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June 2025

Doug Juers, Carl E. Peterson Endowed Chair of Sciences and Professor of Physics, was awarded a grant from the National Institutes of Health to study liquids confined to nanometer sized pores inside macromolecular crystals.  The project will provide basic information about the behavior of liquids in packed environments, and is a continuation of his work aimed at improving the quality of three-dimensional structures of biological macromolecules determined with diffraction techniques.  Knowledge of macromolecular structure is important for understanding molecular details of biological processes and for developing treatments for a diverse array of diseases.  The  three-year study will support six undergraduate research assistants and one post-baccalaureate researcher.

May 2025

Sarah Hurlburt, Professor of French and Francophone Studies, and Alexis Hickey, College Archivist, received a grant from the Roundhouse Foundation to collaborate with the Umatilla County Historical Society and Pendleton Public Library on a post-custodial digitization and exhibition project to preserve and share a unique, unpublished, uncatalogued collection of photographs of rural and Indigenous life in early 20^th century Umatilla County. The photos were taken by Lee Moorhouse, a prominent photographer, businessman, and CTUIR Indian agent in Pendleton, who is best known for his representations of Plateau people. The glass-plate photos document life in Pendleton and Umatilla County from the late 1800s-early 1900s and are significant in the context of early 20^th century representation of Indigenous populations. The grant will enable Whitman staff to properly store the negatives and digitize them to make them publicly available to community descendants and researchers working on the history of rural Oregon.

Mark Hendricks, Associate Professor of Chemistry, was awarded a research grant from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement for a collaborative project that arose from his participation in a Scialog conference. He was one of 50 Fellows selected for the Automating Chemical Laboratories Scialog, whose goal is to create a dynamic, interdisciplinary community that will accelerate progress in the chemical sciences and laboratory automation. Professor Hendricks’ proposal will address reproducibility for scientific integrity and standardization, and will engage one to two students in summer research. Scialogs are gatherings of early-career scientists that support research, intensive dialogue, and community building to address scientific challenges of global significance. Faculty form teams at the conference and are encouraged to develop novel, high-risk, and potentially high-impact research proposals that are submitted for funding consideration at the end of the conference.

April 2025

Xiaobo Yuan, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Religion, received the Arnold L. and Lois S. Graves Award in the Humanities to work on a new project that investigates how Chinese missionaries are building “spiritual infrastructure” overseas, alongside China’s expanding economic influence. The award will support her study of the Bahasa Indonesian language and multiple trips to Indonesia to observe Chinese Christian missionary organizations in action. This research will inform and expand her courses on the anthropology of diaspora, Asian religions, and transnational China studies. Professor Yuan was one of thirteen awardees this year.

The Graves Award competition is offered every other year to early-career humanities faculty at a select group of private institutions in California, Oregon, and Washington. Faculty are nominated by their institutions based on their record of “outstanding accomplishment in actual teaching in the humanities,” as outlined in the award criteria. As a testament to the strength of our humanities faculty, Whitman’s Graves nominee has received an award in every competition since 2013.

³Ô¹ÏÍø has received a major grant from the Washington State Department of Commerce through its Clean Energy Community Grants program to support the installation of a photovoltaic (PV) array on the roofs of the new junior-senior village. The project will decrease reliance on fossil fuels, lower electricity costs, and contribute to regional sustainability efforts. It also serves as a tangible demonstration of the College’s commitment to environmental stewardship, providing educational opportunities and fostering a culture of sustainability and environmental responsibility among future leaders.

The grant is funded by Washington’s Climate Commitment Act (CCA). The CCA supports Washington’s climate action efforts by putting cap-and-invest dollars to work reducing climate pollution, creating jobs, and improving public health.

October 2024

For two weeks in October and November, Whitman Baseball partnered with Sharpstein Elementary School to provide baseball and softball instruction to third-grade P.E. classes. Sharpstein P.E. teacher Jason Parsons said, “It was a joy to see the kids swing a bat or wear a baseball glove for the first time. We plan to continue this initiative in the future.” The program was funded by a grant from the George Welch Trust.

September 2024

Assistant Professor of History Camilo Lund-Montaño and Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies Mariana Ruiz-Gonzalez have been selected as 2024–2025 Public Humanities Fellows with Humanities Washington. Their project will collect, preserve and publicize oral histories and photographs from the Latinx/e communities to diversify the region’s visual culture and acknowledge Latinx/e representation and voices within Walla Walla and Southeastern Washington.

August 2024

Associate Professor of Geology and Environmental Studies Lyman Persico and collaborators at the University of Montana and Idaho State University are the recipients of CESU (Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Units) funding for research in Yellowstone National Park. Persico’s lab will receive $120,000 in funding over the next four years, which will support Whitman student summer research and senior thesis opportunities. The primary goal of the project is to develop a climate vulnerability assessment for the landforms and infrastructure within the upper Yellowstone River watershed. This research is in response to the severe flooding in June 2022 in Yellowstone National Park that washed out both the north and northeast entrance roads, severely limiting access to the park. Repairs to park infrastructure continue as some roads, hiking trails, bridges and campgrounds are still closed.

June 2024

Jordan Wirfs-Brock, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, was awarded a research grant from the National Science Foundation through its CRII research initiation initiative. Her project will develop tools and technologies that enable people to record personally meaningful audio from their everyday lives and to use these recordings to help people reflect on the sounds in their lives. By developing tools that can help people who have no special training to document and interact with the sounds they encounter, the project seeks to empower people to learn new skills for listening as a means to reflect on the role of technology in their lives. Professor Wirfs-Brock will support five students and one post-baccalaureate researcher through this grant, and will integrate this project into her teaching through course-based research. The NSF’s CRII program is intended to provide essential resources to enable early-career faculty to launch their research careers at institutions that lack access to adequate support to perform computing research.

Tim Parker, Professor of Biology, was awarded a research grant from the National Science Foundation to support his investigation of the ways that decisions made by researchers can influence the reliability of scientific conclusions. Specifically, this project will test ideas about how researchers’ decisions made during data analysis could cause different scientists to draw different conclusions from the same data. To accomplish the goals of the grant, the project leaders will provide the same datasets and research questions to large numbers of researchers in ecology and evolutionary biology, and will then gather the many results produced by these volunteer analysts to identify causes of variability amongst them. Professor Parker and his colleagues will use the outcome of this study to start conversations within the scientific community about data analysis practices and whether they need to change, and if so, how. The grant will support undergraduate researchers in Biology, Math and Statistics, and Computer Science, and will enable the creation of teaching modules for an ecology lab and a statistical modeling class.

April 2024

Nancy Day, Assistant Professor of Psychology, received a Natural Sciences Research Grant from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust to support her research on the neural and genetic mechanisms underlying vocal learning in zebra finch songbirds. Zebra finches are an effective animal model for examining the learning and production of vocalizations because they learn their song in a manner similar to how an infant learns speech. The grant will support six research students over the course of the three-year grant; these students will gain valuable experience in a variety of behavioral, neurophysiological, and data analysis techniques.

³Ô¹ÏÍø received a Humanities Connections grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to support its Human-Centered Design program. The grant will provide two years of support for faculty to design, refine, enhance, and implement three components of the HCD program: the deepening and capstone courses, the Collaborative Practice Experience, and a Whitman Design Network Visiting Mentor program. The NEH project co-directors are Sharon Alker (English), Janet Davis (Computer Science), Michelle Janning (Sociology), William Bares (Computer Science), and Justin Lincoln (Art). Read more on the NEH Humanities Connections grant.

March 2024

Eunice Blavascunas, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Environmental Studies, was awarded a place in the 2024 Summer Institute for the Study of East Central and Southeastern Europe (SISECSE), convened by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) in partnership with the Centre for Advanced Study Sofia. The two-week residency will take place from June 13-29, 2024 at the American University in Bulgaria, located in Blagoevgrad. The residency provides a travel stipend, accommodation, and per diem expenses.

During her residency, Professor Blavascunas will complete writing on her research project entitled “Imaginaries of the Future at the Forested Polish, Belarusian, Lithuanian Borderland.” In this project she will be exploring what can be learned about imagining the future by looking at degrowth along the forested Polish, Belarusian and Lithuanian border.

Lindsay Tebeck, Collection Strategist Librarian, and Tracy Tolf, Systems and Applications Librarian, both received Professional Development grants from the Washington State Library (WSL) to attend the ELUNA 2024 Annual Meeting in Minneapolis in May. The Ex Libris Users of North America (ELUNA) is an educational group of users of library software products; meeting attendees will engage with colleagues, learn about the latest Ex Libris products, and gain practical information about optimizing the products for their institutions. These WSL grants are supported by federal funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act.

January 2024

Tom Hicks, Visiting Assistant Professor of Music (Piano), received a grant from the Ralph Vaughan Williams Foundation to commission new music on behalf of Whitman's piano majors and other students. Camden Reeves will work with Whitman students in a collaborative creative process that leads to at least three significant additions to the concert repertoire, to be published by Composers' Edition. This will provide our students with an inspiring insight into new music, often underperformed and misunderstood, while addressing other accessibility-related pedagogical challenges.

October 2023

Shampa Biswas, Judge & Mrs. Timothy A. Paul Chair of Political Science and Professor of Politics, was awarded a grant from the Ploughshares Fund for the continuation of her previously funded project to decolonize the nuclear studies curriculum. The first Ploughshares Fund grant enabled the development of three teaching modules that draw connections between nuclear weapons and 1) colonialism and racism, 2) feminism, and 3) environmentalism. The new grant will enable the wider dissemination of these modules through presentations at conferences, development of interactive webinars and workshops, and social media/web-based outreach.

September 2023

Özge Serin, Senior Research Associate in Anthropology, has been awarded a Wenner-Gren Hunt Postdoctoral Fellowship for the completion of her book project. Writing of Death: Ethics and Politics of the Death Fast Resistance in Turkey is a critical ethnography of the 2,286-day hunger strike-cum-death fast among political prisoners contesting the regime of isolation in Turkey’s newly instituted maximum-security prisons. The Hunt Postdoctoral Fellowship provides support for scholars in Anthropology and related fields to devote nine months to full-time writing; only 20 are awarded

August 2023

Paul Luongo, Associate Professor of Music and Paul Garrett Fellow, has been selected as a Visiting Faculty Fellow in the Associated Kyoto Program (AKP) in Spring '25, as part of his upcoming sabbatical. Professor Luongo will teach a course entitled “Music and Expressive Intent in Films of Japan and America,” and conduct research on works by two prominent Japanese composers in order to inform his conducting practice. His teaching and research experience at AKP will ultimately enhance and diversify the Music Department’s curricular offerings and the repertoire of the Whitman Orchestra. Whitman is a member of the AKP consortium, which provides study abroad opportunities for undergraduate students from US colleges and universities. Visiting fellowships are available to faculty from consortium institutions who wish to increase the quality or amount of Japan content they teach at their home institutions.

May 2023

Kirsten Nicolaysen, Professor of Geology, was approved for research time to use the tomography scanners at the University of Ghent, Belgium, as part of a research collaboration with faculty at the University. The funding for the facility usage came from the EXCITE network, a European infrastructure initiative that provides opportunities for scientists to utilize state-of-the-art electron and X-ray imaging facilities. Professor Nicolaysen spent a week in Belgium using the X-ray tomography scanners to analyze volcanic samples for a project that also involved a Whitman geology major.

April 2023

Lyman Persico, Associate Professor of Geology and Environmental Studies, received a grant from the Keck Geology Consortium to support research with students in Yellowstone National Park. The project provided several rising sophomores with an introduction to field-based applied geology research and career exploration, benefiting from Professor Persico’s expertise and contacts in Yellowstone. The is a group of 13 liberal arts colleges focused on enriching undergraduate education through high-quality research experiences. The Consortium is funded by the National Science Foundation. Students from all member colleges are eligible to participate in Consortium projects. Professor Persico’s project was part of the Consortium’s Gateway program, which provides introductory research experiences for students who are considering a major in science or earth science.

February 2023

Sarah Hurlburt, Professor of French and Francophone Studies, received a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to support her research to digitize photo collections in collaboration with the ³Ô¹ÏÍø and Northwest Archives and Tamastslikt Cultural Institute at the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. She is working to create a cross-referenced digital archive of Métis life in the Walla Walla Valley and on the CTUIR reservation.

December 2022

A grant from the Lawrence Parke Murphy Trust grant will support the launch of the new Human-Centered Design concentration. Funds will support a Designer-in-Residence consultant in 2023-24 to help with course and program design.

A grant from the Joseph L. Stubblefield Trust supported two community-based partnership classes—Hip Hop Culture and Hip Hop Culture Practicum—co-taught by Peter De Grasse, Senior Lecturer of Dance and two community partners. The dance courses are part of the 5th Element Project, a Hip Hop education and culture project that is a program of the Walla Walla Music Organization. 5th Element organizes outreach visits and teaching in area middle and high schools. The courses culminated with a public performance in May 2023.

November 2022

Kate Jackson, Professor of Biology, received the M.J. Murdock Trust Lynwood W. Swanson Scientific Research Award. The award recognizes senior faculty members with an established, productive and nationally recognized research program. Institutions within the Murdock Trust funding region in the Pacific Northwest are invited to nominate one outstanding faculty member each year. Professor Jackson won for her “internationally recognized work to advance scientific knowledge of herpetology, snakes and snakebite in Africa and to mentor the next generation of scientists.” More information is available here.

October 2022

Whitman received a grant from the Ludwick Foundation to purchase scientific equipment for faculty and students in geology. The instruments will enable realistic simulation of natural systems through hands-on, data-driven learning. Equipment purchased include a river stream table, river flume, acoustic doppler velocimeter, and shear vane and cone penetrometer. These instruments either replace outdated pieces or add new resources to the department. The proposal was authored by Pat Spencer, Professor of Geology. The equipment strengthens the geology department by improving the quality of classroom teaching, lab experiences, and research opportunities.

August 2022

Lyman Persico, Associate Professor of Geology and Environmental Studies, has received a National Science Foundation RAPID award to study the effects of June’s extreme floods in and around northern Yellowstone National Park. RAPID is a fast-response proposal mechanism that is used when the research question requires quick and urgent action, such as after a severe weather event. The project, conducted in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Montana, will increase our understanding of how the flood dynamics and geomorphic effects of the June 2022 flood compare to historical floods. The fieldwork, which is occurring this August, will support research experiences for four Whitman students. In addition, the findings will be incorporated into case examples that will be used in senior Environmental Studies seminars.

July 2022

Tim Machonkin, Associate Professor of Chemistry, was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to continue his research on a class of enzymes found in soil bacteria that are capable of breaking down certain toxic organic compounds that are common environmental pollutants. This grant builds upon his work that was funded last year by the M.J. Murdock Trust. It will support research experiences for nine Whitman undergraduate students and a post-baccalaureate technician, immersing them in cutting-edge bioinorganic research and providing them with opportunities to present and publish their research. This work will also contribute to pedagogical improvements in the chemistry curriculum and enhance community science outreach efforts at Whitman.

Whitman has received a major grant from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust to purchase two scientific research instruments—an electron paramagnetic resonance spectrometer (EPR) and a proto X-ray diffraction system—that will support student-faculty research and teaching in the chemistry and geology departments. The proposal was authored by  Tim Machonkin, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Mark Hendricks, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, and Nick Bader, Associate Professor of Geology. In addition to enhancing the research of multiple faculty members and their students, the instruments will be utilized in several upper-level courses, providing dozens of students each year the opportunity to gain hands-on experience with cutting-edge research instrumentation.

June 2022

Shampa Biswas, Judge & Mrs. Timothy A. Paul Chair of Political Science and Professor of Politics, was awarded a grant from the Ploughshares Fund for a project that aims to decolonize the nuclear studies curriculum by diversifying its content and making it more inviting to students from diverse backgrounds. In collaboration with her colleague Anne Harrington of the University of Cardiff, Wales, Professor Biswas will draw on the expertise of nuclear scholars around the world to develop learning modules that educators can incorporate into their courses. These modules will be disseminated through Highly NRiched, a nonpartisan crowdsourced platform that promotes informed public discourse about nuclear weapons through education. Ultimately, it is hoped that this project will help transform the teaching of nuclear studies and generate policy makers and advocates who are better informed about the strengths and challenges of the different paths to nuclear disarmament.

April 2022

Wenqing Zhao, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, has received a Summer Stipend award from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The award will enable her to spend two months this summer researching and writing two journal articles on female moral exemplars in Confucian philosophy.  Professor Zhao specializes in bioethics and Chinese philosophy.   In the past, most of the normative investigations on virtue and moral psychology have been done inside canonical Western traditions, just as most empirical psychology is done on “WEIRD” populations ( Western  Educated  Industrialized  Rich  Democratic). However, for centuries, Confucianism has been a prominent normative source of morality, and more broadly, an entire way of life that permeates the fabric of familial, social, and political life in East Asia. Professor Zhao’s NEH project develops a theory of virtue and moral psychology from the Confucian tradition, focusing on women and children, who have been historically marginalized and undertheorized. The goal of this work is to contribute to a more culturally attuned normative discourse on virtue and moral psychology. 

March 2022

Marion Götz, Associate Professor of Chemistry,  was awarded a Bridge research grant from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust. The project will investigate the mechanism of proteasome inhibition of a drug that is used clinically to treat multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells. The three-year grant will support summer research experiences for six students. Murdock Bridge grants are specifically designed to support seasoned faculty members who have established and previously funded research programs; they are meant to serve as a bridge toward future federal funding. 

February 2022

Aaron Aguilar-Ramirez, Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies, has been awarded a Graves Award in the Humanities. This biennial award, based at Pomona College, recognizes a junior faculty member who demonstrates outstanding accomplishment in the teaching of the humanities. Professor Aguilar-Ramirez was nominated by Whitman for his work in building a more inclusive and equitable Hispanic Studies curriculum. With Graves funding, he will attend two academic conferences for teachers of Spanish. He will also travel through Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas to connect with instructors who run the best Spanish as a Heritage Language programs in the country, in order to gather information to improve Whitman’s Spanish for Heritage Speakers course. The long-term goal of this project is to develop a more robust course catalog tailored for heritage learners of Spanish.

December 2021 

³Ô¹ÏÍø received a grant from Washington State Health Care Authority grant (a subaward through Washington State University), to establish a regional network of Collegiate Recovery centers, which help college students thrive after recovery from substance abuse. Thanks to this grant, a new Wellness Interest House opened in fall 2021.

³Ô¹ÏÍø received a grant from the Johnston-Fix Foundation grant to support the College’s DEI efforts. Part of the grant will support the upcoming Third Space Speaker Series, which will feature speakers whose work helps to advance inclusive excellence at Whitman. Another portion will support the Power & Privilege Symposium.

³Ô¹ÏÍø received two grants from the Joseph L. Stubblefield Trust to support local community-engaged initiatives. Funds will support student-led community engagement programs in the Career and Community Engagement Center and will enable local high school students and community partners to participate in the course Hip Hop Culture in spring 2022.

July 2021

Alissa Cordner, Associate Professor of Sociology, received a grant from the National Science Foundation. This grant continues her long-time research collaboration with her colleagues at Northeastern University on PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), one of the most significant contamination crises of the century. This grant will enable the research team to create a PFAS Governance Database, consisting of in-depth interviews, observations, and analysis of governance documents to investigate the variety of regulatory and non-regulatory (monitoring, funding, remediation) approaches at federal, state, and local levels taken across the U.S., including the option of inaction. Professor Cordner will train and supervise student researchers to conduct interviews as part of this project.

June 2021

William Bares, Associate Professor of Computer Science, received a grant from Teach Access, an organization that works to enhance students’ understanding of digital accessibility—how to develop new technologies with the needs of people with disabilities in mind. Professor Bares is working with a student this summer to develop and test new course modules for his Fall 2021 Intelligent User Interfaces Course. The modules contain hands-on design and programming activities designed to apply alternative input devices such as motion- and eye-tracking in conjunction with intelligent algorithms. This course will help students understand the importance of engaging with accessible design.

May 2021

Ben Murphy, College Archivist, and his colleagues in the ³Ô¹ÏÍø and NW Archives (WNCA) received two grants from the Washington State Library, both focusing on diversifying the voices available within the WNCA. The first grant will support Whitman’s participation in  The Listeners Project: Queremos Escucharte, a bilingual community interviewing and story collecting project created in collaboration with the Walla Walla Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and the Walla Walla Public Library. With these funds, the Archives will hire students to help solicit, record, and archive English and Spanish oral history interviews with members of the local community. The second grant will broaden public access of underrepresented voices from the Archives by enabling student research and presentation of oral history and other archival materials.

April 2021

Adam Kirtley, Interfaith Chaplain, received a grant from the Interfaith Youth Corps to help install a labyrinth on campus and host a day of spiritual renewal. Read more in the Whitman Newsroom.

March 2021

Arielle Cooley, Associate Professor of Biology, was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to examine the genetic interactions that create color patterns in monkeyflower petals (genus  Mimulus). Together with John Stratton, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, and colleagues at the College of William and Mary, the team is using mathematical modeling, computational approaches, and molecular genetic techniques to understand how spatially complex patterns evolve and develop. This is Professor Cooley's third NSF grant in five years. It will support research experiences for at least six undergraduates and three high school students.

Tim Machonkin, Associate Professor of Chemistry, was awarded a research grant from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust. The project will investigate the structure and activity of a key enzyme that could be helpful in breaking down organic compounds that are persistent environmental pollutants. Professor Machonkin is Whitman’s first recipient of the Murdock BRIDGE grant, a new program that supports faculty members with established research programs that had previously been federally funded; this grant will serve as a bridge toward future federal funding. The three-year grant will support research experiences for five students.

Mark Hendricks, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, has been awarded two grants to support his research into the synthesis of nanocrystalline materials.  Both projects are interdisciplinary, introducing  students to organic and inorganic chemistry, physical chemistry, and materials chemistry. One grant, from the American Chemical Society’s Petroleum Research Fund,  will investigate the factors governing the control of crystalline phases during nanocrystal synthesis.  The second grant, from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, will test novel approaches to developing semiconducting nanocrystals. Together, these grants will  support eleven student research positions over three years.

January 2021

Patrick Frierson, Professor of Philosophy, was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship to continue his scholarly work on the early 20 ^th-century educational philosopher Maria Montessori. The fellowship will support an eight-month leave in spring 2021 to allow Dr. Frierson to complete a book titled  The Moral Philosophy of Maria Montessori: Moral Agency and Ethical Life. The book will be written primarily for professional philosophers working in ethics and the history of philosophy; however, it will also provide a valuable philosophical resource to other humanities scholars, educators, and the general public. Educators, particularly Montessorians, thirst for high quality scholarly work that can illuminate their pedagogical practices.

The National Endowment for the Humanities  is one of the largest funders of humanities programs in the United States, promoting excellence in the humanities through grants to support teaching, learning, scholarship, and cultural resources.

December 2020

• ³Ô¹ÏÍø, in collaboration with the University of Oregon and the University of Idaho, was awarded a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation as part of the organization’s Just Futures Initiative, which aims to create programs that expand public understanding of racism in United States history and advance more just and equitable futures. With the $4.52 million grant, the three schools will establish the Pacific Northwest Just Futures Institute, intended to provide a regional platform for initiatives that help rectify “the devastating consequences of intersectional racism and climate change” through collaborative research, community engagement activities, the creation of digital archives, applied courses, and incentives to attract and retain underrepresented students, faculty and staff. 
  
  Whitman’s portion will fund a new field course entitled “Land, Water, Justice: Next West Media Lab.” The course will examine land, water, and justice in the inland Northwest, with an emphasis on racial and climate justice. Students will read about connections between manifest destiny and decolonization while gaining skills in digital storytelling, oral history, and interviews. Particular emphasis will be placed on imagining just futures and how to examine practical and aspirational solutions for addressing critical problems of climate change and racial inequality.

August 2020

• Eunice Blavascunas, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Environmental Studies, received a grant from the National Science Foundation that will help improve the teaching of Environmental Studies 120. The grant, from the “Improving Undergraduate STEM Education” program at NSF, is part of a multi-institutional partnership that seeks to better inform those who teach, make curricular decisions, and manage college-level environmental programs. Professor Blavascunas will provide syllabi, course materials, and student learning objectives from her course and will assist with collecting student interviews and surveys before and after the course. A main goal of the study is to develop evidence-based recommendations that environmental studies programs can use to help increase students’ understanding of environmental concepts and enhance their overall science literacy.

July 2020

• Associate Professor of Chemistry Nate Boland has received a three-year research grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The Research at Undergraduate Institution (RUI) grant supports research by Boland and up to six Whitman students to study chemical reactions that affect the availability of metal ions to living organisms. This grant is awarded on the scientific merit as well as the broader impacts of the project, including science outreach in the community and involvement of undergraduate students — all of which are made possible by Whitman College’s commitment to a robust and dynamic liberal arts education.
• Associate Professor of Geology Nick Bader and Assistant Professor of Geology and Environmental Studies Lyman Persico were awarded a National Science Foundation research grant for their project to reconstruct past terrestrial environments in the southeastern Columbia Basin of southeastern Washington and northeastern Oregon. The research will contribute to our understanding of the complex tectonics of the Pacific Northwest and provide valuable insights into the impact of megafloods in shaping the terrestrial landscape. The grant will provide research experiences for twelve undergraduate students and will contribute to improving local geologic knowledge among K-12 teachers and students. By using local field sites and flexible scheduling, this project aims to reduce barriers to entry for students traditionally underrepresented in the geosciences.

February 2020

• Emily Jones, Assistant Professor of German Studies & Environmental Humanities, has received a Graves Award in the Humanities to support travel and research in Northern Germany in the summer of 2020. Professor Jones will travel to Hamburg and Berlin to gather information for a new place-based course she is developing that will examine the relationship between environment, place, and literature in Northern Germany. The Graves award will help fund her expenses during her six-week stay, as she develops local partnerships, visits sites to be included in the course, and learns about best practices in faculty-led study abroad courses. Ultimately, Professor Jones plans to offer the course as part of the Crossroads program.

January 2020

• ³Ô¹ÏÍø, on behalf of the Northwest Five Consortium (Lewis and Clark College, Reed College, the University of Puget Sound and Willamette University), has received a $900,000 grant over four years from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The grant will enable the five colleges to collaborate with local and regional partners to develop and implement community engagement initiatives. Through these collaborations, Consortium members will promote knowledge-sharing across institutions, produce mutually beneficial outcomes for communities around the Pacific Northwest, guide students in exploring issues of local and regional relevance, establish and strengthen the place of the humanities in the Northwest, and produce graduates who have the skills to meaningfully engage with their communities and workplaces.

November 2019

• The M.J. Murdock Trust has awarded Whitman two research start-up grants to support new faculty positions in the sciences. New faculty members in biology and physics will join Whitman in the fall of 2020. These grants offer support to supplement the start-up costs for new positions; funds are used to help the faculty members launch their research labs and begin a student-faculty research program.

August 2019

• A 5-year grant from the Carrie Welch Trust will help sustain and expand Whitman’s educational outreach program efforts. The grant will create an “educational outreach fund” to enable the College’s community outreach programs to fulfill several goals: 1) provide supplemental funding for existing programs; 2) provide seed funding for new programs; and 3) provide funding to hire additional student interns or add hours to existing student intern positions to manage our growing outreach programs.

• Lydia McDermott, Assistant Professor of Composition in General Studies and Director of the Center for Writing and Speaking (COWS), has received the Graves Award in the Humanities. The grant will further her research into the pedagogy of writing for non-native English speakers, with a focus on those from China. Professor McDermott will visit writing centers and English language classrooms in China, attend conferences on second language acquisition, and extend her own Chinese language study in the summers of 2018 and 2019. As part of this work, she will take two Whitman student researchers with her to China, and will also collaborate with the recent Whitman graduates who are teaching English at Yunnan University as part of the Whitman in China program. Professor McDermott hopes that her travel and research in China will enrich her work in the COWS and training of tutors, facilitate improved programming for international students, and enhance her faculty development for professors who work with international students. The Graves Awards are administered by Pomona College under the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies. The College can nominate one candidate every other year who demonstrates excellent teaching in the humanities.

January 2018

• ³Ô¹ÏÍø has received a three-year grant of $800,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to help the College infuse diverse perspectives into the curriculum and promote community engagement, with an emphasis on the humanities and humanistic social sciences (the focus of the Mellon Foundation). The program was developed by a group of faculty and staff, with broad consultation with multiple campus constituents. It will be overseen by Provost Alzada Tipton, with faculty management led by Professor of Anthropology & Interdisciplinary Studies Jason Pribilsky (representing Division I), Associate Professor of Studio Art Nicole Pietrantoni (representing Division II), and a faculty advisory committee. Faculty development programs will be overseen by the associate dean for faculty development and vice president for diversity and inclusion, in consultation with faculty.
  
  With this Mellon grant, Whitman will increase its commitment to community engagement as a means to broaden students’ perspectives and provide a variety of high-impact community experiences that are tied to the academic program. In addition, several programs will provide faculty development opportunities in inclusive pedagogy, course revision/development, and community-based learning, in order to build faculty capacity in these areas. Finally, the grant will strengthen the Student Engagement Center so it can provide greater support to faculty in their development of community partnerships and community-based learning courses. Program planning will begin in the spring, with the first initiatives scheduled to launch in the summer.

November 2017

• ³Ô¹ÏÍø received a grant of $24,292 from the Port of Walla Walla to create a student coding space in the WCTS building, where budding computer scientists can come together to write code and create new programs. The Whitman Coding Space is modeled after similar “hacker” spaces found in larger tech cities like Seattle and San Francisco. It provides ideal conditions for working both individually and in groups—with monitors, white boards, individual desks, and group workspaces. In addition to Whitman students, the space will be open to students from Walla Walla Community College and Walla Walla University, in order to provide a diverse group of collaborators and to make the opportunity available to as many students as possible in town. The space will also provide new educational and community outreach opportunities for Whitman students. Ultimately, this partnership between Whitman and the Port of Walla Walla will benefit both parties--supplying highly qualified computer scientists for local businesses, providing the means to foster the growth of new start-up ventures, and helping the Port attract new technology companies to Walla Walla.

September 2017

• Melissa Clearfield, Professor of Psychology, received a second sub-award from Harvard University’s Center for the Developing Child to fund her ongoing “Play for Success” intervention study designed to increase executive function (e.g., attention, object exploration, and problem-solving) in low-income children. This sub-award was funded by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Donor Advised Fund through the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and the study is a collaboration with Children’s Home Society of Washington. The grant enabled Professor Clearfield and two Whitman students to spend the summer collecting and analyzing data from families in Walla Walla and Seattle. According to Professor Clearfield, the data thus far look promising, as the intervention appears to be effective at improving executive function in the infants tested, and Professor Clearfield looks forward to continuing her collaboration with Harvard in the future.

August 2017

• , Benjamin H. Brown Professor of Physics, Arielle Cooley, Assistant Professor of Biology, , Associate Professor of Physics, and Greg Ogin, Assistant Professor of Physics, all received research grants from the National Science Foundation this summer.
  
  Professor Beck’s project will develop new ways of uncovering errors that occur in quantum systems, advancing our understanding of quantum mechanics and helping to influence the development of modern technology.
  
  Professor Cooley’s grant will allow her to continue her research into the genetic mechanisms underlying repeated evolution using the monkeyflower genus Mimulus as a model organism.
  
  Professor Gresham will use her grant to investigate the nature of dark matter, advancing our understanding of fundamental physical laws and the evolution of the cosmos.
  
  Professor Vaughn-Ogin’s award is part of a multi-institutional grant to the LIGO Scientific Collaboration Center for Coatings Research, and will address the problem of thermal noise in the interferometer mirrors of LIGO’s gravitational wave detectors.
  
  These research projects enable several undergraduate students to conduct summer research with their faculty mentors, exposing them to sophisticated scientific research techniques and providing excellent preparation for graduate school or future careers in science. In addition, these grants provide opportunities to broaden the reach of these scientific projects through mentoring and outreach to college and K-12 students who may be underrepresented in science.

May 2017

• ³Ô¹ÏÍø has received a one-year, $11,900 grant from the Council of Independent Colleges to support a new community service program called, “Men Making Meals.” With the grant, Whitman’s Student Engagement Center will partner with the Walla Walla Senior Center and the United Way to provide cooking classes and companionship to older adults. The CIC’s Intergenerational Connections grant program, which is supported by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), is designed to enhance connections between college students and older adults. “Men Making Meals” will assist seniors—often men—who may not have learned to cook due to the gender roles of their generation, but whose wives have now passed away or become unable to cook. By teaching the seniors basic cooking skills, student interns will help alleviate concerns related to poor nutrition and significant expense associated with prepared or take-out meals, as well as encourage fellowship and reduce isolation for seniors. For students, the program will provide an opportunity to form positive intergenerational connections and break down some of the stereotypes young people sometimes have about older adults. The “Men Making Meals” program will support eight Whitman student interns during the 2017-2018 academic year.

April 2017

• Nate Boland, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, and Greg Ogin, Assistant Professor of Physics, received research grants from the Murdock Trust College Research Program for Natural Sciences. 
  
  Professor Boland’s research in environmental chemistry focuses on nutrient and toxic metal bioavailability and mobility in the environment. With this grant, he will investigate the mechanisms of metal ion mobilization and acquisition exploited by plants, microbes and fungi to satisfy their nutritional needs. His grant will support six students over the course of three years. 
  
  Professor Ogin studies optics and precision measurement; he is part of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, a group that is studying precision measurement for the purpose of detecting gravitational waves. His grant will support his efforts to develop ways to better measure the thermo-optic properties of thin film materials used in precision high-reflective mirror coatings. This will further our understanding of these materials and the noise sources associated with them, leading to better precision measurements within the gravitational-wave detection field and elsewhere in the wider optics community. Professor Ogin’s grant will enable three students to participate in this work over three years.

October 2016

• Britney Moss, Assistant Professor of Biology and Biochemistry, Biophysics, & Molecular Biology, is part of a collaborative research team that recently received a $3.6 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation’s Plant Genome Research Program. In addition to ³Ô¹ÏÍø, the team consists of researchers at the University of Missouri, Rutgers University, and the University of Washington. The researchers will study how the plant hormone auxin controls ear and tassel growth in corn. They will use a combination of genomic, synthetic biology, and bioinformatic approaches to identify the specific combinations of genes expressed in these tissues in response to the hormone. In addition to shedding light on how auxin functions in plants, the research may also provide a way for growers to breed high-yielding varieties of crop plants. The grant will provide opportunities for Whitman students to conduct research with Prof. Moss and her collaborators, travel to present their work at national scientific meetings, and help develop scientific outreach activities.

June 2016

• ³Ô¹ÏÍø has received a grant of $4,000 from the Pacific Power Foundation to support its Advanced Studies Enrichment (ASE) program, which provides free tutoring to high school AP math and science students. The ASE program partners ³Ô¹ÏÍø student tutors with high school students. Tutoring sessions are held in Whitman’s Hall of Science, providing a stimulating study space and exposing high school students to an inspiring college environment while they study. Sessions are designed to give students uninterrupted time to focus on their work, with tutors available to provide help when they get stuck on a topic, as well as to provide general mentoring and interaction. The ASE program, which has been supported by the Pacific Power Foundation since its inception, is one of the most successful examples of Whitman’s partnership with local schools and is a signature program within Whitman’s community outreach efforts.

May 2016

• , Assistant Professor of Geology, received a research grant through the Murdock College Research Program for Natural Sciences. The grant will support his work in past soils, specifically his project to assemble a record of Quaternary paleoclimate from the Palouse loess in Southeastern Washington. In addition to supporting six research students over three years, the grant will enable the purchase of a piece of equipment (magnetic susceptibility meter) that is necessary to facilitate the research.
• Arielle Cooley has earned a two-year renewal grant from the Murdock College Research Program for Life Sciences to extend her previously-funded Murdock research investigating the genetic mechanisms underlying repeated evolution using Mimulus (monkeyflower) as a model system. In addition, she earned a travel award from the NSF-funded microMORPH project at Harvard that will allow her to travel to the University of Connecticut next year to develop transgenic techniques in Mimulus in collaboration with a colleague at that institution.
• ³Ô¹ÏÍø earned a $1,000 seminar grant from the AAC&U Bringing Theory to Practice program. Principal Investigator Kazi Joshua, Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion, developed the seminar to engage in productive dialog those faculty and staff who work with first-generation students, in order to enhance communication, coordinate activities, and develop a cohesive set of initiatives that promote the well-being of these students. The seminar was held on May 25.

February 2016

• Nicole Pietrantoni, Assistant Professor of Studio Art, received the Graves Award in the Humanities, a competitive grant available to early-career faculty from liberal arts colleges in Washington, Oregon, and California who demonstrate outstanding teaching and scholarly work and who are nominated by their College’s President. The grant will facilitate a new body of artwork that explores humans’ complex relationship to nature and enables the development of ³Ô¹ÏÍø’s first Environmental Studies-Art course titled “Art in the Anthropocene.” With this funding, Pietrantoni will conduct archival research at the Center for Art and the Environment at the Nevada Art Museum, travel to historic land art sites in the American West, and participate in “The Practice of Art in the Anthropocene” conference at the University of California-Los Angeles during her sabbatical in Spring 2017.
• Arielle Cooley, Assistant Professor of Biology, received an American Philosophical Society Franklin Research grant to support her ongoing research on the monkeyflower genus Mimulus. This grant will support the purchase of supplies for experiments that will help determine the molecular mechanisms responsible for the evolution of flower color diversity in Mimulus.

October 2015

• Tim Parker, Associate Professor of Biology, received conference grants from the National Science Foundation and the Laura and John Arnold Foundation to organize an international workshop called “Improving Inference in Evolutionary Biology and Ecology” in November 2015 at the Center for Open Science in Charlottesville, VA. This workshop grew out of Parker's research and his ongoing interests in teaching biology students to critically evaluate the scope of scientific inferences. The goal of the workshop is to develop and promote the adoption of incentive structures, especially editorial policies for academic journals, that will reduce the rate of publication of false positives, promote replication of research, and facilitate synthesis of results across studies. The attendees will include scientists interested in improving scientific inference along with editors-in-chief of many prominent journals in evolutionary biology and ecology. By changing institutions in ways that should reduce publication bias and promote more rigorous evaluation of hypotheses, the organizers hope to improve empirical progress in these fields.

September 2015

• Doug Juers, Associate Professor of Physics, was awarded a grant of $316,455 from the National Institutes of Health for his research on the thermal behavior macromolecular crystals. His project will improve the quality of three-dimensional structures of macromolecules, structures that are key for understanding the molecular basis of disease. His grant will provide research opportunities for several students over three years.
• Marion Götz, Associate Professor of Chemistry, was awarded a grant of $260,647 from the National Institutes of Health for her research on proteasome inhibitors. Her project investigates the development of a new and improved class of proteasome inhibitors that may lead to more effective therapeutic agents for cancer. Her grant will provide research opportunities for 9 students over three years.
• Tim Machonkin, Associate Professor of Chemistry, was awarded a grant of $385,400 from the National Science Foundation. His research examines the mechanisms of a specific class of bacterial enzymes that can be used for bioremediation or other applications. This work, which involves a collaboration with Yale University, will provide research opportunities for 8-12 Whitman students, and send some of them to spend the summer doing research at Yale.

August 2015

• Alissa Cordner, Assistant Professor of Sociology, is the co-principle investigator with collaborators at Northeastern University on a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation entitled "Perfluorinated Chemicals: The Social Discovery of a Class of Emerging Contaminants." The goals of the research are to track the social and scientific discovery of perfluorinated chemicals, hazardous chemicals that are widely used in industrial production. This project will investigate the emergence of lay awareness, scientific research, government involvement, media coverage, litigation, and advocacy around this class of chemicals. Cordner will analyze regulatory documents and public testimony about voluntary and regulatory action related to perfluorinated chemicals and will conduct interviews with affiliated individuals. The project will lead to a better understanding of chemical risks and environmental health controversies and will contribute to research on alternatives assessment, chemical substitution, and environmental regulation.
• Melissa Clearfield, Professor of Psychology, was awarded a grant sub-award from the Hemera Foundation. She and ³Ô¹ÏÍø are part of a larger grant to Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child to launch innovative research focusing on at-risk children from prenatal to three years of age and their caregivers. At Whitman, Clearfield and students in her Whitman Infant Learning and Development (WILD) lab created a simple Play for Success intervention for low-income infants to boost object exploration and, eventually, executive function. They will partner with the Children’s Home Society of Washington to test this intervention through the Early Head Start program. This intervention will eventually lead to better problem-solving skills in this at-risk population.

May 2015

• ³Ô¹ÏÍø received a planning grant of $90,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support its efforts to foster practices of diversity, inclusion, and equity on campus. The planning grant builds upon work the College has done over the past three years, including creating a diversity council and hiring a Chief Diversity Officer. Funding from the planning grant will enable the College to bring together members of the Whitman community for a series of focused discussions with faculty, staff, and students. In addition, the college will bring in external facilitators (University of Michigan Program on Intergroup Dialogue) and a nationally-known consultant (Dr. Damon Williams) to provide training and guidance to campus groups. These efforts will lead to the creation of a set of implementation strategies that will ultimately contribute to the development of ³Ô¹ÏÍø’s strategic plan for diversity.