Our science departments are committed to creating and disseminating new knowledge in their fields by combining research and teaching. Our 300 faculty members—including fellows of many learned societies and academies—are engaged in research that spans a broad range, from questions about the foundations of quantum mechanics, to the development of cancer cells and the workings of the brain, to work resulting in the spin-off of high-technology companies. Faculty share their excitement about their research with their students, training them to become part of the next generation of scientists who will push the frontiers of human knowledge. Explore majors, minors, concentrations, and academic programs in the Natural Sciences.
News from Natural Sciences
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World-Class Faculty in the Natural Sciences
Thien Nguyen
Associate Professor of Computer Science
Thien Nguyen is an expert in natural language processing, or the ability of artificial intelligence to understand, interpret and generate meaningful human language. He aims to enable computers to perform cognitive language-related tasks. His lab is among the first to develop deep learning algorithms for information extraction and text mining in natural language processing and data mining. His research on using natural language processing for multilingual learning earned him a Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation.
Nguyen's recent research focuses on programming computers to improve the efficiency and safety of large language models (LLMs) across human languages while extracting valuable information about events like natural disasters, cyberattacks, disease outbreaks, and protests from news articles and other sources. His work seeks to deliver useful insights from diverse data and make these technologies accessible in low-resource languages that lack adequate data sets for training AI models.
Tien-Tien Yu
Associate Professor of Physics, Institute for Fundamental Science
Tien-Tien is a theoretical particle physicist working at the interface of theory and experiment. She is particularly interested in understanding the nature of dark matter, whose existence is known through its gravitational effects on ordinary matter. She co-founded the SENSEI collaboration, an experiment utilizing silicon chips, much like those found in digital cameras, to search for dark matter. She was recently appointed to P5, an advisory group convened once a decade by the Department of Energy and National Science Foundation to help determine the next funded projects in particle physics.
On Jan. 14, 2025, Yu was one of nearly 400 scientists and engineers to receive the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest award the US government awards to early career scientists.
A founding member of the group Particles for Justice, Yu is also a leader in advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in the physics field. In collaboration with the Comics and Cartoon Studies program, Yu created the UO Science and Comics Initiative. Read more about the initiative here.
Santiago Jaramillo
Associate Professor of Biology, Institute of Neuroscience
Santiago Jaramillo leads a research group dedicated to understanding how the brain processes and interprets sounds. Using advanced techniques to monitor and manipulate neural activity in mice, along with computational approaches, he investigates how the brain filters, learns, and assigns meaning to sounds and how brain disorders can affect these processes. His interdisciplinary work, supported by the BRAIN Initiative of the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, includes collaborations with psychologists, bioengineers, theoretical neuroscientists, and linguists, with the long-term goal of developing neural interfaces to improve human-to-human and human-to-machine communication.
Beyond the lab, Jaramillo is deeply committed to broadening participation in STEM. He provides hands-on neuroscience experiences to middle school girls through the SPICE program, serves as an advisor for international programs engaging young minds in scientific critical thinking, and mentors college students from a wide range of backgrounds through programs such as NSF STEP-UP, SPUR, and the ESPRIT scholarship for aspiring K-12 science teachers.
School of Computer and Data Sciences
The mission at SCDS is to empower a diverse population of students and faculty working to advance knowledge in computer and data science, train the next generation of scholars, and engage with the wider world to tackle interdisciplinary challenges.
To do this, we start by applying our knowledge and experience at home across the University of Oregon campus.
Research in the Natural Sciences
Natural scientists use data to understand, predict, and work with naturally occurring phenomena on earth and in the universe. From highly controlled experiments in the lab to observations collected in the field, our findings help make sense of the natural world while driving advancements in society and technology that touch everyone. By expanding the limits of human knowledge, we provide a scientific foundation for helping people live better, longer lives.
2024-2025 Sponsored Research in Natural Sciences
Between July 2024 and June 2025, researchers in CAS received $83 million to fund 199 research projects, including approximately $75 million in Natural Sciences. The research projects, which span divisions and fields of study, represent CAS's commitment to curiosity, discovery, and innovation.
Explore Other Majors and Minors in the College of Arts and Sciences
Meet our Dean
Welcome to the natural sciences, where our top-flight researchers bring students in to experience the biological, physical, and computational sciences. Working side-by-side with faculty who are equally committed to student success and scientific discovery, students learn valuable critical thinking skills through hands-on research in the lab, field, and classroom—from studying marine biology at the Oregon Institute for Marine Biology on our beautiful campus on the coast to coding advanced systems and analyzing complex data in the School of Computer and Data Science.
The research we’re conducting at the UO makes a tangible difference in our communities, our nation, and the world. For example, our chemists are pioneering the materials and techniques that will inspire the next generation of batteries for energy storage. Our psychologists are developing and testing cutting-edge interventions to improve mental health and wellbeing. Our geologists and environmental scientists are collaborating with governments, tribes, and industry partners to protect communities from earthquakes and wildfires.
You may or may not end up in a science career, but either way these experiences will change the way you experience and interact with the world. A healthy society depends on people who know how to gather evidence and critically analyze data. No matter what field you enter, scientific thinking will help you become a more thoughtful, engaged, and critical citizen in modern society.
We’re excited to explore the natural world with you.
Elliot Berkman
Divisional Associate Dean, Natural Sciences
Happening at CAS
10:00–11:30 a.m.
Wednesday, February 25, 2025
10:00am - 11:30am
Lokey 116
Light Refreshments
✨ Calling all majors and minors in ES, NAIS, BLST, and LTNX✨
The path after college isn’t always clear, but IRES and ethnic studies alumni are here to help!
Please join us for an IRES careers and mentorship panel featuring four University of Oregon ethnic studies alumni with experience working in non-profits, organizing, government, law, art, social work, education, and more.
Build knowledge, build confidence, build networks, connect with mentors in your field.
noon
Please join the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies for the 2026 Sally M. Gearhart Lecture with Kemi Adeyemi, Associate Professor of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington, on “Bad Dance: Making Queer and Lesbian Community.”
To hear them tell it, studs are bad dancers: awkward, self-conscious, unsure of the steps, their weight, or what to do with their hands. They knock knees, can’t hold twerkers up, and aren’t smooth enough. These descriptions circulate as shared knowledge, shaping expectations about who moves well, who is in the middle of the club, who ends up on the wall—and who is worthy of partnership on and off the dance floor.
This talk takes black queer people seriously as self-described “bad” dancers in order to think about the relationships between sexuality and movement, and the role of dance in shaping individual identity and collective life. I argue that narratives of bad dancing reveal how the meanings of lesbian and queer community depend upon the coordination of movement: shared rhythms that are embedded with expectations about racialized gender, sexuality, and desire. Focusing on moments when dance technique breaks down highlights how disillusionment and alienation are central, rather than incidental, to queer and lesbian dance floors—and disrupting the celebratory accounts of dance and sexuality studies can lead us to more nuanced theorizations of the politics of queer and lesbian life. Kemi Adeyemi is Associate Professor of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington. She is the author of Feels Right: Black Queer Women & the Politics of Partying in Chicago (Duke University Press, 2022) and co-editor of the volume Queer Nightlife (University of Michigan Press, 2021). Her forthcoming manual, Writing About Black Art, is a 2023 recipient of the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. Kemi founded and directs The Black Embodiments Studio, an arts writing incubator, public programming initiative, and publishing platform dedicated to building discourse around contemporary black art.
The Sally Miller Gearhart Lecture Series advances lesbian history and culture, promotes dialogue about sexual orientation and gender identity, supports diversity and empowers lesbian voices in higher education.
2:00–4:00 p.m.
From Jan. 21 and continuing until March 18, the Northwest Native American Language Resource Center (NW-NALRC) will be holding weekly consultation and assistance times.
From 2-3pm PST we will be providing consultation and assistance with Community Projects and Planning.
From 3-4pm PST we will be providing consultation and assistance for Supporting Language Teaching and Learning.
To join, please fill out this short form https://forms.office.com/r/D2pg3wErfj.
If you are in need of assistance, or if you have any questions, please contact nalrc@uoregon.edu.
5:00–6:30 p.m.
Join us for a film screening and Q&A with director Jeff Gipe. Half-Life of Memory: America's Forgotten Atomic Bomb Factory exposes the dangerous legacy of Rocky Flats, the central nuclear bomb production facility in the United States from 1952 until 1989, located near Denver, Colorado. The most notorious instances of contamination, neglect, and cover-ups occurred at the Rocky Flats--radioactive and hazardous waste was illegally dumped, released in deadly fires at the site, and contaminated the Denver metro area with long-lived radioactive toxins. Through powerful testimonials and extraordinary archival media, Half-Life of Memory reveals Rocky Flats' dark past and prompts critical reflection on the implications of the nation's renewed nuclear weapons buildup
Sponsors: Center for Environmental Futures, Oregon Humanities Center