Giving News
Gifts support alumni visits to campus to share graduate school and career experiences Gifts from alumni, faculty, and staff made possible two alumni visits to campus to share information about their careers and graduate school experiences, and to provide public addresses. Haug ’79: 2009–10 Latterell Visiting Alumnus Ken Haug ’79, associate professor of chemistry at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, the 2009-10 Latterell Visiting Alumnus, visited campus in October 2009. He met with students and faculty, and gave an address, titled “A Pathway into Chemistry,” about Morris memories, graduate school, teaching, and research. A political science, economics, and chemistry major, Haug was a junior when he enrolled in his first chemistry course and “fell into chemistry very deeply.” Today, grateful for his liberal arts education, Haug teaches chemistry and conducts computational physical chemistry research at a college much like Morris. “I mainly teach physical chemistry and general chemistry,” shares Haug, a native of Renville, “but on occasion I also teach a broader liberal arts class on ethics and philosophy in science and society, Unity of the Sciences and Ethical Consequences. My research interest involves computational physical chemistry and, in particular, has recently focused on chemical and physical processes occurring on solid surfaces.” Haug earned a doctorate in chemical physics at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The Joseph J. Latterell Memorial Visiting Alumnus Program provides annual grants to Division of Science and Mathematics disciplines to invite alumni to campus to serve as resource persons for students and faculty.
Siri Hakala ’98, Science and Math Visiting Alumnus Hakala ’98: 2009—10 Science and Math Visiting Alumnus The 2009-10 Science and Math Visiting Alumnus Siri Hakala ’98, biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California, talked to students and faculty about her graduate school experience and shared stories about her work in March 2009. Her public presentation was titled “Whales, Crossbows, and Cardboard Boxes: a Tale of (Continuing) Post-UMM Adventures.” Hakala graduated from the University of Hawaii, Manoa in 2004 with a master of arts in psychology/marine mammal behavior and biology. Her thesis focused on behavioral choices of male humpback whales on the Hawaiian wintering grounds. Since then, she has served as a senior observer for the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary/Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, as a biological technician for the marine mammal genetics group at Southwest Fisheries Science Center at La Jolla, California, and as a research assistant at the Eye of the Whale in Homer, Alabama. The Science and Math Visiting Alumnus Program is made possible by gifts to the Division of Science and Mathematics.
Ken Haug ’79, Latterell Visiting Alumnus 4
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