A materials laboratory with tall windows.

Applied Science

School of Applied Science

Chemistry, physics, and materials science. The terrace bell was recast in these laboratories.

The School of Applied Science houses the laboratories in chemistry, physics, and materials. The shop still casts bronze. In 2025 students recast the terrace bell from the 1908 pattern, using the alloy that had lasted out of doors.

The first two years are taken with Engineering, at the same slates. Later work is more specialized. Students preparing for medicine or a doctorate in science usually major here. Each of them receives a senior brief in December and defends a thesis before a faculty committee in April.

Majors

Chemistry
Physics
Materials science

Dean: Samuel Cho

Every student at the college spends four weeks at the Garrow Tract after the first year. Read about Field Term →

From the faculty

Margit Halloran

Professor of Chemistry · Since 1997

Professor Halloran teaches General Chemistry and the first-year laboratory. Her office hours begin at six in the morning, so that, as she puts it, “nobody has a conflict.” Each Monday at eight she inspects every laboratory notebook in the section. Notebooks are presented open on the bench, spine flat and pages numbered, with every entry in ink and dated, and every error struck through once and initialed, never erased. She reports that in twenty-nine years she has returned a notebook for a missing date four hundred and eleven times, and that she keeps a record of each.

“She found a pencil mark in my notebook from across the room. It was in my bag. The bag was closed.”Bea · Vreeland · Class of 2029

Meet the faculty →