Professor of Physics Steven Alexander and four of his research students — Heidi Jackson ’26, Casandra Nunez ’26, Anshika Katrodia ’26, and Brooke Ramey ’27 — attended the Fall 2025 meeting of the Texas Section of the American Physical Society, held October 10-11 in Fort Worth. Dr. Alexander presented a poster titled “Using Molecular Annealing to Find Molecules with Specific Absorbance Peaks” and Brooke Ramey presented a poster titled “Verifying the Experimental Hyperpolarizabilities of Organic Molecules Using Density Functional Theory.” Heidi Jackson, Casandra Nunez, and Anshika Katrodia presented a poster titled “Analyzing Emission Spectra to Determine the Mass of a Black Hole.” All of the posters generated considerable interest and some insightful discussions.

Dante Medina ’26 presented a poster titled “Using Molecules to Store Energy” at the Southwest Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Waco, TX. This presentation resulted from research done with Professor of Physics Steve Alexander.

Dominic Mashak ’26 presented a poster titled “Finding Molecules with Large Hyperpolarizabilities” at the Southwest Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Waco, TX. This presentation resulted from research done with Professor of Physics Steve Alexander during the summer of 2024.

A wonderful interdisciplinary group from Southwestern participated in the 17th Annual Texas Undergraduate Mathematics Conference (TUMC), held this year at the University of Texas at Austin on October 29. Carson Vogel ’23 presented “Modeling Heat Transfer.” This project is a continuation of the 2021 and 2022 SCOPE projects under the supervision of Professor of Physics Steven Alexander and Associate Professor of Physics Mark Bottorf. This work is part of ongoing efforts for the eventual development of a solar energy storage cell; a problem brought to Southwestern by Coordinator of Science Facilities and Equipment Oscar Lee Fellows. Melanie Richey ’23 presented “Rats on the Run: Modeling of Hippocampal Cell Activity Using Plasticity.” Her project is a continuation of a 2022 Research Experience for Undergraduates at Southern Methodist University under the supervision of Dr. Katie Hedrick in collaboration with Dr. Brad E. Pfeiffer, Department of Neuroscience, UT Southwestern Medical Center. Professor of Mathematics Alison Marr and Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton also attended the conference. Marr chaired a student presentation session. Shelton supervised Vogel’s and Richey’s current work, preliminary results for their mathematics capstone projects. Jillian Reese ’23 and Emma Lewis ’23 joined with their counterparts from the University of North Texas-Denton in research with Shelton and Dr. Joe Iaia, funded through the Council for Undergraduate Research in Mathematics. Other students also attended: Oliver Johnson ’23, Jess Kazmir ’23, Lauren Calzado ’23, Rowan Via ’23, Kathryn Altman ’24, and Aidan Bujanda-Moore ’23. Majors and minors among our student attendees included Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, Physics, Economics, Education, Spanish, and Political Science.

A wonderful interdisciplinary group from Southwestern participated in the 17th Annual Texas Undergraduate Mathematics Conference (TUMC), held this year at the University of Texas at Austin on October 29. Carson Vogel ’23 presented “Modeling Heat Transfer.” This project is a continuation of the 2021 and 2022 SCOPE projects under the supervision of Professor of Physics Steven Alexander and Associate Professor of Physics Mark Bottorf. This work is part of ongoing efforts for the eventual development of a solar energy storage cell; a problem brought to Southwestern by Coordinator of Science Facilities and Equipment Oscar Lee Fellows. Melanie Richey ’23 presented “Rats on the Run: Modeling of Hippocampal Cell Activity Using Plasticity.” Her project is a continuation of a 2022 Research Experience for Undergraduates at Southern Methodist University under the supervision of Dr. Katie Hedrick in collaboration with Dr. Brad E. Pfeiffer, Department of Neuroscience, UT Southwestern Medical Center. Professor of Mathematics Alison Marr and Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton also attended the conference. Marr chaired a student presentation session. Shelton supervised Vogel’s and Richey’s current work, preliminary results for their mathematics capstone projects. Jillian Reese ’23 and Emma Lewis ’23 joined with their counterparts from the University of North Texas-Denton in research with Shelton and Dr. Joe Iaia, funded through the Council for Undergraduate Research in Mathematics. Other students also attended: Oliver Johnson ’23, Jess Kazmir ’23, Lauren Calzado ’23, Rowan Via ’23, Kathryn Altman ’24, and Aidan Bujanda-Moore ’23. Majors and minors among our student attendees included Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, Physics, Economics, Education, Spanish, and Political Science.