Notes & Curiosities
William & Mary might become the base for a mission to Mars. The mission is called ARES—the Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Surveyor. Joel Levine explains that the idea is to send an airplane to Mars.
Members of the Committee on Buildings and Grounds of William & Mary’s Board of Visitors were treated to an advance look at the Machine for Science and other features of Phase 3 of the College’s Integrated Science Center.
There are the arts, and then there are the sciences. There is literature, language and film, and then there is calculus, physics and experiments.
The William & Mary Department of Geology has acquired a world-class mineral collection that geologists say will be a valuable resource in the department for many years.
The world may just have moved a step closer to the reality of comic books.
It all was hypothetical—but very realistic. Mitchell, Emily Pehrsson ’13, Dallen McNerney ’14, and Connor Smith ’14 represented William & Mary at a CIA Crisis Simulation Competition in November.
The mist turns into a legitimate drizzle as Joe Jones stands over a hole in the ground on the Historic Campus of William & Mary. He has just removed a large plywood cover sheltering a pit approximately two feet in depth.
William & Mary’s Department of Geology is celebrating its 50th birthday—not even a tick of the clock in terms of the age of the earth.
"We’ve determined as a faculty that our undergraduate students should comprehend the tools of research as an essential part of their future problem-solving and decision-making,” says Joel Schwartz, director of the Charles Center and dean of honors and interdisciplinary studies.
William & Mary mathematician Chi-Kwong Li has been awarded a Fulbright grant by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars.
Emmett Duffy of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) has been honored with the inaugural Kobe Award for his achievements in marine science.
A team of William & Mary physicists has an important role in the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment, a multinational collaboration to advance science’s understanding of ubiquitous, yet mysterious, particles known as neutrinos.
The Chesapeake Bay Program’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) has appointed Kirk Havens of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William and Mary, to serve as the committee’s vice chair and chair-elect.
Passengers on the schooner Alliance out of Yorktown in July were offered fresh seafood snacks—jellyfish.
William & Mary bird scientists Mitchell A. Byrd and Dan Cristol were each honored for their contributions to ornithology by the Virginia Society of Ornithology (VSO).
Small Hall is no longer too small. “We were just bursting at the seams in terms of space,” said David Armstrong, Chancellor Professor of Physics and department chair.
Hummingbirds hover and dart. Falcons swoop and dive. Cooper’s hawks are capable of jaw-dropping aerobatics. Add the homely whimbrel to this list of extreme fliers.
Susan Verdi Webster will never forget the fourth month of 2011.
A new study of local sea-level trends by researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science brings both good and bad news to localities concerned with coastal inundation and flooding along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay.
Robert J. Diaz of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science received one of four Outstanding Scientist Awards for Virginia for 2010.
William & Mary has entered into a “sister university” arrangement with the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC), a relationship that both sides hope will generate a wide range of mutually beneficial educational and research initiatives.
William & Mary played a significant role in the Historic Triangle Collaborative’s Economic Diversity Task Force.
An academic colloquium is not usually where one would expect to see Hollywood stars.
Virginia’s breeding population of red-cockaded woodpeckers reached a new high this year, with nine breeding pairs documented in late May.
“The building itself is always part of a physics experiment” says Keith Griffioen, professor and chair of the physics department. And in recent years, he added, Small Hall often was an unwanted part.
The bald eagle breeding population along the James River has set a new record, with 165 breeding pairs of the birds documented in early March.
Combining the power of 159 computers and 475 individual processors, SciClone, William & Mary’s scientific computing complex, is an important resource for the College and a unique feature for a campus this size.
When Mohima Sanyal ’14 would drop a transgenic mouse into the lab’s Y-shaped maze, she had a pretty good idea of how the mouse would react.
William & Mary’s Elizabeth Harbron is one of six U.S. chemists to be named Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholars.
Two William & Mary scientists working in the laboratory of R. A. Lukaszew recently were recognized at the 57th International Symposium of the American Vacuum Society.
Terry L. Meyers, Chancellor Professor of English, has been featured in two national publications recently regarding research of the 18th century Bray School and its possible connection to an old house tucked on the edge of William & Mary’s campus.
This past summer, two members of William & Mary’s class of 2011 worked on scientific research projects as Beckman Scholars.
William & Mary’s Technology and Business Center (TBC) has entered into a collaboration with the James City County Economic Development Authority (EDA) to take over management responsibilities of the James City County Business and Technology Incubator.
The William & Mary School of Education has been awarded $5 million as part of a larger U.S. Department of Education grant to improve science and math education in Virginia schools.
Laboratory analysis by the College of William and Mary’s Center for Archaeological Research (WMCAR) revealed that bone fragments found this summer in two unmarked graves on campus are the remains of dogs interred some two centuries ago.
Over the past decade, William & Mary’s students and alumni have been very successful in obtaining Fulbright Scholarships to teach and study in countries around the world.
…and our transmission electron microscope is running just fine, thanks
Diners in Williamsburg-area eateries late this summer may be tasting the results of a William & Mary sustainable agriculture internship.
Thirteen students and alumni from the College of William and Mary have been selected to receive 2010-11 scholarships from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, setting a new record for the College.
A VIMS study of 400-year-old oyster shells from the Jamestown settlement confirms that a harsh drought plagued the early years of the colony and made the James River much saltier than today.
Out-of-work commercial watermen pulled up more than 9,000 derelict so-called "ghost pots" from the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries this winter.
Rusty blackbirds are threatened across their range--except on the William & Mary campus.
The James City County Business and Technology Incubator - a partnership between James City County (JCC) and the College of William & Mary - welcomed a new client this month, Breathe Healthy.
Werowocomoco exhibit will feature first public showing of artifacts.
East Coast loggerheads proposed for endangered species list.
Hope, a whimbrel fitted with a transmitter last year, has returned to the Eastern Shore. She's the first whimbrel the Center for Conservation Biology has tracked on the migratory "full circle."
A national group of plastics engineers has recognized the work of a research group at William and Mary led by William Starnes, a national leader in the chemistry of vinyls.
These shifty, stilt-legged shorebirds continue to surprise even seasoned scientists.
William & Mary's interdisciplinary environmental program is expanding, thanks to a new post-doctoral fellowship program.
William & Mary's landmark lake is full of history, even below the waterline.
Sebastian Brock '11 puts the Bassalope through its paces.
Tracy L. Cross started the fall 2009 semester with a new job and the surprise of a lifetime.
Andy Allen '11 is preparing to relish everything the old world has to offer. As the first recipient of the Timothy J. Sullivan Scholarship, he will spend the fall semester of his junior year at the University of Nottingham in England.
The Schroeder Center for Health Policy at the College of William & Mary has started the 2009-2010 academic year with a new name and a new director.
As interns for the Committee on Sustainability (COS), Tyler Koontz '09 and Judi Sclafani '11 spent their summer months researching William & Mary’s recycling and waste services. Thanks to that work—and a recommendation by the students-the College will now save $40,000 annually.
Our Murray Scholars, under the leadership of Dan Cristol, each year take a trip to the farm of the program's benefactors.
William & Mary's Center for Archaeological Research celebrates 20 years of work, opens a new lab and produces an index of projects.
Graduate students from the College of William and Mary were joined by students from several other advanced programs for the College's eight annual Graduate Research Symposium.
The newest version of Google Earth contains data on marine "dead zones" contributed by Professor Robert Diaz of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William and Mary.
The College of William and Mary and Virginia Commonwealth University are collaborating to take advantage of the research and expertise of their environmental science programs.
Two William and Mary students are recipients of summer research fellowships from the American Physiological Society, continuing the kinesiology department's excellent record with this competitive award for undergraduates.
The Linnean Society of London has awarded Darwin-Wallace medals every half-century since 1908. The most recent class includes H. Allen Orr ’82, ’85 and Mohamed Noor ’92.
A new analysis of the worldwide scientific literature shows that professors Deborah Steinberg and Jim Bauer of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science are at the cutting edge of their fields.
A survey of recreational boat owners who make Hampton their home port concludes that these boaters bring $55 million to the city and help create nearly 700 full-time jobs.
Two William & Mary faculty members received the state's highest honor for professors from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.
The Virginia Institute of Marine Science dedicated two new research buildings-Andrews Hall and the Seawater Research Laboratory-in an April 16 ceremony that highlighted the many contributions made to VIMS and the College of William and Mary by the late Senator Hunter B. Andrews and his wife Cynthia.
ISC 1 is open and producing science. ISC 2 is under construction. Just wait until we build ISC 3.
One of William and Mary's strengths is the involvement of our students in research...and it's about to get stronger.
Now a few select William & Mary students can spend the summer getting a head start on honors thesis research.
Katherine K. Preston will spend the spring 2009 semester at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, after being named the Walt Whitman Distinguished Chair of American Culture by the Fulbright Center of the Netherlands.
Randy Coleman uses technology to teach chemistry better.
Bill Starnes joins a class that includes George C. Scott and Daniel Boone.
Bryan Watts and Mitchell Byrd are two reasons there are bald eagles in Virginia today.
Some 33 students will be supported in math-science education initiative.
Mark Patterson gets some well-earned plaudits for his work with underwater instrumentation.
Book by Richard Prize wins top honors for ethnographic writing.
Great libraries make great research and scholarship possible.
A gift from an alumna and her husband will help keep William and Mary's libraries first-rate.
A researcher in the Department of Applied Science wins an award for working with materials that are just a few atoms thick.
Tracking young bluebirds through telemetry can offer up some surprises.
In a corner of the Keck Environmental Field Laboratory sit an old water heater, a plastic holding tank and a few pumps, set up in a purple-painted particleboard frame with the air of an eighth grade science project.
As in comedy, the secrets to acing the physics GRE are timing and a sense of the ridiculous.
George Greenia was awarded the 2007 Distinguished Editor Award by the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ).
Jack Musick of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science has been awarded the Commonwealth's Lifetime Achievement in Science award for his work on the ecology and conservation of marine fishes and sea turtles.
"Kenya literally felt like The Lion King every day, with a big sunrise behind the acacia tree and lions and elephants everywhere," said Patel.
Joseph J. Plumeri, a member of William and Mary Board of Visitors, has committed $2 million to establish the Plumeri Awards for Faculty Excellence.
William and Mary's seventh annual Graduate Research Symposium was held March 28 and 29, 2007 at the University Center.
The Environmental Science and Policy program at William and Mary has received a $1.5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
It's probably the world's only birdhouse with the scales of justice on one side and the William and Mary cipher on the other.
Global Film s-GIG stages the King Kong of all retrospectives at the Kimball Theatre.
They're Global Inquiry Groups: Interdisciplinary, international...and they incorporate research.
From the most visible spot on campus to ultra-secret sites deep in the woods, summer 2007 was a busy one for our intrepid shovelers.
The surprising depth of controversy about a new museum in Paris--plus joy, the Supreme Court and a rain-forest philosopher.
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the Virginia Environmental Endowment support environmentally sensitive research projects.