Harvey Mudd Faculty Promotions, Summer 2022

Promotions and tenure appointments for Harvey Mudd College faculty were approved by the board of trustees at its May meeting. Upon discussion and the recommendation of the Academic Affairs Committee, the board unanimously approved the following appointments.

Daniel Stoebel, a biology faculty member since 2010, received promotion to full professor. He studies the genetics and evolution of bacteria, and his teaching interests span molecular and evolutionary genetics, from first-year to senior courses, in lab, seminar and lecture settings. He also enjoys teaching statistics and courses at the interface of biology and the humanities. In 2017, he was awarded a National Science Foundation grant to further his research on the molecular biology and evolution of bacterial regulatory networks. The grant also allows him to improve students’ experience in the lab and increase opportunities for those traditionally underrepresented in the sciences. He continues to collaborate with Harvey Mudd College’s Upward Bound program, which works with local high school students who aspire to be the first generation in their families to attend college.

Appointed for Second, Two-year Term as Assistant Professor

Lucas Bang (computer science) applies principles from combinatorics and information theory to software analysis problems. Through a recent NSF grant, Bang and computer science researchers at University of California, Santa Barbara are seeking to improve software quality assurance techniques. He is also co-director, with computer science professor George Montañez, for an NSF-funded Research Experience for Undergraduates site at HMC focusing on computer systems.

Katherine Breeden (computer science) uses eye tracking to investigate the human side of computer graphics. Her other research interests include applied geometry and advanced sampling methods. She also is the administrative director of HMC’s Clinic Program.

Alfred Flores (Intercollegiate Department of Asian American Studies) researches race, settler colonialism and U.S. militarization in the island of Guahan (Guam).

Mark Ilton (physics) specializes in the dynamics of energy release in elastomers and impulsive biological systems. Researchers in his Physics of Soft Matter Lab at Harvey Mudd College study the physical principles of soft material deformation.

George Montañez (computer science) explores why machine learning works from a search and dependence perspective and identifies information constraints on general search processes. He leads the Artificial Machine Intelligence = Search Targets Awaiting Discovery (AMISTAD) lab, which researches problems in theoretical machine learning, probability, statistics and search.

Haydee Lindo (mathematics) is a commutative algebraist with research interests in homological algebra and representation theory. She is editor in chief and chair of the Publications and Publicity Committee for the National Association of Mathematicians.