated, with Chaturapruek, Shi and Fedak emerging as the top three HMC entrants and winners of the Department of Mathematics’ RIF Prize, which goes to the top team each year.

Cheering Section: 20-time SCIAC Champs Matt Espy ’15, Justin Jones ’15, Bennett Naden ’13, Rafer Dannenhauer ’13 and Chris Gage ’13 helped earn the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Championship title for the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men’s track and field team. It was the 20th time the Stags emerged victorious. Final score: Stags, 212.5 points with victories in six individual events, including 400-meter hurdles, 800-meter run, 3,000-meter steeplechase.

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Student News

STEM Appeal ENGAGING THE COMMUNITY On several occasions this spring, HMC students connected with community youth, continuing a longstanding practice of demonstrating to local kids and teens that learning is a fun, exciting and fulfilling path to a better world—for themselves and others.

In April, 100 fourth- and fifth-graders from nearby schools participated in Science Day at HMC. The youngsters and their accompanying parents were treated to a range of science experiments and hands-on activities. One crowd-pleaser was the construction of a mini-speaker from electromagnets. Another: toy cars propelled by puffs of air. Co-chairs of the free event (conducted as part of HMC’s popular Science Bus program) were Priya Donti ’15, Ji Su Lee ’15 and Aarthi Sridhar ’15.

Devon Stork ’15, Will Ferenc ’13 and Grant Ukropina ’13 performed a chemistry demonstration, while engineering Professor Chris Clark presented a robotics exhibition.

Also in April, another team of HMC student volunteers met with some 40 Latino high-schoolers and their parents to describe the advantages of a college education oriented around STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics). After an admission talk, tour of the school and technical demonstrations, guests attended a student-panel discussion hosted by HMC’s Society of Professional Latinos in STEMS (SPLS). On hand were SPLS officers Alejandro Frias ’15, Madeline Goldkamp ’14, Jaclyn Olmos-Silverman ’13, Alberto Ruiz ’14 and Chris Zazueta ’14.

The campus tours were led by Daisy Hernandez ’15 and Natasha Parikh ’14. Angelica Ibarra, assistant dean for institutional diversity, outlined how parents could best prepare their children for success in college and beyond. Physics Professor Peter Saeta demonstrated liquid nitrogen’s use as a catalyst to make instant ice cream, while computer science Professor Zachary Dodds impressed with a display of interacting robots.

One month earlier, 200 high-school girls built LED circuits, used color to solve crimes, made decisions by relying on math equations and created computer games and animations when

Chemistry Professor Lelia Hawkins, center, SWE member Eun Bin Go ’15, right, and WEST conference participant Karsten Bush experiment with scents.

they attended the Women Engineers and Scientists of Tomorrow (WEST) conference hosted by the HMC chapter of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE). Doing cool stuff was not the sole purpose of the event; it also informed the young attendees about careers in the STEM fields. SWE co-presidents Frances Su ’14 and Alice Zhang ’14 led the event planning and execution.

Mudders Around the World Through the College’s Study Abroad program, Mudders impact communities around the world.

Chemistry major Lydia Jahl ’14 journeyed to the Italian National Research Council’s Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate in Bologna, where she conducted atmospheric research.

Amanda Bennett ’15, Abhishek Goenka ’16, Paul Jolly ’16, Pichaya “Michael” Lertvilai ’16, Maggie Liu ’16, Megan Shao ’16, Miranda Thompson ’16 and Ashuka Xue ’16 studied electrical engineering at Peking University in China and absorbed Chinese language, history and culture.

Rising seniors Maya Johnson and Emily Ross traveled to Japan, Miranda Parker to Tanzania and Brianna Thielen to France.

Leading by Example, continued from Page 11

Huppe Memorial Internship for a Sustainable World.

Family and friends of the late Ben Huppe ’14 created an internship program to honor his passion for science and social justice. As recipients of the Ben Huppe ’14 Memorial Internship for a Sustainable World, Beverly Yeh ’14 and Miranda Parker ’14 received stipends, which support work in renewable energy, green technologies and environmental sustainability or work involving underserved populations.

Additional recognition. Also recognized were Hannah Groshong ’13 and Dustin Zubke ’13 (Watson Fellows), Sam Gutekunst ’14 and Sheena Patel ’14 (Goldwater Scholars), Josh Edelman ’14 (Astronaut Scholar) and Brianna Posadas ’13 (2012–2013 Spacapan Memorial Scholarship).

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with student researchers The academic year culminated with a diverse array of research presentations. The following projects are but a small sampling of the work undertaken by more than 300 students.

native plants reduce co2 Conserving or restoring native coastal sage scrub can reduce atmospheric CO2 over Southern California, said Megan Wheeler ’13.

Working with biology Professors Robert Drewell and Wallace Meyer (Pomona College), Wheeler spent the past year studying the carbon storage capability of coastal sage scrub and nonnative grasslands. She set up 24 plots in three habitats—coastal sage scrub, recovering coastal sage scrub (transitional) and non-native grasslands—at the Bernard Field Station.

She measured the carbon content of the above ground biomass, woody and leafy litter and the top 10 centimeters of soil. To avoid cutting down and weighing large areas of shrubs, Wheeler created predictive, linear models for each species.

Wheeler found that coastal sage scrub and transitional habitats stored significantly more carbon than grassland habitats. Her soil samples revealed that transitional habitats stored the most carbon in the soil.

“This has important implications for conservation and restoration of coastal sage scrub,” said Wheeler. “In addition to increasing needed biodiversity, we can also get a carbon storage benefit by conserving or restoring these areas.”

Important Ideas for Science & Citizenship Tomorrow’s scientific leaders must learn effective communication in order to engage audiences.

Under the guidance of Paul Steinberg, professor of political science and environmental policy, 15 students studied these techniques and provided concise summaries of their research on technically intensive, socially relevant topics, ranging from nuclear power and Internet security to climate change, the potential domestic use of unmanned drones and other topics. Here’s some of what presenters shared with community members: •

Recent research conducted at the Bernard Field Station (above) includes study of costal sage scrub and non-native grasslands.

Internet Security. “The Internet is not secure and was never built that way,” said Jess Hester ’13.

Thieves can steal your identity by getting just one password. She advocated a two-step verification system as a safeguard method.

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Alzheimer’s Disease. With more than five million cases of Alzheimer’s Disease in the United States, the social impacts are widespread. In particular, Kacyn Fujii ’13 described the emotional distress, depression and economic impacts for caregivers, many of whom are unpaid. She proposed providing a greater support network for caregivers, establishing formal healthcare and investing in more research and education.

3-D Printing. Alec Storrie-Lombardi ’13 researched the latest printing technology—printers that can be used to create three-dimensional solid objects of any shape from a digital model. As more youth learn 2-D and 3-D modeling and as prices for 3-D printers continue to fall, the technology could eventually become much more mainstream.

Commenting on the power of the technology—and the recent creation of a handgun from a 3-D printer— Storrie-Lombardi said, “The one who wields it decides what it makes.”

•

Shanahan Projects Unleash Creativity Give Harvey Mudd College students the funds and freedom to direct their own research, and the results are likely to be remarkable. This year, supported by the Shanahan Endowed Student-Directed Project Fund, students designed and built a combat robot, founded a new robotics club and developed an innovative wound-measuring device.

Demetri Monovoukas ’15 developed a wound-measurement device that will help guide the treatment of pressure ulcers in diabetic, bedridden and elderly patients. Wound size determines an ulcer’s severity, which is categorized by four stages, each requiring a specific treatment. Current methods for measuring the skin lesions range from costly digital devices to paper rulers.

“A paper ruler is the most widely accepted measurement device in use right now. They model the ulcer as a rectangle and get a rough area perimeter, but it’s almost 50 percent inaccurate,” said Monovoukas. “So, inexpensive but inaccurate is the industry standard. I wanted to do better.”

Monovoukas’ pen-shaped device, the WoundStylus, traces the outer perimeter of an ulcer and transmits and displays the measurement on a receiver. The device is as accurate as the most expensive measurement device currently on the market

(WoundZoom, $995), yet costs around $200.

It’s the second medical device developed by Monovoukas, an engineering major, who, with three collaborators, won the 2013 Henry R. Kravis Concept Plan Competition for an electronic patch that measures and relays body temperature data. Their device could spare patients the need to be frequently checked with a conventional thermometer.

The College’s newly formed Combat Robotics Club boldly entered the battle bots scene, developing a custom robot to compete in the heavyweight class of the 2013 International RoboGames in San Mateo, Calif.

Juniors James Best, Alistair Dobke, Lauren Nishizaki and Joshua Vasquez viewed previous contenders’ YouTube videos to identify the best combat robots. In the end, they designed a spinning, spiked, 220-pound robot dubbed Robespierre.

Robespierre contains about a thousand parts, more than 200 of which were custom-made in the HMC machine shop.

Seventeen students contributed at least one part to the final robot construction. Equipped with a 35 horsepower motor, Robespierre spins at 800 rpm—whipping its spinner blades round at 100 mph—and putting out 60 pounds of pushing force.

It also has a surprise feature: magnets.

“When spinners collide with another robot, typically one of them goes flying. So we added 16 magnets to the bottom of Robespierre, which gave us about 400 to 800 pounds of additional downforce, anchoring the robot to the arena’s steel floor,” Dobke said.

At the RoboGames in April, Robespierre competed in two battles. In one, it experienced a surprising setback when smoke spewed from its chassis: its spinner’s drive belt had caught fire.

Although it did not win, Robespierre suffered only cosmetic damage and returned intact to HMC. The club plans to form an HMC robot league, where individual students or small teams can design and develop small combat robots for friendly, on-campus competitions.

Established in 2005 with a gift of $500,000 from HMC trustee R. Michael Shanahan and his wife, Mary, the Shanahan fund supports student-directed research and promotes leadership and teamwork among students.

Jess Hester ’13 offers an Internet security solution; Katie Hilleke ’13 presented results on the study of beilschmiedic acid C; and Combat Robotics Club members Joshua Vasquez ’14, James Best ’14 and Lauren Nishizaki ’14 show off Robespierre.

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Molecular Legos Katie Hilleke ’13 and Bethany Okada ’13, working with chemistry Professor David Vosburg, moved closer to synthesizing plant molecules that could lead to the development of new antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs.

Hilleke worked towards beilschmiedic acid C, a natural antibacterial product found in the bark of the Beilschmiedia anacardioides tree in Cameroon. Discovered in 2009, the compound proved a more potent antibiotic than ampicillin.

Okada pursued endiandramide A, an anti-inflammatory compound isolated in 2011 from the roots of the Beilschmiedia tsangii tree in China, Taiwan and Vietnam.

The two plant molecules have similar core structures. So, Hilleke and Okada used a modular synthetic strategy to prepare smaller chemical structures common to the two molecules.

“Think of it as molecular Legos. You break down big molecules into smaller structures, synthesize them, and then use them to build something huge and complex,” said Hilleke.

“We’re using the same reactions, which is great because, in the future, we might be able to extend this synthesis to other products.”

Intrinsic Growth Models Elizabeth Sarapata ’13 addressed an ongoing debate in mathematical biology that has widespread implications for the medical community: how best to model tumor growth over time. Mathematic modelers often choose a favorite method and stick with it for any type of tumor. In a large-scale data analysis, Sarapata applied the five most widely-accepted mathematical models used to estimate tumor growth dynamics to 10 different types of cancer, using biological data sets—six sets for each type of cancer instead of the usual single set.

Guided by math Professor Lisette de Pillis, Sarapata was able to determine which of the tumor growth models provide the best fit for each tumor type. Her project is the first large-scale, evidence-based comparison of tumor growth model accuracy.

Aerosols In Urban Fog Water Understanding how air pollution particles interact with light is a key problem in addressing climate change. Most aerosols scatter light and reflect it away from the atmosphere, contributing to a net cooling effect. However, some aerosol components, such as secondary organic aerosol (SOA) particles, absorb light and produce a heating effect. Scientists have recently understood that the presence of water in the air—fog and clouds—increases SOA particles. To conduct one of the first studies of SOA concentrations in Los Angeles fog water, Scott Rayermann ’13 used a “cloud collector,” a mobile device that captures fog samples, in several downtown L.A. locations and San Diego. Rayermann and chemistry Professor Lelia Hawkins

Demetri Monovoukas ’15 developed a wound-measurement device.

measured and analyzed carbon levels and SOA concentration and absorption levels over several months, contributing to a better understanding of the light-absorbing characteristics of SOA particles.

Renewable Energy In Haiti The Claremont Environmental Design Group (CEDG) is creating a sustainable and carbon-neutral community within the city of Hinche in the Central Plateau of Haiti. One goal of the project is to determine the viability of Haiti becoming energy independent in the next 20 years. Using GIS, geographic analysis software, the team was able to locate and map optimal locations for various renewable energies, which included solar panels (which can provide 100 times more electricity than what Haiti is currently using, reported the team) and wind turbines.

From this map, the team—guided by Sam Tanenbaum, professor of life sciences and engineering emeritus—made recommendations of potential energy sources available to the community of Hinche as well as the rest of Haiti.

“This work will give that much more depth to the research that we’ve already done in our office,” said Lee Krusa, landscape designer at CEDG.

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a half-century of learning by doing >> Written by JUDY AUGSBURGER, STEPHANIE L. GRAHAM, KOREN WETMORE

Professors advising students, liaisons helping students discover approaches to difficult questions, sponsors presenting ambitious project ideas and giving generously of their time and

If You Can’t See It, Does It Exist?

What makes up the part of the universe that we cannot see? A group of researchers from universities and laboratories around the world are collaborating to determine just what else is out there. The Axion Dark Matter eXperiment (ADMX) is a study of the four-fifths of the matter in the universe that is dark matter. The nature of this invisible matter is unclear, but by searching for the axion with a superconducting magnet, scientists hope to gain some insight into the makeup of this hypothetical elementary particle.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory charged the Physics/Engineering Clinic team members with creating a device for the ADMX that could help discover axions via conversion into microwave photons. Students simulated, designed, built and tested a large-volume, high-frequency resonant microwave cavity. Multiple conductive tuning posts within the cavity manipulate the characteristic modes of the system, allowing the cavity to potentially detect axions by tuning the cavity’s resonant frequency. The team’s work on the puzzle of axions adds to the research that may help us better understand the universe.

money, students working together and consistently producing professional results—all of these elements, remarked Geoff Kuenning, director of Computer Science Clinic, make up the essence of Clinic, a program that has thrived for half a century with 1,400 projects and counting. This year’s 42 projects—a diverse sampling of which follows—again consisted of these essential elements and one more: fun.

Transforming Code Intel, the world’s largest manufacturer of semiconductor chips, sought solutions for two projects this year: an Engineering Clinic related to division algorithm design and a Global/Computer Science Clinic, sponsored in cooperation with Technion University, Israel, dealing with C++ code transformations.

For Global Clinic, Mudders traveled to Israel to coordinate with Technion students on software and hardware memory efficiency. Intel converts compression algorithms for video into graphics hardware that quickly compresses videos so they can be stored in a small space on a hard drive. Key to these algorithms is the programming language C++. Team members were tasked with designing a tool that automates the transformation from general C++ to SystemC (a C++ library for describing and simulating hardware). This transformation is currently done manually, and the process takes many weeks, with the majority of the time spent converting C++ to SystemC. The global team helped Intel developers speed up the conversion process by building a collection of tools to convert unsynthesizable C++ code into synthesizable SystemC code, which can be fed into a semi-automated process and converted to hardware.

clinic program timeline

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1964

1963

Seed money from Carnegie Corporation aids development of new curricular material for Clinic

Sloan Foundation grant, first grant explicitly for Clinic. Funded its operation until it became self-sustaining Engineering Clinic founded by >> >> Jack Alford and Mack Gilkeson.

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U.S. Steel Foundation provides seed money for Clinic operation

1965 Faculty discuss introducing Engineering Clinic into curriculum Ford Foundation grant supports Clinic First presentation of HMC Clinic in a paper delivered at American Society for Engineering Education in Chicago First project: Engineering Clinic with Vortox Corp., a Claremont-based manufacturer of automotive air filters.

Students asked to convert waste coconut husks to activated charcoal

Joshua Edelman ’14

Mind Reading BAE Systems tasked HMC students with developing an algorithm that translates a user’s thoughts to control a prosthetic limb.

The Engineering Clinic team gathered data from more than 30 test subjects, who donned a neuroheadset and imagined doing a variety of tasks—under ideal conditions and with confounding factors such as musical distractions or thinking while nodding their heads. They developed an algorithm that, among a variety of tests, achieved its highest accuracy rate of 90 percent when identifying a user’s intentions between two tasks in an offline setting. The team also successfully classified among five possible tasks with high accuracy and developed capability for real-time analysis.

Crystal Clues to Oil Sources A Computer Science Clinic team extended “Tipsy,” a software program that helps geologists automate their analysis of apatite grains (crystals) for oil prospecting.

Apatite is a common mineral that contains radioactive Uranium-238. When U-238 decays, its spontaneous fission creates grooves, or tracks, in the apatite grains. These fission tracks reveal the crystal’s age and thermal history, valuable data needed to help identify potential oil sources.

Tipsy analyzes microscopic images of apatite grains to automatically detect and measure fission tracks. The team’s improvements for sponsor Apatite to Zircon Inc. included full-featured database storage for image data and an algorithm that “learns” to identify tracks from libraries of examples. The result: “Tipsy 2.0” detected tracks in three out of every five grains analyzed compared with the previous software version, which found tracks in only one out of 100 grains.

1967 Warren Wilson and Rex Mack direct first Engineering Clinics

1971

Customized Cooperage The world’s largest winery tapped the ingenuity of Mudders to investigate “The Livingston Cooperage Problem.” E. & J. Gallo Winery requested a program to evaluate the size, type and quantity of new tanks required to accommodate increased volume and variety of wine production at the Livingston facility, one of its seven wineries. The Mathematics Clinic team modeled the allocation of storage tanks to a full harvest of different wine types and managed to achieve a solve time of a few minutes. Based on the projected harvest, costs of varying tanks and quality constraints, the team provided a customizable program which recommended tanks and ways to use them which could save the company planning time and hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Gas From Garbage Before Technip USA can harvest syngas from garbage, it needs raw, real-world data to verify and fine-tune its computational models of a proposed cold fluidized bed reactor. So the company asked HMC students to build a physical model to collect pressure and particle behavior data without actually burning biomass.

The real reactor Technip hopes to build will combust biomass from municipal waste in a low-oxygen environment to release synthetic natural gas, or syngas, in the form of hydrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. It has a main chamber where particles are moved upward by a steady flow of air. The particle movement is deemed “fluidized” because the solid particles behave like a fluid as they move within the chamber.

Team members built a 1/6th-scale physical model of the reactor and collected dynamic and static pressure data, along with size, density and distribution data for seven different particles.

Technip will use their collected data to verify and fine-tune their computational model.

1972–73

Clinic Advisory Committee created. Consists of industry executives who provide project suggestions and operating advice

1974

Ted Woodson is first formally appointed director of Engineering Clinic Mathematics Clinic begins with National Science Foundation grant; Stavros Busenberg supervises first project sponsored by Bell and Howell Research Laboratories; John Greever is first Mathematics Clinic director SUMMER 2013

Joint Mathematics Clinic begins with Claremont Graduate School (now Claremont Graduate University); co-directed by John Greever (HMC) and Jerome Spanier (CGS). Joint program continues until 1980

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Carlo Vaccari ’13

Steering Planes An Engineering Clinic team created an aircraft nose-wheel steering control system algorithm that adapts itself to diverse conditions and hardware.

Eaton Aerospace sought an algorithm that would be quick to implement, with minimal tracking error and a constant response that equates to a smooth ride for airline passengers. It also had to work with the various sensors and actuators of different nose-wheel steering systems.

The team investigated and tested several different algorithms and settled on an L1 adaptive control for the steering system. They also created a graphical user interface that allows engineers to streamline the development and testing of adaptive algorithms for future control systems.

Take it to the Sandbox A Computer Science Clinic team worked with security-as-a-service vendor Proofpoint Inc. on cutting-edge, malicious software (malware) detection. Malware perpetrators gain unauthorized access to a system to steal valuable or sensitive information or disrupt computer operations. The Clinic team reported that more than 100 million instances of malware currently exist, much of it carried in innocent-seeming files like PDF and Microsoft Office documents, which make up the majority of email attachments. Even with its large computing power, Proofpoint still needs a filtering system to select which files get fully analyzed to determine if they should be sandboxed (isolated), thrown out immediately or saved and passed along. The Clinic team constructed a system from existing open-source components that detects suspicious MS Office and Rich Text Format documents by analyzing files statically. Their system is designed to be used by Proofpoint in combination with other analysis tools to determine if a file should be flagged as suspicious material and analyzed further.

A Greener Buffet SternoCandleLamp tasked HMC students with an open-ended problem: to reduce waste in its chafing fuel products—the burners caterers use to keep trays of food warm.

The Engineering Clinic team analyzed the amount of waste from chafing fuel cans and investigated a wide range of options.

Among others, they looked at refillable cans and wick removal before choosing their final design.

The components of the design were a clear plastic bottle— more easily recognizable as recyclable than metal—and a reusable wick set into a screw-on lid. When the fuel in one bottle is spent, the user unscrews the wick and places it on the new bottle. Wicks can be re-used up to 50 times. The team also developed a carrying rack for empty bottles.

The solution works especially well for caterers because it allows fuel bottles to be shipped without the wick; flat bottles are more stackable and space efficient, reducing transport costs and air pollution from fuel costs.

Smartphone as Scanner Text photographed with a smartphone can often be fuzzy. The Laserfiche Computer Science Clinic team worked to improve the technology the company uses to digitize and process photographs of documents taken with a smartphone camera. The team sought to make the images of text easier for humans to read and for a computer to process. Utilizing complex algorithms, the team translated photos of text into clean, blackand-white letters and de-warped the document, straightening out the curved edges of text. The improvements would allow a computer to process an image as a plain-text document—using OCR (optical character recognition)—and for keyword search and more complex processing. For example, a business could enter receipts into its accounting software simply by photographing them.

clinic program timeline

1993

1994

Computer Science Clinic begins; Robert Keller is first director

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The Engineering Department hosts the 30th Anniversary International Clinic Symposium (supported by grant from Sloan Foundation), with attendees from England (Cambridge), Mexico and the U.S.

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1996 Physics Clinic begins with project sponsored by Science Applications International Corporation; Robert Wolf is first director

2000 Environmental Studies Clinic co-advised by Tad Beckman and Nancy Hamlett

A New Model for Meter Reading The days of manually reading meters will eventually be a distant memory as the Southern California Gas Company (SCG) converts its manual meter network to that of automated advanced meter units. The effort is expected to save $1.4 billion over the next five years. However, until all of the old meters are replaced, there is still a need for meter readers, and making the most efficient use of their time could save SCG even more money. The Mathematics Clinic team devised a route creation and evaluation tool that takes a list of meters and generates costminimizing meter-reading routes. The students implanted their model in ArcGIS software for a convenient visual and spatial data display. The tools developed by the HMC team not only allow for automatic route generation, but also provide a way to evaluate the efficacy of hypothetical scenarios in which different clusters of meters are targeted next for automation.

Safety Drill Shell Oil tasked the Engineering Clinic team with developing a safety system to eliminate personnel injuries due to violations of the safety zone around large, moving vehicles on drilling sites.

Students started with an existing Radio Frequency Identification System (RFID) that was designed to be mounted on a vehicle. The RFID uses an antenna to pick up signals from tags embedded in workers’ vests. If a worker gets within a certain sector near the vehicle, a display unit beeps in the cab. Taking Shell’s specific needs into account, the team tested the system, characterized the antenna range and developed a multipleantenna prototype that increases the range of radio coverage to 360 degrees. The new configurations detect not only the presence of a worker within radio range, but also the distance between the person and the vehicle, valuable information for increasing safety system effectiveness. The team tested their prototype on a drilling site near Houston.

2003 HMC celebrates 1,000th Clinic project

2005

Try Before You Buy When buying furniture, it’s hard to tell if a couch or armchair will look good and fit in your living room.

The Qualcomm Computer Science Clinic team developed a smartphone app that allows users to try out furniture before buying it. With the augmented reality interior decorator app, users scan a page from a furniture catalogue, choose the items of furniture to try out and then point the camera at a target in the home. A life-size model pops up in the camera view that can be rotated and moved about within the room with onscreen controls.

The app includes social media features so that users can post augmented reality photos on Facebook and see whether friends approve of their choice. The team also wrote an authoring tool, so that furniture companies could extend the app and create their own augmented reality catalogue pages.

2009

Global Clinic begins; Tony Bright, professor of engineering, is first director

>>

2012–2013

Bequest from Robert and Joan Vickery provides $1 million to endow the Global Clinic Program

Clive Dym, Mack Gilkeson and Rich Phillips receive NAE’s Gordon Prize, which lauds the Clinic Program 50th anniversary; more than 1,400 Clinic projects completed

First Global Clinic collaboration: University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez

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the team advantage >>

Written by KOREN WETMORE

Working on a Clinic team positions students for future success

Some Lessons Must Be Lived To Be Learned,

and nothing teaches teamwork quite like Harvey Mudd College’s experiential learning opportunities.

From coursework to summer research projects and national competitions, students are encouraged to collaborate to achieve their goals. HMC’s Clinic Program, one of the College’s most important educational programs, provides a true capstone experience.

Handed a yearlong project, students are tasked with delivering results on time, within budget and to specification. The experience stretches their skills and leads to new discoveries, revealing as much—if not more—about team members as it does about the science.

When finished, students will have mastered the skills of peer review, group dynamics, collaborative writing, presentation, communication and the fine art of building relationships in the face of mind-boggling logistics and late-night labs. And, they’ll even have some fun along the way.

Above all, students come to realize the exponential power of working with others.

“Clinic was a great platform for learning to work in a team environment,” says Frances Ferris ’80, project engineer for The Boeing

“All of [the Clinic] activities helped to prepare me for my career in people management and problem solving in high-tech manufacturing.”

2011

1986

General Dynamics

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the philosophy Real-World Experience within the safety

of the College community lies at the heart of HMC’s Clinic Program.

“Students are placed in teams for two reasons,” says Engineering Clinic Director Erik Spjut. “First, because they will be working on teams for most of their professional careers, we want them to gain practice working on a team in a controlled environment where we can teach them how best to do it. Second, the scale of Clinic projects precludes them from being done by an individual, so a successful project requires a team to complete it.”

Students work in groups of four or five under the guidance of a student project manager (team leader), a faculty advisor and a liaison from the sponsoring organization. The liaison outlines the project requirements, approves the team’s proposal for accomplishing the work, and receives weekly progress reports. In most cases the student team visits the sponsoring company in the fall semester to learn about the technology or to give a design review to senior officials, then returns in May to present the final results.

1994

N2 Pops

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Company, who has worked with multiple teams to support 135 Space Shuttle missions.

“The experience of working a compressed schedule while balancing priorities reflects the challenge I’ve had working in industry. It was much better to make a mistake in the college environment than in the workplace.”

2010

WRAIR

SEAmagine Hydrospace Corporation

the challenges Clinic Team Members Tackle a variety of

challenges and may experience different roles throughout the project year.

“I was team leader the first semester, so there was a lot of figuring out how to divide tasks evenly, making sure that people were challenged but also able to do what was asked of them,” says Ilona Phipps-Morgan ’13, whose team built a model of a cold-fluidized bed reactor and collected data to validate computational models for Technip USA. “As a team member, I had to find the balance between taking initiative and making sure everyone was included. If one person takes the lead, you can go faster, but you lose the input of everyone else on the team.”

The 2013 Intel Global Clinic Team needed to coordinate across time zones, cultures and scientific disciplines for their project with Technion students in Israel. “It was interesting working with people who had very different backgrounds. The Technion students had gone through a completely different university experience and were all electrical engineers. We were all CS majors,” says Gary Lent POM ’13.

Sarah Lichtman ’14 learned to rely on others while working on a satellite radar system for The Aerospace Corp. “It’s important to not try to do or understand everything yourself, because with a project this big, it was impossible,” she says. “I learned it’s OK to focus on one thing and trust that everyone else will work hard on their sections.”

2013

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Teamwork & When Stephanie Fawaz ’14 joined the Community Impact Texas Instruments Clinic Team in the spring “Clinic projects do impact semester, she was the only junior on a team the community.

The of seniors. “I went into a group of people who Danbury School Modified had all been working on this previously, so it Power Wheelchair Project was a struggle. Yet, when you get a job that (1989–1990), besides helping involves multiple people, there will probably Danbury School students, be those who have a better idea of what’s going also resulted in a paper that on because they’ve worked on something lonmy best friend from high ger than you have. You need to communicate school (a trained physical your beginning base of knowledge so they can therapist for muscular help you or point you toward resources to get dystrophy and cerebral palsy you up to speed.”

children) read about. Her colleague gave it to her for the results recommended reading to As A Business Process Improvement help the kids at their facility.

Engineer for CH2M HILL, Greg Harr ’94 This was many years after reflects on his HMC Clinic experience and the project was completed. sees the connection to his current career.

I was very happy that the “As a Clinic team leader, I was required Clinic project helped so to define our project plan, monitor progress, many others, including my motivate the team, escalate issues to our best friend from high school!” advisor and client, deliver results and provide feedback on my peers’ performance,” he says. —Tina Okawa ’91 “All of these activities helped to prepare me for Pictured below is Okawa’s my career in people management and problem Clinic teammate Eileen (Fukuhara) Giese ’91 and a solving in high-tech manufacturing.”

Danbury student.

Although Clinic propels students through

a gauntlet of obstacles, they come out stronger and more prepared for the real-world challenges that await them after graduation.

1990

2012

1983

Loma Linda University Medical Center

Mazda

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Danbury School

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marching to a different drum >>

An innovation of Harvey Mudd College, the Clinic Program was a daring experiment that worked. the program’s future is no less intriguing.

Written by STEPHANIE L. GRAHAM

It All Began As A Casual Conversation Between Two Engineering Professors during The Claremont Colleges’

homecoming celebration in 1961. Jack Alford and Mack Gilkeson discussed how marvelous it would be to capture the engineering students’ float-building passion and apply it to the educational program. That spark of an idea ignited to become the Harvey Mudd College Clinic Program, which now spans four academic departments and includes partner schools abroad.

The program’s growth has been tremendous. Completion of the Libra Project in 1972 (Galileo Hall and Keck Laboratories) provided new offices, labs, shops and library that enabled the Clinic Program to expand.

At the start, a handful of industrial companies supported the program and helped provide projects for many years. As the business climate in Southern California changed, so did the nature of the Clinic projects. During the 1980s, many projects came from large aerospace companies, local utilities and large information technology firms. National laboratories, including Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories, signed on and have been steady sponsors since the eighties as well. During the 1990s, sponsors emerged from a wider range of small- and medium-sized companies from the environmental, computer, communications and biomedical engineering fields. This trend continues, evidenced by a broader mix of sponsors—based mainly in the western states of

California, Oregon, Washington and New Mexico—and a wider range of problems.

Now a fixture of the HMC curriculum, Clinic seamlessly completes the design stem of the engineering program—from first-year projects to sophomore lab to junior/senior Clinics.

Students experience the full life cycle of an interdisciplinary project—from creation to execution to management.

HMC students have always been a strength of the program.

Their strong science and mathematics skills have allowed the College to provide solutions to authentic design problems that reflect current technical interests and trends. The program’s more than 1,400 projects include many success stories (just a few are noted below). Students dive wholeheartedly into projects undertaken in a low-risk environment that permits mistakes. In surveys, alumni rank the Clinic Program the single most useful part of their education with respect to preparation for professional practice. This value is demonstrated in the number of alumni who become sponsors and liaisons; today, alumni are involved in more than 25 percent of projects.

rain on the parade

With Growth, However, Come Challenges.

ABET, an accrediting agency that provides assurance that a college or university program meets specified quality standards, requires capstone projects for engineering program accreditation.

clinic & beyond Several sponsors have commercialized Clinic projects. Find more success stories at hmc.edu/ Clinic-success.

Sponsor: Laserfiche. During 20092010, students on this Computer Science Clinic team created code for the iPhone app Laserfiche Mobile, enabling transparent records management and allowing mobile content 24

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management within a secure environment.

Sponsor: NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In 2001, NASA linked two 33-foot telescopes together— creating an interferometer—and caught the first glimpses of HD61294, a faint star in the constellation Lynx.

The sighting was made possible by an optics system, designed by a

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Physics/Engineering Clinic team, that combines infrared light from twin telescopes at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii.

Sponsor: UVP Inc. An Engineering Clinic team designed systems that illuminate genetic markers in plants and animals. Used to study cancer and other ailments, FirstLight UV Illuminator won the 2005 Photonics

As more schools become aware of the success of HMC’s Clinic, they seek industry projects for their students’ capstone experiences, creating more competition for sponsors. This has become more evident during the past few years. Potential sponsors may choose to collaborate with colleges and universities close to their operations or look for state institutions that offer a lower fee.

These and other issues have resulted in an ever-widening search for sponsors that has produced more than 70 first-time sponsors during the past five years.

The sequestration ($85 billion across-the-board cut in federal spending) that went into effect March 1, 2013, affects nearly every federal agency and every research program. It has eliminated or hampered the participation of many companies that rely on federal funding, including national laboratories, with which HMC has partnered for many Clinic projects. “Combined with the belt-tightening that has taken place since late 2008, when a number of fully committed sponsors cancelled projects after signing letters of understanding, the recruitment process for Clinic has become much more unpredictable than in the past,” said Barry Olsan, director of corporate relations, who has worked with Clinic directors since 2006 to promote and procure Clinics.

Even with increased competition, decreased funding and stricter company policies, HMC’s Clinic Program continues to have broad appeal. During the 2013–2014 academic year, there will be 42 Clinic Projects, on par with previous years.

Of the sponsoring companies, the College anticipates around 15 first-timers. Several projects will involve two departments.

These joint clinics provide sponsors an opportunity to put forth problem statements that most other colleges cannot attempt with single-discipline programs.

Another characteristic that sets HMC’s program apart from others is the College’s Global Clinic, established in 2005. It is the latest innovation in the Clinic Program, preparing students for the challenges of practicing engineering, science and mathematics in a global context. HMC students have teamed with partnering schools in Singapore, India, Israel, Iceland and Japan.

Projects in South America and Europe are anticipated in the

Circle of Excellence Award for being one of the 25 most technically innovative products of the year.

Sponsors: Oregon Medical Laser Center (OMLC) and Oregon Biomedical Engineering Institute.

Engineering Clinic projects for these two sponsors yielded several successful products and processes for HemCon Medical Technologies

In surveys, alumni rank the Clinic Program the single most useful part of their education with respect to preparation for professional practice. next few years. Company sponsors and a generous $1 million endowment from the Robert and Joan Vickery family support the program.

“Our mission is to give students hands-on experience and prepare them to work in an international context,” said Global Clinic Director Lisette de Pillis, Norman F. Sprague Jr. Professor of Life Sciences and professor of mathematics. “Students who participate in Global Clinic appreciate learning how to work and communicate across cultural boundaries. Some have even gone on to pursue globally focused careers.”

This academic year, HMC will conduct a Global Clinic sponsored by Intel with the National University of Singapore’s School of Computing. The College has partnered with the NUS Faculty of Science (the Science School) since 2007.

Inspired by the enthusiastic float-building efforts of early Mudders, the Clinic Program continues to reinvent itself. The opening of the R. Michael Shanahan Center for Teaching and Learning has freed space in the Parsons building, allowing expansion of Clinic work space. Clinic Directors, in collaboration with administrators and the Clinic Advisory Committee, are discussing how to address the current challenges and strengthen the program. More efficient advertising, increased fundraising and new project recruitment strategies are among the ideas being discussed. All involved are determined to continue the parade of innovation for which the Clinic Program is known.

Inc.: Endoscopic Application of a Chitosan Bandage (OMLC, 2004); Separation of Medical Grade Shell from Industrial Waste (2007); Advanced Hemostatic Agent Delivery Device (2009); Characterization of Mechanism of Expansion of Advanced Hemostatic Agent (2011)

Clinic Team devised a route creation and evaluation tool that takes a list of manual meters and generates costminimizing meter-reading routes. The effort is expected to result in considerable savings as the manual meter network is converted to automated advanced meter units.

Sponsor: Southern California Gas Company. The 2012-2013 Mathematics

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MUDDERINGS Alumni and Family News and Events

A A B o G AWA R D S

LIFETIME RECOGNITION AWARD – Former trustee Sally Siemak ’72, principal and lead auditor at EQ Services

OUTSTANDING ALUMNI AWARD – Materials scientist Michael J. Sailor ’83, health services educator Paula Diehr ’63, P90, and laser innovator and entrepreneur Henry Kapteyn ’83

Call for Award Nominations The Board of Governors Selections Committee is seeking nominations for its 2014 awards. s Outstanding Alumni Award – For significant contributions to humanity or society. s Order of the Wart – For alumni and friends who have made important contributions to the HMC community. s Lifetime Recognition Award – For alumni and friends who have provided outstanding dedication to HMC over many years.

LIFETIME RECOGNITION AWARD – Former trustee Jack Appleman ’68, mathematics professor at Irvine Valley College

To submit nominations, please contact alumni@hmc.edu.

OUTSTANDING ALUMNI AWARD – Cindy Lewis (wife) and Geoffrey Lewis POM ’08 (son), accepted the award on behalf of the late Malcolm Lewis ’67, former HMC board chair and LEED pioneer.

LIFETIME RECOGNITION AWARD – Elizabeth “Liz” Baughman, senior director of advancement services and HMC employee for 35 years

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For more about the awardees go to www.hmc.edu/newsandevents/outstanding-alumniawards-2013.html

MUDDERINGS ALUMNI WEEKEND

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1

4

3 5 6 8 9

7

1. Alumni tour the R. Michael Shanahan Center for Teaching and Learning.

2. Ruth Guthrie and Amanda Simpson ’83 3.Cassandra Cortez ’08, Abbygail

Palmer ’08, Anthony Weerasinghe ’08, Hyung Joo Park ’08, Natt Supab ’08, Kelly Markello ’08 4.Lavender Graduation participants included Mira De Avila-Shin ’12 (second from right) and August Guang ’12 (right). 5. Luke Mastalli-Kelly ’14 portrays Falstaff in Henry IV, Part 1. 6. Frances Ferris ’80 and Mack Gilkeson 7. David King ’12, Andrew Chung ’10, Russell Thompson ’12 8 .Carrie ’98, Amy and Eugene Wu ’98 9.Kenny Buyco ’13 quizzes Andrew Chung ’10, Adam Brown ’13 and George Diehr ’63 during the Mudd version of Jeopardy!

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MUDDERINGS Alumni and Family News and Events

Ready to Serve You Four alumni have been elected to the Alumni Association Board of Governors and will serve three-year terms.

Lisa Hebert ’80 is vice president of global finance and accounting operations at First American Financial and also an area manager for Arbonne.

She has two teenage children.

Hanhan Li ’05 attended medical school at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine and, as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Fellow, pursued her curiosity in the tumor biology of prostate cancer. She is now a urology resident at the Vattikuti Urology Institute at Henry Ford Hospital in Michigan.

Jennifer Lindsay ’02 is a technical project manager and software developer for Qdabra Software and an accomplished violinist and opera singer. She has been active with AABoG since graduating from HMC. Lowell Reade ’12, a former HMC proctor, senior admission interviewer and president of PRISM, is a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University, working on a master’s in humancomputer interaction. Before graduate school, he worked as a reliability engineer at Parker Aerospace.

Those re-elected to three-year terms are Jerome Jackson ’76, Gary Kiefer ’70 and Ron Lloyd ’80. Officers for 2013–2014 are Glen Hastings ’93, president; Jason Fredrickson ’99, vice president; Rick Simon ’76, secretary; and, David Sonner ’80, P17 treasurer.

These volunteers partner with staff, faculty and students to strengthen ties and increase alumni support of the College.

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Fall Calendar Fall semester classes begin | Sept. 3 Hollywood Bowl Fireworks Tour | Sept. 7 Alumni Association Career Forum | Sept. 21 176th Alumni Association Board of Governors meeting | Sept. 28, Claremont R. Michael Shanahan Center for Teaching and Learning Celebration | Sept. 28, Claremont Alumni Association Barbecue with sophomores and juniors | Sept. 28, Claremont HMC Community Mt. Baldy Hike | Sept. 29, Claremont Mudd Travel Program: Highway 395 through Owens Valley and Beyond | Oct. 2–6 Fall Career Fair | Oct. 11, Claremont Los Angeles Walking Tour | Oct. 19 The latest information is available at hmc.edu/alumni or hmc.edu/parents.

Mudd Matters: Our Character, Our Campus, Our Course Trustees, faculty and President Maria Klawe invite you to join a discussion near you. See http://bit.ly/13QS97o TBD, Chicago (lunch) Oct. 7, Palo Alto, Calif. (lunch) Oct. 7, Berkeley, Calif. (evening reception) Oct. 8, Portland, Ore. (lunch) Oct. 10, San Diego (lunch) Oct. 17, Washington, D.C. (evening reception) Oct. 22, Seattle (lunch) Nov. 13, Orange County, Calif. (evening reception) Nov. 14, Los Angeles (lunch) Dec. 5, New York (evening reception) Dec. 6, Boston (lunch)

Events for Parents and Families Parent Orientation 2013 Thursday, Aug. 29 This year, HMC welcomes 219 students into the Class of 2017.

Senior administrators, faculty, staff and students offered a series of events on Thursday, Aug. 29, to help parents and family members of these new students become better acquainted with the College. Parents can keep up to date on College news and activities via the monthly e-newsletter, sent to all parents for whom the College has an email address on file, or by visiting hmc.edu/parents.

Family Weekend 2014 Friday, Feb. 7–Saturday, Feb. 8 Family Weekend includes opportunities to speak with faculty and administrators, to learn about new developments at HMC and, most important, to have fun with your student!

Pooled Scholarship Recipients Scholarships ensure that an HMC education remains accessible to all admitted students. Donors may choose to honor family members, faculty or other individuals by pooling gifts to create a special scholarship.

Following are the scholarships and the student recipients for the 2012–2013 academic year.

Barbara and Anthony Fallon ’61 Memorial Endowed Scholarship Sean Messenger ’15 Samantha Stilson ’15 Class of 1961 Endowed Scholarship Katherine Shepherd ’14 Class of 1963 Endowed Scholarship Rosalie Carlson ’13 Class of 1964 Endowed Scholarship Maria Morabe ’13 Class of 1967 Endowed Scholarship Sagar Batchu ’15 Class of 1974 Tory Davis Memorial Endowed Scholarship Spenser Anderson ’16

Alumni Weekend May 2–4, 2014 Alumni are invited back to campus for Alumni Weekend 2014, Friday, May 2–Sunday, May 4. Mingle with faculty, catch up with classmates and friends, and find out what’s new at HMC. Reunion celebrations will be held for classes ending in “4” and “9.”

Class of 1975 Endowed Scholarship Emily Fischer ’14 Class of 2007 Endowed Scholarship David Ersek ’13 Dotty and Art Campbell Endowed Scholarship Alexander Kohn ’13 Iris and Howard Critchell Aeronautical Annual Scholarship Lillian Haynes ’14 Yeah Hong ’15 Jean and Joe Platt Endowed Scholarship Eric Anderson ’13 Julia Lee ’14 James McConnaughey 14 Rebecca Streitz ’13 Ron and Lee Vaughan Memorial Endowed Scholarship Justin Bai ’15 Samuel Delich ’62 Memorial Endowed Scholarship Raymond Hurwitz ’14 For information on creating a scholarship, contact the Office of College Advancement at 909.607.7648 or email marisa_ reyes@hmc.edu.

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CLASS NOTES 1963

William Benkovsky is retired and living in old town Seal Beach in Southern California (known as Mayberry by the sea). He enjoys traveling, especially by cruise ship. He’s been on 15 cruises so far and sailed 200 days on Holland America line. His longest cruise was 63 days through the South Seas, including Australia and New Zealand. He wrote and published a novel, Soul Path, in 1999. He says, “At this time, I’m deciding what I want to do with the rest of my life (but no hurry; life is good).”

Robert Clark was a featured speaker at the formal decommissioning of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Ship Miller Freeman in Seattle. He had served as the U.S. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries vessel’s first chief scientist when he and his soon-to-be bride, Shirley, joined the then largest American fisheries research vessel at the builder’s yard in Lorain, Ohio, and sailed the St. Lawrence Seaway to Montreal where they were official guests at EXPO’67 World’s Fair. Later in 1967, they helped place the Miller Freeman into commission in Seattle and, after 46 years, they helped decommission the ship, representing the last few surviving “planktowners.” Robert retired as founding director of NOAA’s Restoration Center Northwest in 2004, and he and Shirley now split their time between Tucson in the winter, their mountainside farm in the summer and a condo in the sleepy community of Snoqualmie, Wash., in the spring and fall.

Paula Diehr P90, 2013 HMC Outstanding Alumna, has been retired for three years, but is still working 10 percent of the time, writing a few more scientific papers. She says, “Otherwise we are doing the usual (some traveling, spending more time with family, going to the gym, doing lunch with friends). I’m particularly happy with my new book club, where we read a book a week.

This thoroughly absorbs all the time I thought I’d have.”

Now retired, John Graves relishes having more time for lifetime hobbies: winemaking and singing (he belongs to three choirs that focus on Classical repertoire), as well as enjoying children and grandchildren. With his longtime wine partner, he manages about 20 acres of grapes and produces about 1,000 cases of fine wine a year. He says, “Our range includes a rounded, fruity Chardonnay; a sauvignon blanc; a pinot noir rose; a soft, fruit-driven pinot noir; a Bordeaux blend red made from cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and merlot; and a shiraz.”

WHAT’S NEW? Send your news via email and through the form at http://bit.ly/12iGSv3. Deadline for the fall/winter issue is Sept. 25.

Ernie Manes has devoted his life to producing new mathematics. He enjoyed a long teaching career at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and published many books and papers. He retired from teaching in 2004 to have more time to do mathematical research. His current, big project is a book tentatively titled Algebraic Methods in Topological Dynamics. Other interests include birding with his beautiful wife, Ruth, (they visited Big Morongo Canyon before attending the HMC 50th reunion) and enjoying his children and grandchildren.

Joe Stone is retired from Kodak and devotes a lot of time to travel and working on his home, which he built. He and his wife, Gail, also care for 26 acres of land, maintaining trails, pond and stream as a home for an abundance of wildlife.

Roger Williams retired in 2006 from Boeing and now resides in Madera, Calif., near his older brother. He enjoys spending time with his son, two daughters and nine grandchildren (pictured with the eldest, Logan Riley Williams).

1965

Almost by chance, five old friends who live on opposite coasts got together for a taco brunch in the Bay Area last summer. Pictured are Dick Sears and Holly Sears and Tom Moran along with Pat Musser.

Bill Musser ’66 is behind the camera. “Wonderful to reconnect after more than 40 years!” said Bill.

1977

Joey Goodknight, son of Greg Goodknight and Greg’s late wife, Teri Cahill ’78, graduated from UC Berkeley’s College of Chemistry in 2011 with a B.S. in chemistry and will be receiving a master’s in physics from Harvard this spring as he works his way toward a Ph.D. in chemical physics. After a decade—“from my Cisco VoIP days,” says Greg—a patent will be issued for “Packet telephony across the public switched telephone network” U.S. 7,808,981, of which Greg is the sole inventor.

2012 Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow Kevin Tambara P14 is working to fill the STEM pipeline with diverse populations, especially in computer science. He is developing a computer science-based science curriculum for Los Angeles middle schools and has connected with HMC CS faculty doing work in local middle and high schools. Kevin says, “I’m calling my pilot curriculum CyberMaker Science, since it pulls in computational thinking concepts (via Scratch, paper-based circuits, e-textiles, robotics) with hands-on engineering projects as they relate to science. I am collaborating with the MIT Media Lab, essentially applying some of their projects to real-world classroom settings.” continued on Page 32

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ALUMNI PROFILE

Solar for All board member Jeff Drummond ’94/95 and founder Greg Harr ’94 help low-income Oregon residents afford solar energy systems.

SOLAR FOR ALL Written by KOREN WETMORE

G

reg Harr ’94 believes everyone should have access to free energy from the sun.

So, when he installed a solar energy system on his home, he was shocked to learn that the incentives and rebates available to him would never help those who most needed to reduce their energy bills: lowincome families.

He and his wife, both engineers, earn salaries that qualified them for more than $10,000 in tax incentives and subsidies. With no dependents, they also had the disposable income to afford the system’s installation costs and other out-of-pocket expenses.

“Then it dawned on me that someone who’s struggling to put food on the table was never going to access these tax breaks, this money or solar power. That prompted me to see how I could help,” says Harr, who serves as a business process improvement engineer for CH2M HILL, which designs buildings that include solar solutions.

Harr founded Solar for All (www.solarforall.org), a nonprofit that partners with local housing organizations by purchasing solar electric systems for affordable housing projects at no cost to the partner organization. Solar panels are purchased from local manufacturers, and installation costs for each project are covered by a combination of state incentive programs and public donations.

For its first project, Solar for All has partnered with Community Vision Inc. to install a 3.2kW solar energy system in a new ADA-accessible home being built this summer in Portland, Ore. The system is expected to cover all of the home’s annual heating and cooling needs.

In true Mudd fashion, Harr has built a team around him, drawing people from the community and the solar industry to help with his foray into the nonprofit world. The first board members he recruited included the sales director from a local solar installation company and a longtime friend with a large local business network.

He built alliances with Community Vision, Habitat for Humanity and SynchroSolar, a local solar panel installer. He even worked with the state

of Oregon to find a way to funnel solar incentives to those who most need them.

“A disadvantage for people who qualify for affordable housing is that they usually don’t have a tax burden, which means they don’t qualify for available income tax credits,” he says. “Oregon has a law that allows us to sell a $6,000 tax credit to any Oregon resident. So residents can invest in our project, covering almost half of the installation cost, and then reap the benefit of the tax credits—about $1,500 per year—on their income taxes for the next four years.”

HMC alumnus Jeffrey Drummond ’94/95 helped organize the project’s public fundraising campaign, marketing and communications. As an electrical engineer, he also lends his technical expertise and plans to serve on the Solar for All board of directors.

“I’ve known Greg since college and knew he was a great guy with the skills and motivation to make this organization a success. I wanted to be part of it from the ground level,” said Drummond. “Solar for All was a perfect fit for me, combining my experience and interest in alternative energy and sustainability and my desire to do development work locally instead of abroad.”

No stranger to solar startups, Drummond previously helped HMC engineering Professor Adrian Hightower raise funds for a nonprofit that brought solar energy systems to remote regions of Mali. He’s also worked as a consultant on solar panel industrial installations and the concentrating linear Fresnel reflector solar power system at Sandia National Labs in New Mexico.

Harr credits HMC with giving him the problem-solving ability that led to Solar for All’s mission. “It caused me to look at things from a systems perspective—economic and environmental—and to develop what I call the ‘three birds with one stone’ approach,” he says. “We see this as a way to support our local businesses, reduce our nation’s carbon footprint and help break the poverty cycle by lowering monthly utility bills for families who qualify for low-income housing.”

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CLASS NOTES continued from Page 30

1979

In January, Craig Heinselman P12 became the director of the EISCAT Scientific Association. Craig and his wife, Denise Rust P12, moved to Kiruna, Sweden, in late December and are now enjoying the culture and nature of northern Scandinavia.

1980

Sept. 21–25, Polly Heninger plans to ride about 300 miles from New York to Washington, D.C., to raise money for more than 40 nonprofit organizations that promote green energy, fight climate change and advocate for bicycle transportation. Beneficiaries include Adventure Cycling Association, 350.org, National Parks Conservation Association, Alliance for Biking and Walking, and Green America. “With the issues affecting the health of our planet and our economy, it’s more important than ever to work toward a sustainable and green future,” she writes on her blog at http://bit.ly/11OqTFn.

1983

Henry Kapteyn, 2013 HMC Outstanding Alumnus, has been elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences. He is best known for his research in femtosecond lasers. With his wife, Margaret, he created a tabletop X-ray laser and applied it to pioneering studies of material behavior. Henry is professor of physics at University of Colorado at Boulder.

1989

Tim Wendler, vice chair of Arroyos and Foothills Conservancy, joined forces with engineering Professor Mary Cardenas and her environmental engineering class for a research project. The class studied a property with K-rails, used by Los Angeles County Flood Control to minimize debris flowing into a flood control basin below the property.

The conservancy asked the class to evaluate alternatives that would be more environmentally and aesthetically friendly. Students evaluated three alternatives: gabions, earthen berm and wooden logs. Tim said, “We are currently in discussions with the flood control district to discern their openness to the first two options. The class did a great job of defining our options and evaluating the pros and cons of each.”

1993

Jon Soberg, managing director at Blumberg Capital, wrote the article “Integrating work and home­—tech dads need balance too” for the Innovations section of the Washington Post (June 3). Prior to Blumberg Capital, Jon held CEO, COO and CFO positions at several startups and built large organizations from the ground up in several companies, including Ditech, Broadband Digital Group and Adforce, which had a highly successful IPO. A CFA Charterholder and adjunct faculty in the Wharton Marketing Department, Jon has consulted for top companies including Toyota, HSBC, Neiman Marcus, Capital Group and Accenture.

He started his career in technology at CMU’s Field Robotics Center. Jon earned a B.S in engineering from HMC, an M.S. in engineering from Northwestern University and an MBA in entrepreneurial management and marketing from the Wharton School, where he is a Palmer Scholar.

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In his article, Jon wrote, “I am working on two areas right now that are helping me a lot. One is to be more present when I am with my family, and the second is to include my family more in my work.” To read the full article, go to http://wapo.st/11ZX73X.

1997

Todd Clements is teaching at Mt. San Antonio College (Walnut, Calif.). He welcomed his fourth child this summer and bought a house in Fullerton.

2000

A play produced by Gregory Rae has once again earned Tony Awards.

Kinky Boots set box office records in June at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, where capacity crowds experience the story of a struggling shoemaker and his drag queen business partner. The play received the Tyrus Emory PZ ’08 and Gregory Tony for Best Musical as well as five more Tonys for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Billy Porter), Best Choreography (Jerry Mitchell), Best Original Score (Cyndi Lauper: the first solo woman ever to receive this award), Best Sound Design of a Musical (John Shivers) and Best Orchestrations (Stephen Oremus). Gregory has co-produced two other Tony award-winning hits: The Normal Heart (his first experience as a Broadway producer) and Clybourne Park.

2002

Daniel Pennington, his wife, Elizabeth Magness, and their daughter June—one year old in August—now reside in Los Angeles.

Daniel is a radiation oncology resident at UCLA. They look forward to reconnecting with old HMC friends.

In Memoriam Cathy Jo (Railey) Behler ’93 died May 27. She was 43. An engineering graduate, Cathy also earned a B.S. in chemistry from Scripps College and a master’s in environmental engineering from Purdue University.

She worked as a project manager at Delphi in Kokomo, Ind. She is survived by her husband, Brett A. Behler, and their two children, Nicholas and Henry.

Thomas R. Wayman ’91 died May 4. He was 43. A physics alumnus, Tom was vice president of marketing at Laserfiche and a graduate of Stanford University (M.S., aeronautics and astronautics).

CLASS NOTES 2003

2004

Dave Gaebler graduated from the University of Iowa with a Ph.D. in mathematics. Two weeks later, Dave and his wife, Leslie, welcomed a daughter, Joanna Renee Gaebler, who joins sons, Timothy, 3, and Iain, 1. Dave begins teaching at Hillsdale College this fall.

Tyrel McQueen, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at Johns Hopkins, received two prestigious fellowships recently. In October 2012 he received the David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship for Science and Engineering, given annually to unusually creative young faculty members in science and engineering. In April, he received the ExxonMobil Award Faculty Fellowship in Solid State Chemistry. The ExxonMobil fellowship recognizes young untenured scientists in tenure-track faculty positions at U.S. institutions who have made substantial contributions to the discipline of solid-state chemistry and have the potential to emerge as leaders in the field. Tyrel’s research goal is to achieve true “materials by design” through the discovery and control of exotic electronic states in the solid state. Tyrel is a member of Johns Hopkins’ Institute for Quantum Matter, which is funded by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences of the U.S. Department of Energy. He and wife, Courtney welcomed son, Kaiden, in 2011.

Sam Sobelman is one half of the duo that makes up the band Lipstick Lumberjack. With partner Katherine Donovan, he creates “dreamy folk-pop with a dose of sweet banjo lovin’.”

They’ve played at the Motley Coffeehouse at Scripps College and in various clubs in the Los Angeles area. To hear their music, go to http://bit.ly/17nm8Le.

M.A. Baratta

Nathaniel Stern has won an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship. Nate earned his Ph.D. in physics in David Awschalom’s group at University of California, Santa Barbara, then did a post-doc with Jeff Kimble at Caltech before accepting an assistant professorship at Northwestern.

CORRECTION: The 2007 class note for Herbie Huff was listed under the name “Kristen Huff.” We regret the error.

YOU FOUND ME!

2006

Stephen Fox Parker was born April 8 to physicists Audy Sederberg and Colin Parker.

2008

Sarah Moore and Zach Rogstad were married Aug. 4, 2012, at Armstrong Farms in Saxonburg, Penn. Joining them for their big day were Alex Korn, Caitlin Furjanic, Kevin Byram, Jen Du Mond, Ross Sclafani, Eric Burkhart, Scott Kimbrell, Casey Schilling, Marielle Wardell, Claire O’Hanlon ’09, Rebecca Burns ’09, Dan Halloran ’10, Chris Byron ’07, Seanna Vine ’09, Brandon Horn ’09, Ben Preskill ’09, Autumn Petros-Good ’09, Bryan Teague ’10, Alyssa Pierson ’10, Aaron Guillen ’11, Ben Goldenberg ’10, Masato Kocberber ’10, Katie Near ’10, Lou Zellinger ’10, Bill Hewitt ’06, Amy Jarvis ‘07, Patrick Foley ’09, Mike Escola ’97, Katie Baczewski SCR ’08, Danielle Burkhart SCR ’07, Tara Frankel CMC ’10, Erica Anderson CMC ’07, Lindsey Moneta SCR ’08 and Jill Peters SCR ’08.

It was quite the party.

Marie Barry P16 and Allison Barry ’16

Michael Ross P14 at SLAC National Laboratory

ConGroodylations!

Marie Barry P16 and Michael Ross P14, selected from those who found all 23 Groodies in the spring HMC Bulletin, are enjoying their custom Groody shirts. The mischievous Groody can be found in the table of contents, inside back cover and on pages 2–17, 27, 30–32, 34 and 36. Thanks to all those who participated!

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1963

C L A S S R E U N I O N S A L U M N I W E E K E N D 2 0 13

Congratulated by members of the Founding Class of 1961, the Class of 1963 enjoyed several special events to celebrate their 50th class reunion, including a dinner with President Maria Klawe.

Back row: Don Nelson, Joe Stone, Kenneth Kuskey, Bob Beck, Michael Blasgen, Robert Clark, Fred Tomblin, George Diehr, John Graves, Roger Williams, Bill Benkovsky, Michael Wilson, Richmond (Dick) Hoch. Front row: Henry Shefelbine, Paula Hagedorn Diehr P90, Pat (Gach) Hildebrand, President Maria Klawe, Harald Weiss, Edward Owen, Ernest Manes.

Henry ’63 and Nancy Shefelbine President Maria Klawe and Michael Blasgen ’63

John Graves ’63 and David Howell ’61 Diane and Dick Hoch ’63

Michael Wilson ’63

Ernest Manes ’63 and Ruth Bowman

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1968

C L A S S R E U N I O N S A L U M N I W E E K E N D 2 0 13

Jay Labinger, Bob Fraley, Michael Malcolm, Dennis Holeman, Ken White.

1973

Back row: William Lang, Wayne Drinkward, Dean Johnson, John Mallinckrodt, Mike Hughes, Gene Nelson. Front: Vincent Jue, Bob Peak, Rick Cline, Bill Frost, Buzz Curtis P04, Wilson Hom, David Gore, Bill Sherzer.

1978

Kirk Cassidy, Larry Handa, Mark Rentz, Maria Zevallos, Michael Von der Porten P07, Steve Bentley.

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1983

1988

1993

C L A S S R E U N I O N S A L U M N I W E E K E N D 2 0 13

Back row: Henry Kapteyn, William Konya, Amanda Simpson, Marc Simmel, Fred Streitz P13, Wendy Streitz P13, Lance Clifner, Pat Ash, Michael Sailor, Gitfon Cheung, Scott Peckham, Peter Dickinson, Joel Voelzke. Middle: Seth Foerster, Denise Gudzikowski, Leonard Vance, Peter Wolff, Emily Greene, Philip Wolf, Chris Curzon, Mike Magras, Suzanne Schafer, David Overoye, William Krause, Joseph Anderberg.

Front: Vincent Tobin, Ron Smith, Sharon Lunt, Martha Vance, Grace Nakayama, Wendy Magras, Alan Teruya, Ross Watkins, Maxwell Adofo, Linda Miller, Glenn Sasagawa.

Back row: Thomas Diffely, Mike Harding, Ira Feldman, unidentified, Scott Samarel, Karin Kent, David Tanenbaum, Marc Sugiyama, Judson Cohan, Byron Servies, Kris! Neifeld, Eric Joham. Middle: Rachel Ross, Adam Shane, Charles d’Harcourt, Anne Shintaku, Rosemarie Stanton, Susan Doherty, Darlene Elsner, Jeffrey Edison, Shawn Smith, Mike Grimwood, Hodong Nam, Montgomery Kosma, Marilyn Hanesworth.

Front: Brad Bohnert, Steven Roth, Carrie O’Donnell, Maria Ebling P17, Julia Goldstein, Anne Thomas, Craig Byrnes, Julia Mustard, Cate Harris, Lawrence Chai, Kevin Quick.

Back row: Robert Mitchell, Andy Roe, Kevin Colwell, Jonathan Giron, Luke Chen, Chuck Bean. Front: Ellen Heian, Michelle Mann, Glen Hastings, Eric Turtle, Jon Leonard, Melissa Aczon, Steven Chung.

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1998

C L A S S R E U N I O N S A L U M N I W E E K E N D 2 0 13

Back row: Mats Cooper, Thaddeus Ladd, Eugene Wu, Brooks Davis, Darren Gray, Matthew Dharm, Benjamin Elgin, Geoff Finger, Steuard Jensen, Zachary Benz ’99. Middle: Ian Erickson, Benjamin Ver Steeg, John Larkin, Paul Berry, Dylan Helliwell, Brian Johnson, Justin Busch, Andrew Hutchings, Danielle Michaels. Front: Carrie (Wicklund) Wu, Sharon Ungersma, Dawn Strahler, Katie (Greene) Chin, April Nissen, Tarah (Reynolds) Helliwell, Cheryl (LeCompte) Prowell, Aniruddha Das, Henry Chin.

2003

2008

Back row: Alan Arney, Ryan Ellis, Trevor Oliver, Kristal Pollack, Ross Richardson, Stephen Friedman. Third row: Rosie Wacha, Elizabeth Reynolds, Jonathan Grant, Noah Beck, Noah Philips, Ryan Crabb, Daniel Vaughan, Galway O’Mahony. Second row: Micah Garside-White, David Clarke, Nicole Moore, Nick Hertl, Jessica Spaulding, Roberta Harnett, Gautam Thatte, Jonathan Nadel, Joseph Friesen, Paul Paradise.

Front: Lorraine Clarke (guest), Patricia Brock, Claire Edwards, Melissa Chase, Heather O’Brien, Gigi Au, Hang Tang, Joanna Wu, Annie Chang.

Back row: Richard Priddell, Philip Amberg, Meredith Rawls, David Morrison, Karen (Brown) Morrison, Junbo Park, Hyung Joo Park, Jason Fennell, Matthew Jeffryes, Michael Kimbrell, David Gross, Sean Meenehan, Daniel Goodwin ’09, Lilia Markham, Julian Evans, Anthony Weerasinghe, Mike Buchanan, Andrew Giles. Third row: Angela Berti, Andrew Leverentz, Steven Sloss, Elton Wong, Christopher Lee, Jeff Rubinstein, Zane Montgomery, Benjamin Stanphill, Matthew McKnett, Andrew Danowitz, Morgan Conbere, Jay Markello, Kelly (Walsh) Markello, Thomas Glass, Ellen Kephart, Alan Kraut. Second row: Andrew Stewart, David Schimon, Steven Ning, Tom Donze, Corina Donze, Chris Alvino, Greg Borish, Peter Scherpelz, Shelley (DeFord) Stanphill, Samuel Eisenberg, Scott Triglia, Lucy Abramyan, Christopher Roberts, Jen Du Mond, Nina Bordeaux, Sara Gussin, Thomas Barr, Michael Roberts, Maxsim Gibiansky. Front: Ken Tevin, Mutiara Sondjaja, Margaret Ho, Gena Urowsky, Monica Ascarrunz, Abbygail Palmer, Kathleen Wang, Benjamin Schiller, Eric Burkhart, Alexander Korn, Charles Clapper, Austin Rutledge, Zachary Rogstad, Sarah (Moore) Rogstad, Dariya Draganova, Caitlin Furjanic, Kevin Byram, Paul Sclafani.

HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE BULLETIN 301 Platt Boulevard | Claremont, CA 91711

Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Claremont, CA Permit No. 35

2013

hmc.edu/magazine

Dr. Bruce J. Nelson ’74 Distinguished Speaker Series illuminating the blind spots Why Gender and Race Still Matter in STEM In wide-ranging presentations by respected scholars, educators and scientists, the 2013 Nelson Series will explore how diversity has and will shape advances in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Four speakers will share ideas about how to broaden participation and reduce discrimination in STEM and beyond.

Wednesday, Oct. 9 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Professor and Chair, Sociology Department, Duke University Author of the best-selling book Racism without Racists Lectures are free and open to the public and are held in the lecture hall of the R. Michael Shanahan Center for Teaching and Learning on the Harvey Mudd College campus. For more information about the series and the speakers, visit hmc.edu/nelson. Inquiries may be directed to stewardship@hmc.edu, or call the Office of Stewardship and Events at 909.575.8175.

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