Ducks Give is May 14. And We Need Your Help!
Ducks Give is the University of Oregon’s annual 24-hour fundraiser. On Thursday, May 14, your gifts — no matter how small — can support programs that benefit undergraduate and graduate students, including experiential learning and scholarships that are making a real impact to prepare them for careers after college.
Join Ducks from around the world to support current and future students. Let’s rise together on May 14!
Congratulations, Graduating Ducks!
You’ve put in the work and earned the diploma. Now let’s celebrate! On June 15, join your fellow CAS Ducks for this year’s CAS commencement ceremony. Head over to the 2026 CAS Commencement website where you can find ceremony details for each CAS ceremony, logistics and any other answers to all your questions about the big day.
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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We Love Our Supporters
Gifts to the College of Arts and Sciences can help our students make the most of their college careers. To do this, CAS needs your support. Your contributions help us ensure that teaching, research, advising, mentoring, and support services are fully available to every student. Thank you!
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
What is Research? (2026) explores various natures, purposes, and roles of research across disciplines, fields, and areas. The event considers frameworks of systematic and creative inquiry, including methods, designs, analyses, discoveries, collaborations, dissemination, ethics, integrity, diversity, media/technologies, and information environments.
The thirteenth gathering delves into research in its many forms, including searching, critically investigating, and re-examining existing knowledge, as well as emerging functions and procedures in machine intelligence and computation. It highlights pluralities of research pathways, examining time-honored approaches and new ways of knowing, precedents, issues, and futures. It considers challenges and possibilities that researchers face in today’s rapidly changing world, and ways to promote ethical, inclusive, and impactful research.
Featured participants include:
• N. Katherine Hayles, Literature, Duke University and English, UCLA • Colin Koopman, Philosophy/Digital Humanities/New Media and Culture, University of Oregon • Vera Keller, History/European Studies, University of Oregon • Daniel Kreiss, Information, Technology, and Public Life, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Liska Chan, Landscape Architecture/Environmental Futures, University of Oregon • Mark A. Bedau, Philosophy, Reed College and Complex Systems, Portland State University • Bernd Reiter, Classical and Modern Languages and Literatures, Texas Tech University • Jakki Bailey, Media Studies/Immersive Media Communication, University of Oregon Portland • Tibor Solymosi, Philosophy, Villanova University and Embodied Education, Aarhus University, Denmark • Alexis Merculief, Prevention Science/Counseling Psychology, University of Oregon Portland • Adell Amos, Law/Environmental and Natural Resources Law, University of Oregon • Victor Pickard, Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania
In cooperation with the International Association for Media and Communication Research.
The event celebrates three decades of the Communication and Media Studies Doctoral Program in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon.
Registration required. Please see the website for more details.
7:30–9:30 p.m.
In 1926, radium was a miracle cure, Madame Curie an international celebrity, and luminous watches the latest rage—until the girls who painted them began to fall ill with a mysterious disease. Inspired by a true story, Radium Girls traces the efforts of Grace Fryer, a dial painter, as she fights for her day in court. Her chief adversary is her former employer, Arthur Roeder, an idealistic man who cannot bring himself to believe that the same element that shrinks tumors could have anything to do with the terrifying rash of illnesses among his employees. As the case goes on, however, Grace finds herself battling not just with the U.S. Radium Corporation, but with her own family and friends, who fear that her campaign for justice will backfire. Written with warmth and humor, Radium Girls is a fast-moving, highly theatrical ensemble piece for 9 to 10 actors, who play more than 30 parts—friends, co-workers, lovers, relatives, attorneys, scientists, consumer advocates, and myriad interested bystanders. Called a “powerful” and “engrossing” drama by critics, Radium Girls offers a wry, unflinching look at the peculiarly American obsessions with health, wealth, and the commercialization of science. Produced by special arrangement with The Dramatic Publishing Company of Woodstock, Illinois. Originally produced by Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey and developed with a commissioning grant from The Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science and Technology Project.
by D. W. Gregory Directed by Willow Jade Norton Zolan
2:00–4:00 p.m.
In 1926, radium was a miracle cure, Madame Curie an international celebrity, and luminous watches the latest rage—until the girls who painted them began to fall ill with a mysterious disease. Inspired by a true story, Radium Girls traces the efforts of Grace Fryer, a dial painter, as she fights for her day in court. Her chief adversary is her former employer, Arthur Roeder, an idealistic man who cannot bring himself to believe that the same element that shrinks tumors could have anything to do with the terrifying rash of illnesses among his employees. As the case goes on, however, Grace finds herself battling not just with the U.S. Radium Corporation, but with her own family and friends, who fear that her campaign for justice will backfire. Written with warmth and humor, Radium Girls is a fast-moving, highly theatrical ensemble piece for 9 to 10 actors, who play more than 30 parts—friends, co-workers, lovers, relatives, attorneys, scientists, consumer advocates, and myriad interested bystanders. Called a “powerful” and “engrossing” drama by critics, Radium Girls offers a wry, unflinching look at the peculiarly American obsessions with health, wealth, and the commercialization of science. Produced by special arrangement with The Dramatic Publishing Company of Woodstock, Illinois. Originally produced by Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey and developed with a commissioning grant from The Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science and Technology Project.
by D. W. Gregory Directed by Willow Jade Norton Zolan
1:00–3:30 p.m.
Foodways in early East Asia reflect cultural identity, technological innovation, and community practices. Prehistoric societies across the region diversified their diets with wild resources, experimented with early farming, and developed distinctive cooking and serving traditions. This session highlights research on food procurement, preparation, and consumption in Neolithic China and Japan, alongside comparisons with food culture resilience in Oregon.
The symposium is open to the public, and light refreshment will be provided.
Hosted by:
Prof. Gyoung-Ah Lee (Anthropology, University of Oregon)
Presented by:
Prof. Anne Underhill (Anthropology, Yale University)
Prof. Xuexiang Chen (Archaeology, Shandong University)
Prof. Hiroki Obata (Archaeology, Kumamoto University)
Prof. Katelyn McDonough (Anthropology, University of Oregon)
View or Download the Symposium Brochure Here
Event sponsors:
Admiral David E. Jeremiah and Mrs. Connie Jeremiah Lecture Series, Yoko McClain Lecture Series in Japanese Studies, Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, Department of Anthropology, East Asian Languages and Literatures, Food Studies Program, and Oregon Humanities Center’s Endowment for Public Outreach in the Arts, Sciences, and Humanities.