The Synapse
Updates from the Sciences at Loyola University Maryland
The 2024 Hauber Fellows will present the results of their summer research during the last three weeks of the summer research program. The presentations will happen on July 24, July 31, and August 7 in Knott Hall - B01. Each week we start serving lunch at 11:30 am and the first talk starts at 12:15 pm.
We are inviting everyone to support our Hauber Fellows by attending the events either in person or in virtual via Zoom. Please share the Zoom link only with individuals you know. Below is the schedule for the presentations:
July 24 Presentations
Zoom link: https://loyola.zoom.us/j/4908805572
- William Sears (Mentored by Dr. Raenita Fenner): Efficient Electromagnetic Material Characterization: A Comparative Study of Metaheuristic Optimization Algorithms
- Emma Heiser (Mentored by Dr. Hoang Bui): Improving Loop Performance Through Parallelization: A Comparative Analysis of Retiming and Loop Unrolling
- Leiyla Brent (Mentored by Dr. Sudeshna Basu): Construction of Hadamard Matrices
- Clare Noone and Skylar Katchko (Mentored by Dr. Elizabeth Dahl): The development of methods to detect the presence of caffeine and nicotine in urban streams
- Alejandro Escorcia (Mentored by Dr. Michael Knapp): Graph Coloring with Restricted Colors
July 31 Presentations
Zoom link: https://loyola.zoom.us/j/4908805572
- Brady Westerberg (Mentored by Dr. Robert Bailey): Investigation of Turbulence Model Impact on Numerical Simulation of Savonius Vertical Axis Wind Turbines
- Gwenyth Lowery (Mentored by Dr. Craig Myrum): Investigating the role of NPAS4 in cognitive outcome in aging
- Dylan Covington (Mentored by Dr. Suzanne Keilson): Comparison of passive and active temperature control approaches for food storage and transport.
- Joshua Manset (Mentored by Dr. Prince Chidyagwai): Numerical Approximations of Multiphysics Flows
- Fenrir Badorf and Hans van Lierop (Mentored by Dr. Megan Olsen): Using combinatorial frequency approaches to determine suitability of machine learning datasets
August 7 Presentations
Zoom link: https://loyola.zoom.us/j/4908805572
- Silas Green (Mentored by Dr. Hoyeon Kim): Perception-Based Road Hazard Detection System for Enhanced Vehicle Safety
- Ryan Ziegler (Mentored by Drs. David Hoe & Hoyeon Kim): Evaluation of SLAM for Static and Dynamic Environments: Establishing a Benchmark in Autonomous Mobile Robotics Research
- Christian Walsh (Mentored by Dr. Eric Cui): Enhancing Data Synthesis for Privacy-Preserving in Recommender System
- Lyric Campbell (Mentored by Dr. Nguyen Ho): Exploring the Capabilities of Various Large Language Models to Solve Complex Programming Problems
- Bradley Stinnette and Brianne Smith (Mentored by Dr. Craig Myrum): The Relationship between Cognitive Outcome, Sleep, & Aging: Evaluating the Fischer-344 Rat Model.
- Adrian Timin and Miller Gruen (Mentored by Dr. Mary Lowe): Automation and Machine Learning: How a Robot Can Conduct Experiments Using Gaussian Processes
Suzanne Keilson, Ph.D., Chair, Engineering Department
Dr. Keilson is Associate Professor of Engineering. She has a BA degree in Physics from Yale and M.S. and Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Columbia University. She worked at Perkin-Elmer corporation as contamination control engineer on the Hubble Space Telescope. Her master’s research involved materials science and point defects in Quartz crystals, while for her Ph.D. she studied electrical engineering, signal processing, biomedical sensory systems, and the motion of hair cells in the inner ear. She then had a post-doctoral position at the neural encoding lab of Johns Hopkins.
Her current research interests include design, assistive, and user centered engineering and engineering education. She is currently program co-chair for the technological and engineering literacy and the philosophy of engineering division of ASEE.
Dr. Keilson loves to communicate the fun and excitement of all areas of science, math, engineering, and technology. She has been at Loyola University Maryland for 30 years now. She spent over a decade as Assistant and then Associate Dean for Loyola College of Arts and Sciences. One reason she has stayed at Loyola is because of its support for the whole person for all members of the community. During her years here she has been able to raise and care for her family and explore her faith, community engagement and other interests. She is married with three adult children and enjoys films, science fiction, anime, reading, writing, Broadway, theatre, and a good argument.
Her focus for the next three years is to support and nurture the culture and climate in the Engineering department and seek to collaborate and leverage skills and passions across NAS generally. There are so many challenges we are facing today that require a broad and interdisciplinary lens. This fits well with the University’s new strategic plan and its foci on sustainability, student success, and strengthening student faculty bonds.
Timothy Clark, Ph.D., Chair, Mathematics and Statistics Department
Dr. Timothy B. P. Clark is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. He has taught at Loyola since 2010, joining the department as a Teaching faculty member after teaching two years at Northwestern University. He holds degrees in mathematics and mathematics education from the State University of New York: a Bachelor’s from the College at Geneseo, a Masters from the college at Cortland, and a Masters and PhD from the University at Albany. He conducts research in the field of Commutative Algebra, where he studies geometric and combinatorial objects that encode the solutions to systems of algebraic equations. He teaches courses along the entire undergraduate spectrum, and particularly enjoys teaching future teachers, Calculus, Combinatorics, and Abstract Algebra. Clark lives, cooks, and bicycles in Baltimore City with his partner and two children. As chair, he aims to continue progress on course coordination and student academic supports, grow the number of majors and minors in the department, support faculty and student scholarly activities, and further strengthen Loyola’s mathematics and statistics community.
Joseph Ganem, Ph.D., Chair, Physics Department
Joseph Ganem, Ph.D. is a Professor of Physics at Loyola University Maryland. He is an author on numerous scientific papers in the fields of optical materials, lasers, and magnetic resonance, and has received grants from Research Corporation, the Petroleum Research Fund, and the National Science Foundation for his research on solid-state laser materials. He has taught physics at Loyola for 30 years and mentored 18 Hauber Fellows. He has served previously as department chair from 2012 - 2017 and from 2020-2023. For more information see https://josephganem.com
Enacting a National Agenda for Undergraduate STEM Education
The AAAS-IUSE Initiative is proud to unveil the Levers for Change 2023: Enacting a National Agenda for Undergraduate STEM Education report. As Layne Scherer explains in her accompanying blog post, AAAS, with support from the National Science Foundation, gathered over 60 faculty, educational researchers, graduate students, professional society representatives, administrators, and others interested in 2023 to discuss the current state of undergraduate STEM education’s classroom practices and to imagine its future. Based on barriers identified by the participants that inhibit the broad uptake and adoption of evidence-based teaching practices across the country, this report provides recommendations to support educational reforms nationwide.
Read the full report and blog post here.
Register for the MS Data Science Virtual Info Session on Wednesday, August 14th!
Join us for an upcoming information session to learn more about Loyola University Maryland's Online Graduate Data Science program. The academic program director and the director of program operations will be present to answer your questions regarding program formats, application requirements, and the admission process.
By attending any of our information sessions, you can save yourself from paying the $60 graduate application fee.
Join us and explore the opportunities that await you! Please register here.