Professor Stephen Cartier’s journey in STEM began when he thought it was just ending. After graduating as a chemistry major from Boston College, he swore he would never do chemistry again. Post-graduation, Professor Cartier joined the Peace Corps, where he taught high schoolers physics and chemistry in Togo for three years. This transformative experience forced Professor Cartier to relearn physics and chemistry and develop engaging lessons to teach to his French-speaking students. It was this experience that motivated Professor Cartier to attend graduate school for physical chemistry at Penn State. |
Dr. Sarah Bunnell is the Associate Director & STEM specialist for the Center for Teaching
and Learning. Prior to joining Amherst, she was a tenured Associate Professor of Psychology and Great Lakes Colleges Association Pedagogy Fellow at Ohio Wesleyan University. She received her Ph.D. in Developmental and Cognitive Psychology from the University of Kansas. She grew up in Kansas City, in a family where education was very important. She had attended Middlebury after applying Early Action. She has always been very data-oriented and very math-oriented. So much so, that she was a "Math-lete" in middle school, and in fact was the only girl on the team. |
Professor Dianne Pater is a visiting professor at Amherst College, currently on her last semester here. She is a first-generation American and first-generation student who has experienced a non-traditional path in academia. Her family’s migration from the Philippines was difficult and after attending undergrad at Boston University, she dropped out due to personal difficulties and lack of support. After starting a family, she returned to community college and later transferred to the lab technician program at the University of New Mexico. At UNM, she switched to a biology major and fondly remembers conversations with plant physiology professor during office hours.
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Katharine Correia is an Assistant Professor of Statistics at Amherst College whose second semester is underway. She is currently teaching Intermediate Statistics and Introduction to Statistics via Modeling for the Spring of 2019. She is a member of the Faculty Learning Community on Inclusive Pedagogy. Professor Correia received her B.A. at Mount Holyoke College in 2007, her M.A. at Boston University in 2009, and her Ph.D. at Harvard University in 2018. At Mount Holyoke, she did not go in with the intention to pursue STEM but had to take some courses due to the general requirements. Math had been easy for her in high school, so she took a statistics course, believing that it would not be difficult. It was, in fact, difficult, but she ended up loving the professor and the subject.
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"In-cell structural biology of proteins behaving badly." The misfolded proteins associated with neurodegenerative disease can adopt a variety of different conformations, some of which are toxic. Because these proteins have identical amino acid sequences, the cellular environment clearly influences the final state, yet most structural studies do not include the cellular context and, perhaps because we are not studying the correct conformation, not a single therapeutic strategy for these diseases addresses the underlying protein misfolding pathology. Using new sensitivity-enhancement technology for solid state NMR spectroscopy, we study protein structure in native environments - inside living cells - to reveal how both healthy and disease-relevant cellular environments influence protein structure.
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