Are you interested in doing research? Do you spend extra time in the science lab perfecting an experiment? Are you eager to study marine life or analyze some of the smallest structures on the planet? Are you really, really good with numbers? Then you may find your area of study within the Division of Natural Sciences.
The natural sciences seek to shed light on the rules that govern the natural world by using empirical and scientific methods. Although mathematics and computational science may not be considered natural sciences per se, they provide critical insight and many tools used within the natural sciences.
The Heiser Natural Sciences Complex includes teaching and undergraduate research labs for chemistry, biology, computational science, physics and mathematics.
There is a greenhouse, herbarium and sampling equipment for field ecology. Our newest facility is a Nanotechnology Lab to study the properties of tiny structures used in cutting-edge technologies for the computer, robotic, medical and optical communication fields.
The Pritzker Marine Biology Research Center houses over 100 aquaria and features student and faculty research laboratories, classrooms and office space for New College’s marine biology program. Each tank in the Living Ecosystem Teaching and Research Aquarium features a different captive ecosystem, several with a camera to send images to a streaming video server. Underneath the building, an additional 10,000 square feet of space provides room for quarantine, storage, and the system that supplies seawater to the facility’s aquaria and labs.
The Division of Natural Sciences offers the following areas of concentration (AOC):
(see below for faculty)
Applied Mathematics
Biochemistry
Biopsychology
Biology
Chemistry
Computer Science
Marine Biology
Mathematics
Natural Sciences
Neurobiology
Physics
Justin Walensky earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine, and joined the faculty as an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Missouri, where he is researching the coordination and organometallic chemistry of the actinides in fundamental understanding of molecular and electronic structure as well as bonding.
William P. Thurston (1946-2012) was a world-renowned mathematician and member of New College’s charter class, who revolutionized the study of topology in two and three dimensions, showing interplay between analysis, topology and geometry. For that, he won the Fields Medal at just 37 years of age. The medal is mathematics’ highest honor, often equated to the Nobel Prize.
Richard Canary is a Professor of Mathematics at University of Michigan, specializing in geometry and topology.
Damian Beil is an Associate Professor of Technology and Operations at University of Michigan.
Mike Carlisle is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at CUNY.
Aaron Hillegrass is the founder and chief learning officer at Big Nerd Ranch, a technology company that trains developers on mobile technology and consults brands like Procter & Gamble, AT&T, Microsoft, Google, GE, Delta and Boeing. Hillegrass is also the author of iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide and Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X.
Duncan Odom is principal investigator at Cancer Research UK – Cambridge Research Institute.
Kendra Bowman earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry from University of California, Berkeley and her M.D. from Stanford University.
Christine Gramer earned her Ph.D. in chemistry from University of California, Berkeley.
Catherine Sarisky is an assistant professor of chemistry at Roanoke College.
Korin Wheeler is an assistant professor of biochemistry at Santa Clara University.
Steven Wheeler is an assistant professor of chemistry at Texas A&M University.
John Lentini is one of the country’s pre-eminent fire investigators. Since 1975, he has given expert testimony in over 200 cases in civil and criminal court. He now operates Scientific Fire Analysis, LLC in Big Pine Key, Florida.
Lonnie Draper, M.D. – currently an entrepreneur in healthcare technology (CEO of Avocare), former vice president of Emergency Medicine at Tallahassee Memorial and still practicing there as well. He is also an associate professor in Emergency Medicine for the Florida State University College of Medicine.
Mark Carroll, Ph.D. – research entomologist, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida.
Barbara Junge, J.D. – received her M.P.A. from Princeton University and J.D. from NYU and is currently an attorney in Miami, FL.
Craig Brown, Ph.D. – fisheries biologist, National Marine Fishery Service, Miami, Florida.
Kristin Kalmbacher, M.D. – received her M.D. from Tulane University and specializes in family and emergency medicine in Fairhope, AL.
“Informal Math Education: Using Origami to Teach Elementary School Students Math Concepts” by Gina Fawks
“Food is the Best Medicine”: Enhancing Post-Surgery Recovery with Diet” by Ariel Hart
“Save the Vagina Forest! Addressing Challenges in the Sustainable Treatment of Acute + Chronic UTI, BV & VVC” by Leandra Argyros
“Sensitivity Analysis of Biochemical Networks: Computer Algebra Application to the Escherichia Coli Trypyophan Operon” by Casey Henderson
“Water Purification in the Global South” by Megan Patrick
“MircoRNA Regulating Networks: Analyzing Structural Changes in Time Series Data” by Raymond Roberts
“Mathematical Models in Population Dynamics” by Alexander Salisbury
“A is for Asthma: Asthma in Elementary School Children in Alachua County, FL” by Molly Burges
“Raman Studies of Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes Suspended in Polystyrene” by Ross DeMike
“Comparing Health Systems: HIV/AIDS in India and the United States” by Anita V.Tambay
“The Susceptibility of the Small Hive Beetle, Aethina tumida, to Selected Soil Applied Insecticides” by Bradley R. Lovett
atTACN Hyperoxaluria with Progress Towards the Synthesis of the Novel Ligand Bn2TCMA” by Katriana Nugent
“Investigating the Role Of RNA Helicase A in Endogenous Small Interfering RNA Pathways in Caenorhabditis elegans” by Christian Ortiz
“Reactive Oxygen Species Likely Induce Pro-Inflammatory Gene Transcription and P53 Activity Following Oxygen-Glucose Deprivation in Cultured Microglia” by David Hartmann
“Partial Synthesis of Fe(III) – Tetraamido Macrocyclic Ligands as Potential Green Oxidation Catalysts” by Eric Andreansky
“TACN and jibing toward synthetic models of oxalate degrading metalloenzymes” by Erinn Brigham
“The Microwave Spectroscopy of Small Molecules with Methyl Rotors” by Ian Finneran
“A Bost-Connes System for Qp” by Cody Gunton
“Fan Blowup of Analytic Surgery Spaces” by Brian Stanwyck
“Reidemeister Torsion and the Classification of Three-Dimentional Lens Spaces” by Katherine Raoux
“Sudoku Scheming: Am Algebraic Combinatorial Approach to Discovering Properties of Sudoku Graphs using Association Schemes” by Ziva Myer
“Dynamics of an Analogue of the Quadratic Family on Su (2)” by John Anthony Emanuello
“Hyperbolic Structures On Weave Complements” by Indra Shottland
“Local Algebraic Invariant Statistics for a Heuristic to Compare Phylogenetic Trees” by Ian Haywood
“A Natural Isomorphism from the Ordered Homology to the Oriented Homology of an Injective Set” by Nathaniel Chandler
“One-Dimensional Cellular Automata: Pascal’s Triangle and an Extension of Rule 90 for a Non-Abelian Group” by Erin Craig
The Heiser Natural Sciences Complex includes teaching and undergraduate research labs for chemistry, biology, computational science, physics and mathematics. In addition to modern teaching facilities such as a chemistry teaching lab with transparent fume hoods, students have access to special research equipment including a scanning electron microscope in biology, nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers and a home-built, state-of-the-art microwave spectrometer in chemistry, real-time PCR equipment for biochemistry, and a laser Raman spectrometer in physics that records vibrations to yield information about the nature of materials, such as pigments in ancient vessels and paintings.
There is a greenhouse, herbarium and sampling equipment for field ecology. Our newest facility is a Nanotechnology Lab to study the properties of tiny structures used in cutting-edge technologies for the computer, robotic, medical and optical communication fields.
We are also setting up a computer cluster for computational sciences to serve as a student development lab for parallel computing and high-end computation.
The Pritzker Marine Biology Research Center houses over 100 aquaria and features student and faculty research laboratories, classrooms and office space for New College’s marine biology program. Each tank in the Living Ecosystem Teaching and Research Aquarium features a different captive ecosystem, several with a camera to send images to a streaming video server.
Underneath the building, an additional 10,000 square feet of space provides room for quarantine, storage, and the system that supplies seawater to the facility’s aquaria and labs.