School of Science Highlights
AY 2011-2012
In August 2011, Dr. Allan Weatherwax, Professor of Physics, began his tenure as Dean of the School
of Science.
Dr. Scott Vandenberg, Professor of Computer Science, received The Jerome Walton Award for
Excellence in Teaching from Siena College for Academic Year 2011-2012.
The Siena College/Albany Medical College Program in Science, Humanities and Medicine celebrated
its milestone 25th year Anniversary with faculty, students, physicians and honored guests in November
2011.
The 10th Anniversary of the opening of the Morrell Science Center was celebrated in October 2011.
Environmental Studies student, Jennifer Boniello ’12, has worked with St. Agnes Cemetery in Menands
to create a "cyber cemetery" that will allow researchers and genealogists to roll a “computer mouse”
over a map to look for specific gravestones in the historic cemetery.
Devin Rigolino ’13, created a geographic information systems map of North Woods Nature Preserve in
Clifton Park, NY that is featured on the National Scenic Byway "Lakes to Locks" website. “Lake to
Locks” is partnered with National Geographic and part of its “GeoTourism” initiative.
The Environmental Studies Department successfully obtained a $9,521 grant from the "New England
Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission (NEIWPCC) in partnership with New York State’s
Department of Environmental Conservation’s (NYSDEC) Hudson River Estuary Program (HREP)" to
fund an undergraduate research project for the Summer of 2012. The project will support a water quality
and quantity monitoring program in our local Kromma Kill watershed.
Six School of Science students including Jeni Casinelli ’12; Emily Merritt ‘12; Adam Davis ’12;
Kelly Byrnes ’12; Melyssa Smith ’13; and Yu Shen ’12 will be presenting their geographic
information systems (GIS) research projects at the Northeast Arc Spring Conference at Smith College on
May 22, 2012.
Sean Hickey ’12, an Environmental Studies major, conducted a research project for the Friends of
Clifton Park Open Space, a local not-for-profit organization, and presented his findings at the Town of
Clifton Park Town Board meeting in February. An article about Sean’s project is published in the CN
Weekly, a Saratoga County weekly publication.
Environmental Studies major, Melyssa Smith ’13 presented her study, “Got Flood? A GIS-based
Approach to Identifying Recreation Sites Impacted by Tropical Storm Irene,” at the April 1st
Northeastern Recreation Research Conference. The SUNY ESF sponsored event was held in
Cooperstown, NY, and featured research on parks, resource-based recreation, and tourism.
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Drs. Robert Yoder, Scott Vandenberg and Eric Breimer presented their paper, “Market Basket
Analysis for Non-Programmers” at the November 2011 Information Systems Educators Conference in
Wilmington, NC.
At the Worldcomp 2011 Conference held in July 2011 in Las Vegas, Dr. Robert Yoder presented his
paper entitled, “The ‘K’ Nearest Neighbor (KNN) Problem: An Expanding Boundary” algorithm for
Octrees.
Representing the Siena College Computer Science Department, faculty members, Dr. Eric Briemer,
Dr. Robert Yoder and Ms. Jami Cotler attended the Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges,
Northeastern Region Conference in April 2012; they presented their paper, “Video vs. Text for Lab
Instruction and Concept Learning.”
The School of Science, in collaboration with the New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation, hosted a “Green Chemistry Workshop” for Capital District Science Teachers.
In February, Dr. James Teresco, Visiting Assistant Professor of Computer Science, presented a
paper at the SIAM Conference on Parallel Computation for Scientific Computing in Savannah, Georgia,
entitled "Evaluating Application-Level vs. Middleware-Level Load Balancing for Parallel Adaptive
Computation", which is joint work with Dr. Carlos Varela at RPI. His presentation discussed
experimenting with a middleware developed by Dr. Varela's team to be able to run scientific
computations in a non-traditional computing environment.
Betsy Stevens ’13, a Biology major, has been selected by the University of Texas’ M.D. Anderson
Cancer Center in Houston Texas to participate in its 2012 College Summer Research Program. This
hospital was most recently ranked “No. 1” in U.S. News & World Report’s 2011 annual ranking of the
“Best Hospitals for Cancer Care.”
In January, Physics majors, Erin O’Malley ’12 and Alissa Earle ’12, presented their research at the
American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin Texas.
The 2-m Viper Telescope, an NSF-sponsored radio telescope that was formerly located at the South
Pole, was donated to the Siena College Physics and Astronomy Department. This coming summer,
Siena Physics majors and faculty members will be working to reassemble and prepare the telescope for
operation.
Dr. Lise Wilson accompanied three Biology students to the National Conference on Undergraduate
Research held at Weber State University in Odgen, Utah in March 2012. Betsy Stevens ’13, Alicia
Soucy ‘12 and Craig Rovito ’12 presented a poster entitled, “The Chrlorplast Genome of Invastive
Phragmites australis Haplotype M Contains a Unique Sequence in the IRB Region.”
Alicia Soucy ’12 won one of three “Best Poster Presentation” awards at the SUNY Adirondack
Undergraduate Science Research Symposium for her research on “Isolation and Sequencing of the
Chloraplast Genome of the Invasive Grass Phragmites australis.”
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Senior Computer Science major, Mike Tanski ’12 teamed up with Siena faculty and administrators to
present a study, “Beyond the Suit and Resume, Leveraging Social Media for Career Success” at the June
2011 International NCDA Conference in San Antonio, Texas.
The National Science Foundation “Robert Noyce Scholarship Program” awarded a $1.2M grant to Siena
College to support the Noyce Mathematics and Science Teaching Scholarship Program. The principal
investigator is Computer Science and Mathematics Professor James Matthews.
Physics majors, Lindsay McTague ’13, Kevin Melsert ’13, and Peter Truong ’14, presented their
research on the Firefly and Firestation missions at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San
Francisco.
Kaleigh Cote ’12, Jenna Cunningham ’12, Kathleen Leamy ’13, and Shawn Reap ’12 with
Professor George Bazinet and Professor Daniel Moriarty presented "Staphylococcus Aureus Cell
Wall Proteins Targeted by Antibacterial Plant Extracts" at the 243rd American Chemical Society
National Meeting and Exposition in San Diego, CA on March 25-29th. Kathleen Leamy presented
the same topic at the Eastern New York American Chemical Society Undergraduate Research
Symposium in April. These presentations are a result of faculty and student collaboration made possible
by a Merck/AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) grant.
Dr. Eric Breimer, Associate Professor of Computer Science, was elected to the Board of Directors of
the Education Special Interest Group of the Association of Information Technology Professionals
(AITP). The AITP is the world’s first professional organization for information technology
professionals.
Senior Biochemistry major, Tim Bright ’12, presented a poster entitled "Characterization of Lead
Bound Synaptotagmin 1" at the 243rd American Chemical Society National Meeting and Exposition in
San Diego held in March 2012.
Dr. Jesse Karr’s senior Biochemistry majors, Avanth Kambhampati ’12 and Matt Phillips ’12
presented their research, "Optimization of the Overexpression and Purification of the Aminolevulinic
Acid Dehydratase Enzyme" at the Eastern New York American Chemical Society Undergraduate
Research Symposium in April 2012.
Nick DeMarte ’12 and Joshua Kranick ’13 with Chemistry and Biochemistry Professors Lucas
Tucker and Jodi O'Donnell presented "Synthesis of Cholesteric Liquid Crystalline Porphyrins” at the
243rd American Chemical Society National Meeting and Exposition in San Diego, CA, in March 2012.
A co-authored paper by Chemistry students, Andrew Geragotelis ’13 and Kyle Billings ’11 and
Professors Jodi O’Donnell and William Kennerly has been accepted for publication in the journal,
The Chemical Educator. The paper is entitled, "A Computational Approach to Walsh Correlation
Diagrams for the Inorganic Chemistry Curriculum."
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Matt Gunsch ’12, Amanda Paske ’11 and Professor Jodi O'Donnell were coauthors on a paper
entitled "Electropolymerized Ultrathin Chromophore Films for Volatile Organic Compound
Sensing" that was published in the journal, Electrochemical Society Transactions in October
2011. This paper resulted from a conference poster presentation given by Matt Gunsch at the 219th
Electrochemical Society Meeting at Montreal in May 2011.
The Computer Science Department launched The Information Systems Lecture Series this spring. Five
successful colloquiums have been held.
Rachel Boughton’ 12 and Kerri Cody ’13 along with Professors Chris Harbison and Kevin Rhoads
presented "Hitchhiker's Guide to Parasite Transmission: Determining the Proximal Cues of Louse
Phoresis" at the 243rd American Chemical Society National Meeting and Exposition in San Diego CA in
March 2012. This presentation was a result of faculty and student collaboration made possible by the
Merck/AAAS grant.
Biology Professor Chris Harbison published “Community Interactions Govern Host-Switching with
Implications for Host-Parasite Coevolutionary History” this year in the journal, Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences. The work was coauthored with Dale Clayton from the University of Utah
as a part of ongoing studies exploring the coevolutionary dynamics of bird-parasite interactions.
As part of her sabbatical, Dr. Mary Anne Egan, Professor of Computer Science, spent a month in
Africa where she worked with a children’s center to expand the computer lab and trained students to
administer the computers on their own. As a result of this experience, Dr. Egan is planning a travel
course to Africa during Spring 2013.
Computer Science Professors Mary Anne Egan and Tim Lederman, traveled to Darmstadt, Germany
to present the paper “Outreach Programs to Promote Computer Science and ICT to High School and
Middle School Students” at the 16th Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer
Science Education.
During the summer of 2011, the annual meeting of the Association of Mathematics Teachers of New
York State was held at Siena College.
Dr. Mary Anne Egan continues to serve on the Diversity / Gender Council of the Association for
Computing Machinery (ACM), the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society. In
addition to other responsibilities on the council, she is co-chair of the International Ambassador’s
Program.
The Computer Science Department hosted the 6th Annual IMPACT program this year, in which local
high school students and their teachers spend a day at Siena to explore some of the ways college
students and professionals think and work in computer and information systems.
Physics Professor Mark Rosenberry published the article, “Comparing Collisional Rate Constants for
Pulsed and CW Lasers” in Chemical Physics Letters earlier this academic year. The work is part of an
ongoing study of molecular collisions by Dr. Rosenberry and collaborators as Wesleyan University.
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The Department of Physics and Astronomy hosted the 31st annual Rochester Symposium for
Undergraduate Research on April 14. Over 50 students from 8 different institutions discussed their
research in astronomy, optics, and other fields of physics.
In November 2011, Dr. Rose Finn’s Observational Astronomy class travelled to the Arecibo
Observatory in Puerto Rico where they worked on the world’s largest single-dish radio telescope to
gather data and observe nearby galaxies as part of a Cornell University-led survey called ALFALFA.
The Siena College Chemistry and Biochemistry Club volunteered at National Chemistry Day at the New
York State Museum in October. Nine Siena students and two faculty members conducted a
demonstration table; over 400 local children had hands-on experiences, sampling homemade fizzy
lemon soda; exploring the properties of dry ice; and writing secret messages in lemon juice "invisible
ink".
In December, Siena’s Computer Science students showcased their interactive robots at ROBO Show
2011, where participants had fun interacting with robots that were assembled and programmed by
Computer Science students to greet attendees, play games, provide tours and more.
The Mathematics Department hosted several Mathematics Colloquiums during the academic year
including, “What do Pythagorean Triangles and Daisies have in Common” presented by Dr. Nikolai
Krylov and senior Math and Computer Science major, Lyndsay Kulzer ’12.
Dr. Robin Flatland and Computer Science major, Zack Fitzsimmons ’12 published a peer-reviewed
research article on algorithms for collection construction systems in the Journal of Mathematical
Analysis and Applications.
The School of Science hosted the 30th Annual Science Teachers Association of New York State
Conference in October 2011.
The Physics and Astronomy Department hosted 16 Siena research students during the Summer of 2011.
Research topics included Computational Biophysics, Astronomy, Space Physics, Particle Physics,
Atomic Physics and Physics Education.
Physics major Alissa Earle ’13 held Astronomy classes for local Girl Scout Troops during the 2011-12
academic year.
Angela Kelly ’12 and Stephanie Kinney ’12, both Physics majors, have completed the Physics, Grades
7-12, Teacher Certification Program; they are the first graduates to achieve this certification in ten
years.
Dr. John Cummings and Physics major Kyle Turck ’12 are part of a team of particle physicists who
announced a ground-breaking discovery made with the Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment; the results will
help explain the fundamental question of why matter is more prevalent in the universe than antimatter.
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Under the direction of Dr. Michele McColgan, Assistant Professor of Physics, the Siena College Urban
Scholars’ Science and Math Enrichment Program successfully mentored 60 middle school students from
Albany. Thirty Siena students volunteered on Saturday mornings to work with and mentor the Urban
Scholar students.
Physics major James Pater ’12, together with researchers at Siena and SEMATECH, presented a first
author paper on Nanomaterials at the International Conference on Surfaces, Coatings and
Nanostructured Materials.
The Department of Physics and Astronomy hosted the Rochester Symposium for Physics Students. The
meeting drew over 80 participants; 7 Siena Physics majors presented their research.
Dr. Graziano Vernizzi Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, has published a chapter entitled,
“Random Matrix Theory and RNA Folding” in the 2011 edition of the Oxford Handbook of Random
Matrix Theory. Additionally, Dr. Vernizzi has published six papers on computational studies of
systems at the Nanometer scale. Two have been featured on the cover of Soft Matter.
In November 2011, Biology Professor James Angstadt presented a research poster done in
collaboration with Biology students, Amanda Simon ’12 and Nicole Peters ’12 at the Society for
Neuroscience Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
Senior Biology major Rachel Boughton ’12 attended the Skidmore College Undergraduate Research
Conference in Fall 2011; she presented her research on bird lice, completed in collaboration with Dr.
Chris Harbison.
Computer Science students, David Purcell ’13, Carl Tompkins ’13, Chan Tran ’13, Karl Appel ’13,
Dennis Kalic ’14 and Chris Small ’13 represented Siena at the 2011 Text Retrieval Conference in
Gaithersburg, MD. This team of undergraduate researchers was able to build a system that finished in
the top third, competing against leading universities and businesses from around the world.
James Matthews, Professor of Computer Science and Mathematics, delivered numerous papers at
various mathematical and teaching conferences throughout the academic year.
Dr. Robin Flatland presented her paper, “Establishing Strong Connectivity Using Optimal Radius HalfDisk Antennas” at the Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry in Toronto.
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