Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Offices ($50,000/each)

Our award-winning faculty play a pivotal role in shaping student success. Their offices in the Fish Center for the Sciences will serve as spaces for intellectual exchange, mentorship and support. Office hours in these spaces create the foundation for deep learning, collaboration and life-changing faculty-student relationships.

1. Office to Support Geoscience Faculty

   Located on the Ground Floor

   • This office will support faculty using the adjacent laboratories dedicated to the Geoscience Department. HWS’ Geoscience Department emphasizes hands-on, field-based learning to explore the Earth's systems, including its lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere. Students engage in research across various subfields such as geology, hydrology and atmospheric science, often using local resources like Seneca Lake and the Finger Lakes Institute for practical experiences.

2. Office for Aquatic Ecology

   Office of Professor of Biology Meghan Brown
   Located on the First Floor

   • Professor Brown’s ecological research focuses on how aquatic ecosystems—especially lakes—respond to environmental stressors and invasions by non native species. She has examined how the establishment of introduced organisms is both shaped by and reshapes lake environments globally, is published in top journals like Limnology & Oceanography and Frontiers in Ecology & the Environment, and has worked internationally (e.g. Italian and Cuban lake systems) supported by National Science Foundation and Fulbright fellowships. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota.

3. Office for Aquatic Ecosystem Health

   Office of Associate Professor of Practice in Biology Susan Flanders Cushman ’98
   Located on the First Floor

   • Associate Professor Cushman’s research centers on stream ecology in the Finger Lakes region, using benthic macroinvertebrate and fish community data alongside water-quality metrics to assess ecosystem health across land‐use gradients. Her ongoing projects include mercury accumulation in aquatic food webs across multiple Finger Lakes, restoration of stream habitats, urban-to-rural gradients in Castle Creek and parasite infections (blackspot disease) in fish species like blacknose dace and creek chub. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.

4. Office for Plant Evolutionary Genomics

   Office of Associate Professor of Biology Shannon Straub
   Located on the First Floor

   • Associate Professor Straub is co chair of the Biochemistry program, and chair of the Biology Department. Her research explores the evolutionary relationships within the milkweed and dogbane family using phylogenomics, nuclear gene sequencing, and whole chloroplast genomes to study diversification among North American Asclepias species (milkweeds) and the biochemical pathway evolution of pyrrolizidine alkaloid production across the family. She received her Ph.D. from Cornell University.

5. Office for Cell and Molecular Biology

   Office of Professor of Biology Sigrid Carle ’84
   Located on the First Floor

   • Professor Carle’s research focuses on the plant pathogen interactions of Agrobacterium vitis, the bacterium responsible for crown gall disease in grapevines. She seeks to elucidate the genetic mechanisms of infection and to explore the potential for engineering grape plants to mount a defensive response upon exposure to this pathogen. She received her Ph.D. from Florida State.

6. Office for Future Hire in the Biology Department

   Located on the First Floor

   • This space will support the research and mentorship of a new hire in the Department of Biology. Biology remains one of the largest majors at HWS as students seek career opportunities in health care, research and sustainability.

7. Office for Bioorganic and Synthetic Organic Chemistry

   Office of Professor of Chemistry Justin Miller
   Located on the Second Floor

   • Professor Miller’s research group develops advanced bioorganic and synthetic organic chemistry methods, especially combining solid phase synthesis and chemoselective ligation, to produce proteins and cyclic depsipeptide molecules, including natural product candidates with histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitory activity that may have anticancer potential. His lab also innovates novel solid phase resins tailored to support efficient synthesis of cysteine containing peptidic molecules and biologically relevant analogs. He received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
8. Office for Quantum Molecular Dynamics

   Office of Assistant Professor of Chemistry Matthew Church ’14
   Located on the Second Floor

   • Assistant Professor Church’s lab focuses on theoretical and computational chemical physics, particularly quantum and semiclassical simulations to model ultrafast molecular dynamics and nonadiabatic processes. His work involves developing and applying advanced computational frameworks to better understand high-dimensional quantum effects that underlie transient chemical phenomena on sub-picosecond timescales. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University.

9. Office for Organic Synthesis of Bioactive Molecules

   Office of Professor of Chemistry Erin Pelkey
   Located on the Second Floor

   • Professor Pelkey is Chair of the Chemistry Department and Co Chair of Biochemistry. His research centers on the organic synthesis of nitrogen heterocycles, including indole substituted furanones and pyrrolin 2 ones, with applications as tubulin inhibitors and potential anticancer agents. Collaborating closely with faculty in the HWS Biology Department as well as his students, his lab uses metal mediated tandem reactions and convergent synthetic strategies to design and evaluate novel compounds for biological activity in partnership with researchers testing their anti proliferative function in cancer models. He received his Ph.D. from Dartmouth College.

10. Office for Medicinal Chemistry

    Office of Professor of Biology Patricia Mowery
    Located on the Second Floor

    • Professor Mowery focuses on discovering novel anti cancer agents, especially indole substituted furanones and other heterocyclic molecules, by collaborating closely with colleagues in the HWS Chemistry Department and with molecular modelers to design compounds that inhibit tubulin polymerization, a key target in cancer cell proliferation. Her work, supported by National Institutes of Health funding, integrates biological assays run by her lab with computational modeling to refine molecular structures for greater potency and reduced toxicity in potential therapeutics. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

11. Office for Biochemistry of Enzyme Function

    Office of Professor of Chemistry Kristin Slade
    Located on the Second Floor

    • Professor Slade investigates how macromolecular crowding – the densely packed nature of the cellular interior – influences enzyme kinetics, with a particular focus on metabolic enzymes like alcohol dehydrogenase, malate dehydrogenase, and citrate synthase. Her lab also explores novel histone deacetylases (HDACs) in the ciliate Tetrahymena thermophila, combining chemical, analytical and cellular approaches to better understand enzyme regulation in realistic biological environments. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Richmond.

12. Office for Future Hire in the Chemistry Department

    Located on the Second Floor

    • This space will support the research and mentorship of a new hire in the department of chemistry. All HWS students take at least one course in the sciences with about 40% each year graduating with a major or minor in the sciences.

13. Office for Vivarium and Botanical Collection Management

    Office of Animal and Plant Technician John Knouse
    Located on the Third Floor

    • Knouse curates the institution's diverse greenhouse collection, which includes plants of historical, cultural, economic and agricultural significance. In addition to his role in plant curation, he contributes to the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, ensuring ethical oversight of animal research. He holds a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from the University of Missouri-Columbia College of Veterinary Medicine.