biology

Understanding the Gut-Brain Axis

Bacteria virus and germs microorganism cells green inversion seamless pattern vector illustration

Sarah Becker ’18 has had an interest in the microbiome—the bacteria, fungi, viruses and other microscopic organisms that live in our guts—since she was in eighth grade. That’s when she came back from a family trip to Cambodia with a bad case of intestinal parasites. The doctor put her on… Continue reading »

Kite Day—Reimagined

On a Saturday in early May, each year from 1961 to 1975, the skies above a farm field on Stone Hill would fill with student-designed, handmade kites as part of Kite Day. That tradition is being revived this fall by Rosenburg Professor of Environmental Studies and Biology Hank Art. Art,… Continue reading »

The Mathematics of Coral Reef Health

Photo by Elizabeth Sherman By Julia Munemo A group of undergraduate researchers in Williams’ SMALL Program—which brings to campus students from colleges across the country for a residential summer program in mathematics—is helping to improve the health of coral reefs. They worked with Assistant Professor of Mathematics Julie Blackwood, who is collaborating… Continue reading »

Award-Winning Student Research

from the Experimental Biology conference

In a corner of his office, Steven Swoap, professor and chair of biology, has a stool with two dancing mice drawn on it. While the pair more closely resemble Beatrix Potter characters than actual rodents, Swoap and his thesis students Rebecca Maher, Uttara Partap, and Christine Schindler have a strictly… Continue reading »