New Faculty Join Academic Departments

Harvey Mudd College has added seven new faculty members to its academic team.

All seven individuals come to HMC from distinguished backgrounds and schools.

Christopher Clark

Chris Clark will join the Department of Engineering this fall as an associate professor of engineering after having spent a year as a visiting faculty member at Princeton University. He earned his doctorate in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford University in 2004, and comes to HMC from a tenured position at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Clark studies underwater robotics, often performing his research in locations such as the Mediterranean Sea and the fjords of Norway.

Charlie Doret

Charlie Doret joins the Department of Physics as an assistant professor of physics. He earned his bachelor’s degrees in physics and mathematics from Williams College in 2002, and his master’s and doctoral degrees in physics from Harvard University in 2006 and 2009, respectively. He is presently a postdoctoral fellow in the Quantum Information Systems group at Georgia Tech Research Institute, and previously served as a teaching fellow and tutor while at Harvard. Doret is an experimental physicist who traps atomic ions for studying quantum information processing. Doret will join the HMC faculty in the fall of 2013.

Ken Fandell

Ken Fandell joins the Department of Humanities, Social Sciences and the Arts as an associate professor of art. He earned his bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1993 and his master’s degree in fine arts from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1996. He previously served as associate professor and chair of the Department of Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and as a visiting artist at the University of Chicago. Fandell’s work has been included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

Kash Gokli

Kash Gokli joins the Department of Engineering as a professor of manufacturing practice. He has more than 30 years experience in manufacturing, engineering, product development, quality management and process improvement. Gokli previously served as senior vice president of total quality management and vice president of manufacturing for Amano USA Holdings and Amano Cincinnati, Inc., which are subsidiaries of Amano Japan, a global manufacturer of time and attendance, parking, building access and floor care products. He earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Gujarat University in 1977 and his master’s degree in industrial engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1979.

Colleen Lewis

Colleen M. Lewis joins the Department of Computer Science as an assistant professor of computer science. She earned her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California at Berkeley in 2005. She received her master’s degree (computer science, 2009) and her doctorate (science and mathematics education, 2012) from UC Berkeley. Her research focuses on computer science education.

Katherine Van Heuvelen

Katherine M. Van Heuvelen joins the Department of Chemistry as an assistant professor of chemistry. She earned her bachelor’s degree in chemistry and religion from St. Olaf College in 2004 and her doctorate in inorganic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2009. Van Heuvelen served as a research and teaching assistant at both colleges. She is an inorganic chemist who studies transition metals complexes using spectroscopic techniques.

Benjamin Wiedermann

Benjamin Wiedermann joins the Department of Computer Science as an assistant professor of computer science. He earned his bachelor’s degree in computer science from Boston University in 2001 and his doctorate in computer science from the University of Texas at Austin in 2009. Most recently, Wiedermann served as a visiting assistant professor at HMC. His research focuses on program analysis.