Students and faculty from the Schmid College of Science and Technology will be at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Long Beach, California in August. Among those presenting are Patricia Lopes, associate professor of biological sciences, who will chair an organized oral session on the ecology of disgust, which explores how animals detect, avoid, and respond to the risks of parasites. Sophia Wallace ’24 and Elena Skender ’25, students from this past spring’s undergraduate course on plant biology, will represent their classmates in presenting a project on the capacity for native plant species to withstand high temperature extremes. The project, which was carried out in close collaboration with the Irvine Ranch Conservancy, was recently featured in the Los Angeles Times. In addition, Schmid College will sponsor two events on best practices in research mentorship. 

Research by Sophia Wallace ’24 and Elena Skender ’25 about native plants and temperature extremes was recently featured in the Los Angeles Times.

Gabriela Shirkey, a postdoctoral research and teaching fellow in the Grand Challenges Initiative, has been awarded a two-year grant from NASA. Entitled “Collaborative Nexus for Networking, Education, and Career Training in Surface Biology and Geology,” the project brings together faculty mentors from Schmid College of Science and Technology with staff scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in nearby Pasadena to provide training opportunities to students. The grant will provide paid internship opportunities for 16 students to use satellite remote sensing data to address questions in ecosystem and hydrological science, urban heat, aquatic/coastal ecology, and biodiversity. Shirkey is joined by Joshua Fisher, Richelle Tanner, and Gregory Goldsmith as faculty mentors from the Schmid College of Science and Technology.

Jeremy Hsu, assistant professor of biological sciences, has started a term as an editor for the American Society for Microbiologist’s Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education. The journal publishes articles “that foster scholarly teaching and provide readily adoptable resources in biology education at the undergraduate, graduate, professional (e.g., medical school), K-12 outreach, and informal education level.” Hsu is a leading expert in the field of biology education research, with more than two dozen published articles to his name. 

Joshua Fisher, associate professor of environmental science and policy, is a co-investigator on a $2.6 million grant from NASA’s FireSense Technology Program. Working in collaboration with the company Urban Sky, the project will support the deployment of stratospheric balloons that can measure and transmit thermal hotspot data in near-real-time, providing crucial information to firefighting teams on the ground.

Professor Joshua Fisher is a co-investigator on a $2.6 million grant from NASA’s FireSense Technology Program.

Andrew Jordan, the Kennedy Chair in Physics and co-director of the Institute for Quantum Studies, has been awarded the Medal of Honor for his scientific achievements at the “Frontiers of Quantum and Mesoscopic Thermodynamics” conference in Prague, Czech Republic. 

Professor Andrew Jordan was awarded the Medal of Honor at the conference “Frontiers of Quantum and Mesoscopic Thermodynamics” in Prague.

Ashley Agatep ’28, an environmental science and policy student, is quoted by NASA’s Earth Observatory in an article about “Beating the Heat in Pakistan.”  

Sarah Abdo ’24, who recently graduated with a degree in biochemistry and molecular biology, is a co-author on an article entitled “Constructing analogies: Developing critical thinking through a collaborative task.” The article is published in the journal Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education. Abdo carried out the research as part of her summer National Science Foundation research fellowship at Rochester Institute of Technology. 

Jianwei Zheng, who completed his Ph.D. in the Computational and Data Science (CADS) program, is the first author of an article entitled “Trends in heart failure costs for commercially insured patients in the United States (2006–2021).” The article is published in the journal BMC Health Services Research. Zheng is joined by Chapman colleagues Cyril Rakovski, who is professor and program co-director for the faculty of CADS, and former CADS master’s student Ahmad Rezaie Mianroodi. 

Finally, faculty have published a number of new research papers, including studies on physics, mathematics, and biomedical sciences. Roman Buniy, associate professor of physics, is the first author of an article entitled “Decoherence and the classes of maximally entangled states.” The article is published in the International Journal of Quantum Information. Daniel Alpay, professor of mathematics, is the first author of an article entitled “Schur analysis over the unit spectral ball.” The article is published in the journal Linear Algebra and its Applications. And John Miklavcic, assistant professor of food science and in the school of pharmacy, is among the co-authors of a data paper entitled “Histopathology imaging and clinical data including remission status in pediatric inflammatory bowel disease.” The article is published in the journal Scientific Data.