Amherst Celebrates Black History Month with Series of Special Events

January 29, 2016

Brazile, Campbell Brothers, Abani

As Black History Month unfolds across February, Amherst College will host a musical performance by the Campbell Brothers Sacred Steel Guitars, presentations by renowned political consultant Donna Brazile and best-selling author Chris Abani, and various other events.

Harold E. Varmus ’61 Speaks to 2016 Bioscience Symposium

Jan. 25, 2016

By William Sweet

While he thinks “moonshot” may have not been the best word for Vice President Joseph R. Biden’s new initiative to beat cancer, Harold E. Varmus ’61, Nobel Prize-winning scientist and former director of the National Cancer Institute, told Amherst students that with the right strategy, more successes against cancer may be coming.

“Cancer is many different diseases,” he said in the keynote address for the College’s annual Gerald R. Fink ’62 Bioscience Symposium.

From Scrap to Scribe: Inside the Machine Shop

Take a look inside the Student Machine Shop on the first floor of Merrill Science Center. In Jim Kubasek’s “Intro to Machine Shop” course, offered over Interterm, Amherst physics majors learned how to use lathes, milling machines, drill presses, grinders and precision measuring instruments to make things out of metal—a skill set that will come in handy if they ever need to craft their own customized pieces of laboratory equipment.

Physics Professor David Hall and Team First to Tie Knots in Quantum Matter

January 18, 2016
By Rachel Rogol

quantum knot illustration

This figure illustrates part of the peculiar structure of the quantum knot. There are actually an infinite number of rings, each linked with all of the others exactly once. Image credit: Allen Li '15

AMHERST, Mass.—Physicists have long predicted the possibility of tying knots in quantum fields. But no one has been able to make or observe a three-dimensional quantum knot, until now. 

In a breakthrough discovery explored in a paper published in Nature Physics, one of the most prestigious journals in physics, a scientific team led by Amherst Physics Professor David S. Hall ’91 and Aalto University (Finland) Professor Mikko Möttönen have found a way to create knotted solitary waves in a quantum-mechanical field. 

Amherst College Press selected to partner with University of Michigan and a consortium of libraries to establish a new, open access, scholarly press

January 7, 2016

Amherst Press Logo

In a move that gives libraries direct responsibility for helping to solve some of publishing’s problems, and that puts liberal arts colleges at the table of scholarly publishing, the Amherst College Press will partner with Michigan Publishing and a consortium of 80 college libraries to launch a new academic press.

Inside-Out: Students and Inmates Learn as Peers

Amherst students and Hampshire County inmates share an educational experience unlike any other

By Rachel Rogol
January 6, 2016

Inside Out prison exchange

Amherst students Sylvia Hickman ’16 and Teresa Frenzel ’17 with inside students Phillip and Tyler, chatting after their last class together at the Hampshire County Jail and House of Correction

Last semester, Sylvia Hickman ’16 enrolled in the Amherst course “Equality and Violence,” which met every week at the Hampshire County Jail and House of Corrections in Northampton, Mass.

Organized as part of the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, the course brought 10 Amherst and Hampshire College undergraduates (“outside students”) and eight incarcerated men (“inside students”) together as peers. The course focused on gender, racial and class inequality, and how these disparities are linked to violence and sexual assault on college campuses, in prisons and in the wider world.