A Westmont student won a national science research award and six students presented their research to a regional section of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA). Westmont senior Samuel Muthiah, a mathematics and English double major from Altadena, Calif., won a National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates Award. His program, “Algebraic Methods of Computational Biology,” is at Texas A&M University. Muthiah, a full-tuition Monroe Scholar, is a member of the Phi Kappa Phi and Sigma Tau Delta Honor Societies.

One of the few West Coast biologists specifically studying deep-water corals, Professor Beth Horvath did some virtual deep-sea diving with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) from 2008-10. 

Professor Enrico Manlapig and his students in Westmont’s Applied Management Science (AMS) course offer their expertise in analytic decision-making to the local community. Last fall, they acted as the Westmont Decision Lab and assisted the Santa Barbara Zoo in making some decisions about its future.

Premature infants face an increased risk for cerebral palsy (CP), and detecting the condition early can lead to better treatment and outcomes. Don Patterson, professor of computer science, has patented a limb-motion monitor that may identify pre-term babies most likely to be diagnosed with CP. He is collaborating with a team of scientists from UC Irvine, Children’s Hospital of Orange County and Miller Children’s and Women’s Hospital in Long Beach to demonstrate that it works on a larger scale.

Researchers from Westmont and the University of Bath sent shock waves through the world when they released their findings about the energy cost of sitting versus standing. They discovered that standing naturally at a desk burns only slightly more calories than sitting naturally.

“I rarely drink coffee,” says Tiffany Gong ’23, a behavioral neuroscience student at Westmont, who is the subject and the researcher examining the impact of acute caffeine on cortisol and melatonin levels.

A new high-tech tool is helping Westmont researchers understand human neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease. Yi-Fan Lu, assistant professor of biology, has used the new microelectrode array to detect and record the response of neurons to genetic mutation or toxins.