Harvey Mudd College

$Professor of Literature Jeff Groves leads HMC faculty and administrators to the 2008 Commencement ceremony, holding the college\’s mace—a traditional part of the academic procession since the medieval period.$ $Jeffrey Lym \’11 strums his guitar, as part of a photo shoot for HMC\’s course Art 100: Intro to Digital Photography. The student photographers were asked to produce a self-portrait directing their partner, who did the actual shooting.$ $Joshua Cobb \’09, a chemistry major, works in Professor Gerald Van Hecke\’s laboratory to create a binary mixture of n-alkyl-cyanobiphenyls—liquid crystalline compounds used in the construction of liquid crystal displays (LCDs). For two summers, Cobb and Van Hecke worked to understand the interactions between these molecules in binary mixtures and their effects on the liquid crystalline properties of mixtures of these compounds. Their findings will soon be submitted for publication.$ $Jowene Wong \’08 strikes a playful pose, as part of HMC\’s course Art 100: Intro to Digital Photography, which she took during her senior year. The student photographers were asked to produce a self-portrait directing their partner, who did the actual shooting.$ $Daniel Garcia \’10 helps Ariel Berman \’11 paint \“The Albatross.\” An engineering major, Berman built the rocket as part of both her level-one certification from the National Association of Rocketry and her research in HMC\’s rocket development lab.$ $Chemistry major Andrew Chung \’10 poses with \“Jeopardy!\” host Alex Trebek during the prestigious game show\’s 2008 College Tournament. After two nights of final rounds, Chung—the second HMC student to appear on the \“Jeopardy!\”—finished as second runner-up, bringing home $25,000. In 1998, HMC alumnus Andrew \“Rif\” Hutchings \’98 was named the \“Jeopardy!\” college champion.$ $Science educator William Nye, a.k.a. \“Bill Nye the Science Guy®,\” gave the invited commencement address at HMC\’s 50th annual commencement ceremony, May 18, 2008. In his speech, Nye urged graduates to develop \“big, hugely big, hugely gigantically big\” ways to change the world.$ $NASA astronaut and HMC alumnus Stan Love \'87 sports a Harvey Mudd College T-shirt aboard space shuttle Atlantis. The second HMC graduate to venture into space as part of NASA\'s space shuttle program, Love performed two spacewalks during mission STS-122, in February, 2008. On day 11 of the mission, the crew was awakened to the sounds of the HMC anthem, \"Hail Thee, Harvey Mudd,\” composed by alumna Amy Lewkowicz \'90, a longtime friend of Love\’s.$ Graduates (left to right) Abbygail Palmer, an engineering major; Natt Supab, a biology major; Andrea Sand, a chemistry major; and Kathleen Wang, an engineering major, pose for a group shot before the anticipated 2008 commencement ceremony.

Graduates (left to right) Abbygail Palmer, an engineering major; Natt Supab, a biology major; Andrea Sand, a chemistry major; and Kathleen Wang, an engineering major, pose for a group shot before the anticipated 2008 commencement ceremony.

Philip Cha, professor of engineering, lectures to HMC students in the course E59: Introduction to Engineering Systems.

$Kathleen Ewing \'11, part of the historic entering class of 42 percent women, searches for the sign to her hometown and that of her classmates. Each year, orientation sponsors create a signpost with the distance in miles from each new student\'s hometown to Harvey Mudd College. The frosh get to take their sign as a souvenir of their welcome to campus.$ $Mathematics major Tracy Backes \'08 traveled to India in fall 2006 for an anthropology study abroad program in Madurai. Six months later she was back for an internship with Microsoft in Bangalore. Asked if she\'d return to India a third time, Backes says, \"in a heartbeat.\" Here, she is blessed by Lakshmi, the temple elephant, on a visit to the town of Hampi.$ $Terence Wong \'09, a chemistry-biology joint major, consults with Assistant Professor of Chemistry David Vosburg on the interpretation of a reaction that used thin-layer chromatography.$ $Hufsa Ahmad \‘10 (right) and Megan Pham \‘10 participate in the Tricycle Pig Relay, as part of the Frosh/Sophomore Games, an annual HMC tradition.$ $Engineering major Jeff Rubinstein \’08 (center) works with local youngsters, as part of HMC\’s Science Bus Program, which helps teach science to elementary and middle school students. The day\’s lesson focused on ecosystems, with this experiment demonstrating nutrient transport in plants.$ $Rachel ArceJaeger \’10 and Vedika Khemani \’10 work on a robotics project, as part of HMC’s Summer Research Program. The pair, along with Jessica Wen \’10, took their robot to Orlando, Fla., where they participated in the 2007 Tapia Robotics competition and took first place among five teams. The trio was the youngest team present and used the least expensive platform among the entrants—a testament to their creativity and programming savvy.$ $Engineering majors Graham Orr \’09 (right) and Jason Choi \’08 prepare a rocket for its first launch in the Lucerne Valley Dry Lakebed in the Mojave Desert. The rocket, used to test electronics and sensors up to two times the speed of sound, was a joint project between the Mudd Amateur Rocket Club (MARC) and HMC\’s Experimental Engineering (E80) course, which allows students to engage in hands-on laboratory work to fly instrumented model rockets as a team, then analyze and report on their data.$ $Harvey Mudd College professors\' doors are (almost) always open. Here, Mathematics Professor Andrew Bernoff and Christine Kim \'09, a chemistry major, ponder a differential equation question.$ $Who needs a car to get around\? HMC students normally roam the campus on bikes, unicycles and skateboards of all shapes and sizes.$ $Students in HMC\'s Math and Science Education class, led by mathematics professor Darryl Yong, set out to perfect a hot air balloon project for local high school students. Their task: inflate a plastic bag with the heat produced by birthday candles.$ $Students soak up the California sun in HMC\’s Braun Liquidambar Mall while tackling a chemistry assignment.$ $Built in 1972, Hixon Court is a favorite place for faculty, students and staff to take a break in between classes and other activities. A gift from the Alexander Hixon family, the courtyard is home to HMC\’s Venus Fountain and koi pond. Adjacent to Hixon Court is Galileo Hall, where most public lectures are held.$ $Jennifer Logan (right), a post-doctoral researcher in professor Shenda Baker\’s chemistry lab, and chemistry major Benjamin Schiller ’08, deposit polymers on ultra pure water in a Langmuir trough to look at self-assembly processes of molecules. Professor Baker\’s lab examines how molecules spontaneously form nanoscopic-sized structures.$ $Cassandra Cortez \’08 (left) and Lai \'Anna\' Lei \’09 work in the state-of-the-art clean lab at bioSTAR West, located in an industrial park a few blocks from campus. The facility, where many HMC faculty and students collaborate on numerous multidisciplinary projects, offers the only clean-room laboratory at The Claremont Colleges.$ $Jay Markello \’08 builds a wireless sensor station capable of measuring temperature and humidity. Part of a student-driven summer research project in the Department of Computer Science, the station was deployed in the Robert J. Bernard Biological Field Station, located near The Claremont Colleges, to communicate with other stations and relay environmental data back to a base computer that logs the information.$ $Welcome to sunny Southern California. HMC\’s campus offers many grassy areas where students relax, study and play.$ $Jive Overdrive, HMC\’s student jazz band, performs outside of the Hoch-Shanahan Dining Commons. The group heralded the opening and closing music at President Maria Klawe\’s inauguration ceremony and was invited to play at the prestigious Jazz Bakery in Los Angeles.$ $Students from HMC\'s 2006 Shakespeare course work through their first dress rehearsal for King Lear. Led by Professor Jeff Groves, students spend half the semester studying selected plays and Shakespearean topics, and the other half mounting a full production of an assigned play. Performing outdoors in Thomas-Garrett Courtyard, students experience Shakespeare\'s playing conditions: no artificial lighting, a thrust stage open to the sky, limited props and special effects, and audience members on multiple levels. Since 1989, Groves and his students have produced a number of Shakespeare\'s most popular plays.$ $Working in the Department of Engineering\’s tissue culture lab, Elizabeth Orwin, assistant professor of engineering and biology, and physics major Emily Hogan \’07 examine a cluster of cells at the bottom of a test tube after centrifugation.$ $Demonstrating the fluid dynamics of a vortex cannon, Jon Jacobsen (right), HMC\’s Howard and Iris Critchell Assistant Professor of Mathematics, creates a smoke ring to blow out a candle across the room. The smoke is used to visualize the fluid flow.$ $Engineering major Nikhil Sonde \‘08, a member of the 2006-07 MaxViz Clinic Team, tests a system designed to transmit runway and weather information via a new airport approach lighting system at frequencies above the visible range. On one end of campus, Sonde signals LED lights through his laptop; at the other, his teammates successfully receive the signals. Their design concept proved successful.$