All News

Six outstanding Hamilton women scientists have been named Clare Boothe Luce Undergraduate Research Scholars for the upcoming summer.  The awardees this year are Alex Betrus ’18, Katherine Fuzesi ’17, Vi Pham ’18, Linnea Sahlberg ’17, Isabella Schoning ’16, and Emily Sears ’17.

Matthew Palmer’16  and Evelyn Torsher ’17 have been awarded the U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship (CLS). Palmer will study Chinese in China and Torsher will study Arabic in Jordan, Oman or Morocco.

“Using Noninvasive Brain Measurement to Explore the Psychological Effects of Computer Malfunctions on Users during Human-Computer Interactions,” co-authored by Leanne Hirshfield ’02, Stephen Harper Kirner Professor of Computer Science Stuart Hirshfield, Mathew Farrington ’12, Spencer Gulbronson ’12 and Diane Paverman ’13, was published in Advances in Human-Computer Interaction.

Many Hamilton students take full advantage of the College’s open curriculum by exploring an assortment of new disciplines in their first year. Sometimes these academic adventures lead to unexpected careers. When Sarah Hammond ’14 registered for Introduction to Computer Science, she had no experience in the subject. Four years later after double concentrating in math and computer science, she is set to begin a career in software development at Amazon.com. Hammond was the valedictorian of the Class of 2104.

Stephen Harper Kirner Professor of Computer Science Stuart Hirshfield, along with seven students, attended the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) of Women in Computing Conference Oct. 2 – 5 in Minneapolis.

Recent studies have found that the average American lies 11 times a week.  It is, of course, possible to tell a lie that goes undetected or, alternatively, to be accused of lying when innocent.  With the help of Stuart Hirshfield, the Stephen Harper Kirner Professor of Computer Sciences, Nick Brewer ’14 is researching how well people detect lies and accept truths.

Information, regardless of its accuracy, spreads rapidly through social media, reaching and influencing millions of readers.  In special instances, stories achieve viral status, where a large number of people receive the material within days, if not hours. Unfortunately, oftentimes information is incorrect, yet people accept it as true.

During her four years at Hamilton Diane Paverman ’13 worked on multiple computer science projects using technology to analyze human emotions. Now a recent graduate, she’ll be turning that experience into a career, beginning as a technology consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton as part of a team dealing with cybersecurity.

Twelve of Hamilton’s outstanding female science students are the first recipients of the Clare Boothe Luce Undergraduate Research Award. The new annual award will fund up to 12 female scientists each summer over the course of three years as Clare Boothe Luce Scholars in the fields of computer science, physics and chemistry. The $144,600 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation will be matched with funds from Hamilton.

George Orwell’s iconic dystopian novel 1984 famously featured cameras capable of discerning a person’s state of mind – their contentedness, truthfulness or trustfulness – simply by looking at their face. The year 1984 came and went without such a technology emerging, but as demonstrated by Diane Paverman ’13 and Eric Murray’s ’13 summer research on the functional near-infrared spectrometer (fNIRS), scientists are getting closer to achieving Orwellian-like surveillance capabilities.