Annual Faculty Technology Showcase

Please join us on Thursday, December 11th, from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM in Smith Hall to learn how your colleagues are using technology in their research, teaching, and projects! We’ll have food, drink and raffle prizes to help us relax, learn from each other, and celebrate the end of fall semester.

 

Please join us to celebrate the end of term and the work of our amazing colleagues:

Joslyn Armstrong, Counseling, Therapy, and School Psychology

IPV Role-play Gem: Using AI as a therapy client to practice IPV screening for students

In this interactive presentation and discussion, we will discuss how I created and used the Gemini “Gem” function to simulate 4 fictional client case presentations to practice giving an Intimate Partner Violence screening on for beginning master’s level MCFT students. The goal of the usage was to have students practice screening questions and assessing for various levels of violence in couple relationships using the AI Gem. The presentation will discuss the various components to creating a Gem in role-play mode and giving feedback mode, the messaging I conveyed to students about using it, and overall student engagement of the tool.

Adam Buchwald and Jens Mache, IT & Computer Science

Cyber Security intersecting with GenAI

Given the widespread nature of information security, Large Language Models (LLM’s) have ingested a lot of information about the technologies used for attacking and defending, frameworks to break down complicated scenarios, formulas to evaluate risk, and other helpful resources. We have found ways for our cyber security students to use those tools to supplement and help inform as they build an assessment. In another area, we used GenAI to help simulate a virtual experience of conducting a security assessment which includes agents to help in: asking questions of a business, taking the results to build a risk matrix, and from there crafting a logical and well formed assessment. It can be re-used and each time creates a new scenario so it doesn’t ever repeat itself, and also sticks to an LC created template and (former student) example assessments when assisting with the written portion.

Justin Counts

VR as a Teaching Tool for Anatomy in Health Studies

After years of poking and prodding at the world of Virtual Reality, trying to find educational applications that might work at LC, we finally have a use case!

The Health Studies minor could benefit from using VR as a tool for teaching human anatomy. We are currently experimenting with the Quest 3 VR headset to explore the human body collaboratively in the classroom. Put on the headset, and take a look for yourself!

Mark Dahl, Watzek Library and CAS Core

Using Python and Google CoLab to create data visualizations for Numbers

I will demonstrate how I used the Google Colab notebook environment to structure three data analysis and manipulation labs in a Numbers class. I’ll show how CoLab can connect to external data sources and use Python libraries to manipulate the data and present it as charts. I’ll discuss the balance between structure and student autonomy in a notebook-based learning exercise.

Dann Disciglio & Jess Perlitz, Art

Becoming Otter: Manifesting LC’s New Mascot Through Real-Time Diffusion

The EAR Forest (Dann Disciglio & Jess Perlitz) and the Art Department will be creating an interactive installation that uses StreamDiffusion, a technique for doing real-time video generation, to transform participants into LC’s new mascot, the sea otter. We will be using the computer that IT built for the Digital Media lab to run the model locally, something that wouldn’t be possible without the generosity of IT.

Peter Drake, Computer Science

Pythonorama: An Open Educational Resource

Pythonorama is a website offering clear, concise explanations of Python programming topics that students frequently ask about in class or office hours. Each page also features links to additional sources and questions with answers (which could be used as an exam question bank). Students have found it to be a very valuable resource.

Faculty across disciplines (and worldwide) are welcome to use Pythonorama for their own education or in their courses. The pages of Pythonorama are written in markdown and stored in a GitHub repository. They can be edited locally or directly on the GitHub website. The repository allows for organized coordination between authors (Peter Drake, Alain Kägi, and Joseph Skudlarek). GitHub markdown supports LaTeX (for mathematical equations). We believe these pages are accessible to screen readers, including alternate text for images.

Meredith Goddard & Liz Young, Information Technology

AI Advisory Group: Insights, Surprises, and the Future of AI at Lewis & Clark

Over the past year, Lewis & Clark’s AI Advisory Group has engaged faculty and staff across all three campuses in ongoing conversations about the rapidly evolving role of artificial intelligence in learning and working. We have identified some emerging themes from our conversations and consultations, including concerns about academic integrity, the culture surrounding AI use for students, and the challenge of preparing graduates for entry level careers in an age of AI, and how to ethically and strategically use this technology. We will showcase examples of effective and ethical AI use cases at L&C, and chart the opportunities ahead for integrating AI into our practice in ways that support our mission and values.

Jean-Philippe Gourdine, Chemistry

Hands on Bioinformatics: from genome to three dimensional predictive structure

“Hands on Bioinformatics” is a new part of my Structural Biochemistry CHEM 335, which I have started this semester. It is a hybrid use of command line, database navigation and online softwares to navigate publicly available genomes and interrogate them to predict function and structure of unknown proteins.

The objectives are to:

• Navigate the command line: Proficiently use the Linux/Unix command line interface (CLI) to manage files, process data, and execute bioinformatics software.
• Navigate sequence repositories (ENA, SRA): Locate, download, and understand data formats from central public sequence archives such as the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) and the Sequence Read Archive (SRA).
• Perform sequence alignments: Apply fundamental algorithms (e.g., BLAST, Clustal) to perform global and local sequence alignments for homology searching and multiple sequence comparison.
• Use AlphaFold to predict structures of bacterial glycoside hydrolases (GH): Understand the principles of deep learning-based protein structure prediction and use tools like AlphaFold or a similar platform (e.g., ColabFold) to generate 3D models of bacterial GH enzymes.
• Use PyMOL to visualize the predicted structures: Utilize molecular visualization software (PyMOL) to render, manipulate, and analyze protein 3D structures.

Jessica Kleiss, Environmental Studies

Student exploration of online earth science datasets

Numerous online resources allow students to query and display oceanographic data, including long-term stationary buoys, global networks of drifting sensors, satellite observations, and model output. In this class activity students identified an oceanographic topic of interest, found related data, and displayed the data to explore the topic more deeply.

Diana Leonard, Psychology

Crafting and Piloting a Research Design GEM for Student Research

In Summer 2025, I developed a research design “Gem” as part of a “Deep Dive” during the Faculty Tech Institute. A Gem is a reusable chat bot that has task-specific instructions for how to engage with and answer users as well as which resources to reference, if desired. Given task paralysis students seem to face when developing original research, I was interested in offering a virtual tutor to help them design a methodology that would test their specific research question(s). I debuted the Gem with students in my senior thesis course this semester. They were curious about it and seemed pleased that a faculty-curated widget was more in line with their needs, encouraged stepwise problem solving, and sparked less anxiety about “bad” AI use. However, most students in the course quickly passed on the opportunity to use the tool after an initial in-class activity, either because they were already very adept at building prompts for Chat GPT and found the tool would get in their way (n=1) or because they morally opposed to using gen AI for various reasons (n=8). Other class communities may have more favorable reactions — especially as student populations become more comfortable with gen AI — and I am glad to have this in my back pocket for future semesters.

Ben Olsen, Physics

Pushing atoms around with light: building a laser-cooling apparatus

Subsystems in the lab: lasers, magnets, electronics, vacuum chamber. We’re going to cool lithium atoms to just above absolute zero, so they’ll obey quantum mechanics. Then we’ll get them to mimic other quantum systems like superconductors or neutron stars. Students enjoy getting to make stuff, and link things they learn in class to projects in the lab. We still have a long way to go: we’ll probably start cooling atoms down in summer 2026.

Patti Palczewska, IT Academic Operations

Future Classroom Upgrades

Stop by our table at the Faculty Technology Showcase to hear about Academic Operations’ long-term plan to improve classrooms over the next couple of years by upgrading our classrooms systems, making equipment in the classroom easier to use and less prone to failure.

Alana Rader, Environmental Studies

An LC Community Geospatial Library

I will be talking about and showing the start to a campus wide Geospatial Data Library that will be available on ESRI ArcGIS Online for all faculty and students to use. Data in this library include spatial data at local, state, federal, and global scales. Data also includes biophysical, socio-economic, cultural, and political boundary information.

Jolina Ruckert, Psychology

Crafting change: Digital Storytelling for empowerment, identity, and ecological connection

I designed a two-story digital storytelling sequence in PSY 360 where students created one personal story centered on empowerment and one group story on gender in the community. In that class I collaborated with Story Gorge media to mentor students on filmmaking. We did structured in-class sharing, gender analysis papers, and peer reflections, culminating in screenings at the Festival of Artists and Scholars. In PSY 415, students crafted digital stories about healing and connections to nature. We shared audio files in the EAR forest and completed videos in a classroom festival with group reflections.

My goal was to help students understand gender and sustainability through lived experience, build critical reflection and narrative competence, and use story as a research and learning tool. I believed personal storytelling would surface themes of empowerment and identity more authentically than traditional assignments, bring community voices into the classroom, and deepen students’ ecological connections.

Many students experienced deep emotional engagement and increased self-understanding through personal storytelling. Those who screened at the Festival found the validation meaningful and motivating. Projects on gender in the community sparked curiosity, empathy, and investment in representing others responsibly. Peer feedback sessions were consistently named as a highlight.

I learned that creating two stories gave students room to grow. The second was almost always stronger and more intentional. Personal stories reliably surfaced gender content without forcing it. Community-based gender stories required clear scaffolding around ethics, representation, and consent. Digital storytelling on sustainability opens up themes of reciprocity and ecological identity in ways traditional coursework doesn’t. Collaborative manuscript writing helps students see their storytelling as knowledge production, not just a class assignment. The public screenings were powerful but also required careful preparation.

My recommendations: scaffold the story arc early with plenty of time for feedback and revision. Use familiar narrative structures that center redemption and agency. Allow personal stories to emerge around broad themes rather than prescribing content. Pair storytelling with reflective writing that ties personal insight to academic concepts. Include guidance on ethical storytelling when working with community narratives. Create intentional sharing spaces and prepare students for emotional demands while offering options for boundaries and consent. I always had alternative assignments, and students determined what and when they would share their work.

Marie-Eve Thifault, French Studies

Bringing Francophone Personalities to Life with AI

I created a writing project in my FREN 202 course where students prepared an interview with a francophone personality and completed it with ChatGPT acting as that person. They also used ChatGPT to check their grammar and reflect on their writing. I wanted students to practice their French writing in a more interactive way while using our class grammar in a meaningful context and to explore how new technology could support their language skills. Students were surprised and pleased with the process and results. Most enjoyed the natural conversations, learned about francophone culture, and many said they would use AI on their own to practice French in the future. From my experience with AI over the last two years, I learned to be very detailed with instructions and the assignment process. Overall, when used purposefully, AI can be a positive learning experience that enriches students’ language skills.

Todd Watson, Psychology

ToddToks

I’ll introduce short-form video projects that I use in several courses to help students develop informal scientific communication skills. In the example you’ll see at the FTS, students first gain hands-on experience with a simple brain-computer interface (the Human-Human Interface), analyze data from an affective electrophysiological study they conduct, and then condense their research methods and results into two-minute videos designed for a general social media audience. The assignment not only helps students develop their basic scientific and statistical tool kits, but also the crucial skill of conveying complex research methods and results with clarity, energy, and creativity. It also—cough—makes my grading load a bit lighter (and much more fun) at the end of the semester.

As an added bonus, I’ll bring a few brain-computer interfaces in for folks to try out if they want!