The Weekly Student Newspaper
Vol. 115, Iss. 16 | Wednesday, February 4, 2026
The College of William and Mary
flathatnews.com | @theflathat
COURTESY IMAGE / NATHAN WARTERS
Integrated Science Center 4 project complete, set to house four departments LILA REIDY // FLAT HAT NEWS EDITOR Physics, computing, applied science faculty celebrate new facilities and interdisciplinary opportunities
Thursday, Jan. 22, Director of Communications and Marketing at the College of William and Mary’s School of Computing, Data Sciences and Physics Randy Ready led The Flat Hat and other local publications on a tour of the new Integrated Science Center 4 construction. Ready was joined by Department of Applied Science chair Eric Bradley, who has led the planning of the four ISC phases. This addition is the College’s first new school in over 50 years. Ready explained that while the building is new to the College, the disciplines being housed there are not. “While the school itself is new, we have four departments, and they are not new,” Ready said. “So you have computer science, data science, physics and applied science, the four departments. They’ve been around, some of them for a long time — physics like 200 years. So they’re well established. Ready continued by explaining the layout of ISC 4. “This building hosts the School of Computing, Data Sciences and Physics Dean’s office, as well as our computer science
department, which is kind of split up between this floor and the second floor,” he said. “The data science department is on the third floor.” Ready went on to highlight the collaboration opportunities within the new school. “It’s just been an opportunity to bring in a lot of the science departments or other departments under one building versus kind of spread out throughout campus,” he said. “And that really helps bring in the interdisciplinary part of it and collaboration versus the stove pipes, or, you know, trying to create more opportunities for that interdisciplinary research and learning, which is a big thing here at William and Mary.” Bradley noted the reason for the new construction in relation to this interdisciplinary learning goal. “We just can’t do STEM at all, no matter where it is, or any of the social sciences, and even some of the humanities, without a fair amount of interface with big data and computation,” he said. “Digital humanities is a real thing, and it’s actually very, very important. So, to accommodate that growing demand and
trying to stay ahead of the curve for training our undergraduate students to take a place, our new provost decided that we would try to center the people who do really computationally heavy material together in an integrated system.” He continued to reflect on the goals for this collaborative STEM building, emphasizing the vision of the College’s science disciplines all under one roof. “This notion of integration is a non-trivial thing,” Bradley said. “This is really important. We found too much ‘siloing’ in the past, and that’s university-wide, but also U.S.-wide. Buildings with people in them that don’t walk across campus to interact in a way that is meaningful because it’s too much work. So the idea was here to try to integrate most of STEM.” While there were some challenges to this integration, Bradley depicted how this was still an improvement for the College. “Now, there’s some STEM that couldn’t integrate because of the facilities,” Bradley said. “So geology is not in here, and physics is across the quad from us because of its size and
the magnitude of it. But everything else has been now, with this building, truly integrated. So, except for having to get up from your desk, all you have to do is walk someplace within this four-building facility, and we’re really finally having this objective of integration that has been a transition over many years.” The tour moved to assistant professor of applied science Geoffrey Zahn’s wet lab. He introduced his TIDAL research lab’s efforts in genomic data science, working with microbiomes. “We try to design microbial communities that make plants healthier,” Zahn said. “We could do it for humans, but we need a med school and a lot of paperwork. And so if we can learn it in plants, we can actually transfer what we learn to any of the programs in there. This room is all about kind of the molecular side of things, and growing bacteria and fungi, and then extracting their DNA to get genomes, which we upload to the supercomputer and analyze from our bedrooms or wherever we are, so this is kind of the wet lab space.” SEE CAMPUS PAGE 3
College celebrates annual Jefferson, Monroe, Plumeri award recipients Prizes highlight student, faculty achievement in leadership, research, civic engagement SKYLAR HARTGERINK FLAT HAT VARIETY ASSOC.
Friday, Jan. 30, the College of William and Mary celebrated the recipients of the Thomas Jefferson Awards, the James Monroe Prize and the Plumeri Awards. This annual event recognizes those who embody the College’s values. Rich Thompson, a dedicated staff member of Civic and Community Engagement, commented on the broader significance of the event. “It’s really talking about the leadership that the William and Mary community is all about — how each of us can make a difference with our skills and how we can push ourselves to be more of who and what we are for the betterment of others,” Thompson said. Jason Zheng ’26 received the James Monroe Prize in Civic Leadership for his community commitment. His work on campus is characterized by a passion for student rights and basic needs. Zheng serves as a senior senator for Student Assembly and chair of the
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University Policy and Student Rights committee. He leads the Student Assembly Food for All initiative, which focuses on restocking the Sadler food pantry and ensuring access to nutritious foods. “My parents own a restaurant, so for me, that’s kind of always been a priority,” Zheng said. “I think what’s really great about Food for All and that food pantry that we have is it’s available to students, faculty, administrators, just people who work at William and Mary.” After graduation, Zheng plans to continue practicing civic leadership by pursuing a Master of Public Policy or attending law school with a focus on supporting rural communities. The Thomas Jefferson Prize in Natural Philosophy was awarded to Kate Carline ’26. As the director of the Geopolitics of Technology Initiative and a researcher in professor Margaret Saha’s bacteriophage lab, Carline has made it her mission to bridge the gap between science and policy. Carline recalled her time in the phage lab when she extracted her
first strand of DNA and discovered the passion that would define her time at the College. “I was looking at it and imagining, wow, that is our DNA, that is the code to life, and it is here, and I can see it,” she said. “I think it really just connects the work you’re doing to almost be bigger than yourself and more meaningful to change the world, and it’s really hard to not feel passionate about that.” One of her most impactful experiences was serving on the iGEM team, where she helped develop a synthetic biology project addressing an issue at the local or global scale. This work took her to Paris, where the team ranked in the top 10 internationally. This spring, Carline will graduate as a Churchill Scholar, heading to the University of Cambridge to study public policy with a focus on science policy. Carline said this award was particularly special because she did not apply for it. Instead, she was nominated by faculty mentors. “It means that not only have I
worked hard enough for me,” she said. “But I’ve worked hard enough that people I look up to can really believe in me in that way and believe in me to put me up for this moment.” The Thomas Jefferson Award is given each year to a member of the College community for significant service through their personal activities, influence and leadership. This year’s recipient was biology professor Dr. Randolph “Randy” Chambers. He serves as director of the Environmental Science and Policy Program, associate chair of biology and director of the biology graduate program. Chambers has additionally conducted extensive research that has influenced aquatic restoration and climaterelated environmental planning. Chambers shared that friends from both high school and college reached out after the award announcement, saying it captured him perfectly. “For my high school friends, that was 40 years ago,” Chambers said. “They said, ‘That’s who you were 40 years ago, and that’s who
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you are now.’” Professor Jennifer Lorden in the English department received the Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award. Her students appreciate her engaging lecture style and passion for medieval English. The Plumeri Awards recognize nine exceptional faculty members annually who have taught at the College for at least five years. Those awarded receive a $20,000 prize to be spent over three years to further their teaching and research impact in the community. The faculty chosen for 2026 were associate business professor Igna Carboni, associate health sciences professor Carrie Dolan, government and public policy professor Chris Howard, geology professor Rowan Lockwood, classical studies professor Vassiliki Panoussi, associate computer science professor Bin Ren, assistant athletics director Jasmine Perkins, associate physics professor Justin Stevens, associate religious studies professor Kevin Vose and marine science professor Joseph Zhang.
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