News

PHYSICS - An assistant professor of physics at the University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences, Nguyen has been named the 2025 recipient of the American Physical Society’s (APS) Maria Goeppert Mayer Award. Named after a German American theoretical physicist who was co-awarded the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics, this award honors exceptional achievement by a woman physicist in the early years of her career.

On the cusp of a new year, Tykeson Dean of Arts and Sciences Chris Poulsen took time to share what he is most excited about in the College of Arts and Sciences, now and into the future. "The success of this strategy doesn't depend on a few leaders. It depends on all of us," Poulsen said.

CHEMISTRY AND BIOCHEMISTRY - It's August, and the fall term is around the corner, but associate professor Carl Brozek is heading to Japan through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. None of them, including Brozek or the lab in Japan he'll be working in, know that he’ll be there when his research colleagues at Kyoto University get some epic news about their work on structures known as metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs.

HUMANITIES, WOMEN, GENDER AND SEXUALITY STUDIES - These Duck alums are among those working to alleviate hunger. See how CAS and Clark Honor's College alumni like Ian Dixon-McDonald, BA ’06, Rebecca Sprinson, BA ’09, are making a difference in Oregon by tackling hunger.

NATIVE AMERICAN AND INDIGENOUS STUDIES - Funded through federal, state and institutional grants, the University of Oregon Home Flight program provides financial support, academic advising and culture-rich activities for qualifying American Indian and Alaska Native undergraduates. Now in its fourth year, the program has more than tripled in enrollment, to 170-plus students, while increasing the number of Native graduates.

CINEMA STUDIES - CAS senior Elle Thompson is a cinema studies major who's had multiple internships to get experience and exposure to different parts of the cinema industry. She landed a casting internship with Cast Iron Studios thanks to a cinema studies course and her persistence.

COMPUTER SCIENCE - Assistant Professor Yu Wang's research uses machine learning to model enormous sets of data on a graph where related nodes representing pieces of information are linked. “With current AI, if you ask who the president of the United States is, it can definitely answer correctly,” Wang explains. “But if you ask any kind of domain-specific question, like related to cybersecurity or some biomedical topic, it is highly likely that it does not know. So how can we mitigate the gap here?”

HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY - When he was still an undergraduate, Tucker Orman served in an uncommon role: as first author on a paper published Sept. 4 in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, looking at the factors that affect a scuba diver’s ability to maintain core body temperature. Now a College of Arts and Sciences alumnus, Orman reflects on how experiential learning as a human physiology student and love for scuba diving came together.

PHYSICS - On Nov. 14, Congresswoman Andrea Salinas (D-OR) visited the University of Oregon Eugene campus to meet with Presidential Chair in Science and Professor of Chemistry Geraldine Richmond, interim Vice President for Research and Innovation, and faculty from the Oregon Center for Optical, Molecular, and Quantum Science (OMQ). During her visit, the congresswoman learned more about College of Arts and Sciences faculty research and academic offerings in quantum science.

POLITICAL SCIENCE - Sarah Koski graduated with a degree in political science in 2006 from the University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences and Robert D. Clark Honors College. To find her purpose and mission, Koski first had to break up with the notion that all success is a high-powered executive job. Now a community resource liaison for Lane Transit District, Koski works to help people feel seen and heard, and to make real change in the unhoused community.