ASU honors outstanding graduates and awardees for 2025
Alejandro Rodarte-Martinez was nominated by the Department of Biology. A San Angelo Lake View High School graduate, he is a biology major with chemistry minor. His academic achievements earned him induction into the Beta Beta Beta (Tri-Beta) national biological honor society, where he served as president. He was also actively engaged in other campus affairs, serving as a representative for the American Chemical Society chapter and as an organic chemistry and cell biology tutor in ASU's Academic Support Center. He participated in the ASU-Shannon Coordinated Care Internship and also interned at UTHealth Houston's McGovern Medical School through ASU's Joint Admission Medical Program.
Additionally, Rodarte-Martinez earned a Welch Chemistry Research Scholarship and an ASU Faculty-Mentored Undergraduate Research Grant to support his research in organic chemistry, which he presented at the ASU Undergraduate Research Symposium. He will enter medical studies at McGovern Medical School in Houston, where he hopes to specialize in internal medicine.
Sydney Anderson was nominated by the Department of Health Science Professions. The Alpine native is a health science professions major with minors in biology and psychology. She earned induction to the Alpha Chi and Phi Kappa Phi national honor societies, served as president of the Health Science Society and participated in the Lead Like a Ram program. Additionally, she volunteers as a WHIT tutor and participated in the ASU-Shannon Coordinated Care Internship. She plans to begin graduate studies and pursue a career in medicine.
Isabela Casillas was nominated by the Department of Political Science and Philosophy. A San Angelo Central High School graduate, she is majoring in political science with minors in philosophy and Spanish. She earned induction into the Alpha Mu Gamma national foreign language honor society and participated on ASU's Eugene Scassa Mock Organization of American States competition team, earning Diplomacy and Resolution Writing Awards for the latter. Additionally, she served as secretary of both the Spanish Club and the STEM Nexus Club, participated in the Lead Like a Ram program, and volunteered as a WHIT tutor and a Tom Green County elections clerk. She plans to pursue legal studies after graduation.
Audrey Spearman was nominated by the Department of Teacher Education. The Christoval native is an interdisciplinary studies major with early childhood through grade 6 teacher certification and all-level special education certification. She earned induction into the Alpha Chi and Phi Kappa Phi national honor societies and Kappa Delta Pi international education honor society. She served as president of Kappa Delta Pi, participated in the Lead Like a Ram program, and was a member of the ASU Co-Ed Cheer Team for two years, serving as captain for the 2023-24 academic year. She plans to pursue a Master of Education (M.Ed.) degree in student development and leadership in higher education.
Matthew Barton was nominated by the Departments of Computer Science, Mathematics, and Physics and Geosciences. The Leander native is a triple-major in physics, mathematics and computer science, and he will graduate with High University Honors through the ASU Honors Program. He earned induction into the Alpha Chi, Phi Kappa Phi, Sigma Pi Sigma (physics) and Pi Mu Epsilon (mathematics) national honor societies. He served as president of the ASU Society for Physics Students and was a member of the Honors Student Association and the local chapter of the Mathematical Association of America. He received two Faculty-Mentored Undergraduate Research Grants and presented his research at the Texas Section of the American Physical Society Conference and the ASU Undergraduate Research Symposium. Additionally, he was selected for a highly-competitive Detonation Science Fellowship at the Naval Air Warfare Center at China Lake, California. He will enter the Ph.D. program in electrical engineering at Texas Tech University this fall.
Mia Kilman was nominated by the Department of Management and Marketing. She is a marketing major from San Saba and earned induction into the Alpha Chi and Phi Kappa Phi national honor societies. She served as president of the RAMbassadors volunteer leadership program, participated in the Lead Like a Ram program, and presented research at the ASU Undergraduate Research Symposium. Additionally, she placed third in the Norris-Vincent College of Business BizPitch student entrepreneurship competition and completed an internship at Principal Industries. She will pursue her Master of Business Administration (MBA) at Angelo State while working as a business analyst at Principal Industries.
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Forbes
14 hours ago
- Forbes
Study Finds People Aren't Good At Reading Dog Body Language
Humans don't understand dogs' body language and corresponding emotions as well as we think we do, according to new research from the Canine Science Collaboratory at Arizona State University. The study involved a favorite activity of many dog lovers: watching dog videos. As part of her Ph.D. research, Holly Molinaro shot videos of her father interacting with the family dog, Oliver. Sometimes he would offer Oliver a treat or show him a leash for a walk, which made the dog happy. In other videos, he might reprimand Oliver or hold up his nemesis, a cat named Saffron. Working with Clive Wynne, Ph.D., director of the Canine Science Collaboratory and author of 'Dog is Love: Why and How Your Dog Loves You,' Molinaro then showed three versions of the videos to 400 study participants — which led to surprising results. When the videos were unedited, a majority of people could correctly identify whether Oliver was happy or stressed. But when the videos were edited to simply show Oliver with a black background, they couldn't form an opinion about the dog's emotions. When the videos were edited to show Oliver reacting to a different prompt than what actually happened — like the father showing Oliver a cat in the video, when in reality he had been offering the dog a piece of cheese — participants had strong and wrong opinions about how Oliver was feeling. 'The whole study was very surprising,' Dr. Wynne said. 'The finding, in a nutshell, is that when you show people a video of a dog reacting to something and you ask them how the dog is feeling, they will look at everything you show them except the dog when making their mind up. So people are really bad at paying attention to dogs when it comes to assessing how a dog is feeling — whether a dog is happy or sad.' One important caveat is that due to ethical considerations, the research did not involve doing anything to make Oliver extremely distressed, Dr. Wynne notes. Instead, the research was limited to potentially negative things a dog might encounter in an ordinary day, such as a cat or nail clippers. 'I'm pretty confident that people would have accurately identified a terrified dog,' he says. 'We just wouldn't do that.' Since dogs live in 68 million U.S. homes, Dr. Wynne feels it's imperative that people make a concerted effort to better read their emotions. 'One of the morals I draw from our research is that I encourage people to get to know their own dog,' he says. 'Now I'm on a mission to convince people that they don't really know what a dog is feeling and that they should give their dog a chance to teach them.' He suggests paying close attention to what your dog does when they're typically excited or happy about an activity, such as seeing a leash when it's time for a walk. 'We need to watch our whole dog from the tip of their tail to the tip of the snout and everything in between. The ears can be expressive. Obviously the hackles, how the hair moves, the overall bodily posture,' he says. 'As much as possible, just try to be like a scientist: don't watch by imposing your preconceptions, watch neutrally and learn. Let the dog teach you what their happiness looks like, what their anxiety looks like.' Puppies and dogs are individuals, so Dr. Wynne advises against making one-size-fits-all assumptions about canine body language, facial expressions and noises. For example, growling is generally considered to be a threatening warning from a less-than-happy dog. But his late mixed-breed dog, Xephos, used to growl in happiness. (Similarly, attuned people with Rottweilers often know their dogs are happy when they hear the 'Rottie Rumble' during play — almost like a cat's purr.) When a dog yawns, they might be sleepy or just awakening from a nap, but yawning can also be a sign of stress (particularly when ears are pinned back, and eyes are averted). A 'smiling' dog might just be keeping their mouth open because it's hot. While some people believe a wagging tail is always a happy sign, it can also indicate anxiety. Research in Italy found that when dogs wag their tails to the right, they're experiencing positive emotions; conversely, a left-wagging tail denotes negative emotions, he notes. Ultimately, learning to understand how our dogs are feeling will help us be better companions, according to Dr. Wynne. 'We have 80 million dogs living in our homes in the United States, and the vast majority of us want what's best for our dogs – we love them and want what's best for them,' he says. 'But how can we do that if we don't actually know when they're happy and when they're stressed? We have to know how they're feeling in order to be able to give them their best lives.'
CNN
4 days ago
- CNN
An exoplanet called K2-18b is highlighting the complexities of finding life beyond Earth
A tiny sign revealed in April seemed like it might change the universe as we know it. Astronomers had detected just a hint, a glimmer of two molecules swirling in the atmosphere of a distant planet called K2-18b — molecules that on Earth are produced only by living things. It was a tantalizing prospect: the most promising evidence yet of an extraterrestrial biosignature, or traces of life linked to biological activity. But only weeks later, new findings suggest the search must continue. 'It was exciting, but it immediately raised several red flags because that claim of a potential biosignature would be historic, but also the significance or the strength of the statistical evidence seemed to be too high for the data,' said Dr. Luis Welbanks, a postdoctoral research scholar at Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration. While the molecules identified on K2-18b by the April study — dimethyl sulfide, or DMS, and dimethyl disulfide, or DMDS — are associated largely with microbial organisms on our planet, scientists point out that the compounds can also form without the presence of life. Now, three teams of astronomers not involved with the research, including Welbanks, have assessed the models and data used in the original biosignature discovery and got very different results, which they have submitted for peer review. Meanwhile, the lead author of the April study, Nikku Madhusudhan, and his colleagues have conducted additional research that they say reinforces their previous finding about the planet. And it's likely that additional observations and research from multiple groups of scientists are on the horizon. The succession of research papers revolving around K2-18b offers a glimpse of the scientific process unfolding in real time. It's a window into the complexities and nuances of how researchers search for evidence of life beyond Earth — and shows why the burden of proof is so high and difficult to reach. Located 124 light-years from Earth, K2-18b is generally considered a worthy target to scour for signs of life. It is thought to be a Hycean world, a planet entirely covered in liquid water with a hydrogen-rich atmosphere, according to previous research led by Madhusudhan, a professor of astrophysics and exoplanetary science at the University of Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy. And as such, K2-18b has rapidly attracted attention as a potentially habitable place beyond our solar system. Convinced of K2-18b's promise, Madhusudhan and his Cambridge colleagues used observations of the planet by the largest space telescope in operation, the James Webb Space Telescope, to study the planet further. But two scientists at the University of Chicago — Dr. Rafael Luque, a postdoctoral scholar in the university's department of astronomy and astrophysics, and Michael Zhang, a 51 Pegasi b / Burbidge postdoctoral fellow — spotted some problems with what they found. After reviewing Madhusudhan and his team's April paper, which followed up on their 2023 research, Luque and Zhang noticed that the Webb data looked 'noisy,' Luque said. Noise, caused by imperfections in the telescope and the rate at which different particles of light reach the telescope, is just one challenge astronomers face when they study distant exoplanets. Noise can distort observations and introduce uncertainties into the data, Zhang said. Trying to detect specific gases in distant exoplanet atmospheres introduces even more uncertainty. The most noticeable features from a gas like dimethyl sulfide stem from a bond of hydrogen and carbon molecules — a connection that can stretch and bend and absorb light at different wavelengths, making it hard to definitively detect one kind of molecule, Zhang said. 'The problem is basically every organic molecule has a carbon-hydrogen bond,' Zhang said. 'There's hundreds of millions of those molecules, and so these features are not unique. If you have perfect data, you can probably distinguish between different molecules. But if you don't have perfect data, a lot of molecules, especially organic molecules, look very similar, especially in the near-infrared.' Delving further into the paper, Luque and Zhang also noticed that the perceived temperature of the planet appeared to increase sharply from a range of about 250 Kelvin to 300 Kelvin (-9.67 F to 80.33 F or -23.15 C to 26.85 C) in research Madhusudhan published in 2023 to 422 Kelvin (299.93 F or 148.85 C) in the April study. Such harsh temperatures could change the way astronomers think about the planet's potential habitability, Zhang said, especially because cooler temperatures persist in the top of the atmosphere — the area that Webb can detect — and the surface or ocean below would likely have even higher temperatures. 'This is just an inference only from the atmosphere, but it would certainly affect how we think about the planet in general,' Luque said. Part of the issue, he said, is that the April analysis didn't include data collected from all three Webb instruments Madhusudhan's team used over the past few years. So Luque, Zhang and their colleagues conducted a study combining all the available data to see whether they could achieve the same results, or even find a higher amount of dimethyl sulfide. They found 'insufficient evidence' of both molecules in the planet's atmosphere. Instead, Luque and Zhang's team spotted other molecules, like ethane, that could fit the same profile. But ethane does not signify life. Arizona State's Welbanks and his colleagues, including Dr. Matt Nixon, a postdoctoral researcher in the department of astronomy at the University of Maryland College Park, also found what they consider a fundamental problem with the April paper on K2-18b. The concern, Welbanks said, was with how Madhusudhan and his team created models to show which molecules might be in the planet's atmosphere. 'Each (molecule) is tested one at a time against the same minimal baseline, meaning every single model has an artificial advantage: It is the only explanation permitted,' Welbanks said. When Welbanks and his team conducted their own analysis, they expanded the model from Madhusudhan's study. '(Madhusudhan and his colleagues) didn't allow for any other chemical species that could potentially be producing these small signals or observations,' Nixon said. 'So the main thing we wanted to do was assess whether other chemical species could provide an adequate fit to the data.' When the model was expanded, the evidence for dimethyl sulfide or dimethyl disulfide 'just disappears,' Welbanks said. Madhusudhan believes the studies that have come out after his April paper are 'very encouraging' and 'enabling a healthy discussion on the interpretation of our data on K2-18b.' He reviewed Luque and Zhang's work and agreed that their findings don't show a 'strong detection for DMS or DMDS.' When Madhusudhan's team published the paper in April, he said the observations reached the three-sigma level of significance, or a 0.3% probability that the detections occurred by chance. For a scientific discovery that is highly unlikely to have occurred by chance, the observations must meet a five-sigma threshold, or below a 0.00006% probability that the observations occurred by chance. Meeting such a threshold will require many steps, Welbanks said, including repeated detections of the same molecule using multiple telescopes and ruling out potential nonbiological sources. While such evidence could be found in our lifetime, it is less likely to be a eureka moment and more a slow build requiring a consensus among astronomers, physicists, biologists and chemists. 'We have never reached that level of evidence in any of our studies,' Madhusudhan wrote in an email. 'We have only found evidence at or below 3-sigma in our two previous studies (Madhusudhan et al. 2023 and 2025). We refer to this as moderate evidence or hints but not a strong detection. I agree with (Luque and Zhang's) claim which is consistent with our study and we have discussed the need for stronger evidence extensively in our study and communications.' In response to the research conducted by Welbanks' team, Madhusudhan and his Cambridge colleagues have authored another manuscript expanding the search on K2-18b to include 650 types of molecules. They have submitted the new analysis for peer review. 'This is the largest search for chemical signatures in an exoplanet to date, using all the available data for K2-18b and searching through 650 molecules,' Madhusudhan said. 'We find that DMS continues to be a promising candidate molecule in this planet, though more observations are required for a firm detection as we have noted in our previous studies.' Welbanks and Nixon were pleased that Madhusudhan and his colleagues addressed the concerns raised but feel that the new paper effectively walks back central claims made in the original April study, Welbanks said. 'The new paper tacitly concedes that the DMS/DMDS detection was not robust, yet still relies on the same flawed statistical framework and a selective reading of its own results,' Welbanks said in an email. 'While the tone is more cautious (sometimes), the methodology continues to obscure the true level of uncertainty. The statistical significance claimed in earlier work was the product of arbitrary modeling decisions that are not acknowledged.' Luque said the Cambridge team's new paper is a step in the right direction because it explores other possible chemical biosignatures. 'But I think it fell short in the scope,' Luque said. 'I think it restricted itself too much into being a rebuttal to the (Welbanks) paper.' Separately, however, the astronomers studying K2-18b agree that pushing forward on researching the exoplanet contributes to the scientific process. 'I think it's just a good, healthy scientific discourse to talk about what is going on with this planet,' Welbanks said. 'Regardless of what any single author group says right now, we don't have a silver bullet. But that is exactly why this is exciting, because we know that we're the closest we have ever been (to finding a biosignature), and I think we may get it within our lifetime, but right now, we're not there. That is not a failure. We're testing bold ideas.'
CNN
4 days ago
- CNN
An exoplanet called K2-18b is highlighting the complexities of finding life beyond Earth
A tiny sign revealed in April seemed like it might change the universe as we know it. Astronomers had detected just a hint, a glimmer of two molecules swirling in the atmosphere of a distant planet called K2-18b — molecules that on Earth are produced only by living things. It was a tantalizing prospect: the most promising evidence yet of an extraterrestrial biosignature, or traces of life linked to biological activity. But only weeks later, new findings suggest the search must continue. 'It was exciting, but it immediately raised several red flags because that claim of a potential biosignature would be historic, but also the significance or the strength of the statistical evidence seemed to be too high for the data,' said Dr. Luis Welbanks, a postdoctoral research scholar at Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration. While the molecules identified on K2-18b by the April study — dimethyl sulfide, or DMS, and dimethyl disulfide, or DMDS — are associated largely with microbial organisms on our planet, scientists point out that the compounds can also form without the presence of life. Now, three teams of astronomers not involved with the research, including Welbanks, have assessed the models and data used in the original biosignature discovery and got very different results, which they have submitted for peer review. Meanwhile, the lead author of the April study, Nikku Madhusudhan, and his colleagues have conducted additional research that they say reinforces their previous finding about the planet. And it's likely that additional observations and research from multiple groups of scientists are on the horizon. The succession of research papers revolving around K2-18b offers a glimpse of the scientific process unfolding in real time. It's a window into the complexities and nuances of how researchers search for evidence of life beyond Earth — and shows why the burden of proof is so high and difficult to reach. Located 124 light-years from Earth, K2-18b is generally considered a worthy target to scour for signs of life. It is thought to be a Hycean world, a planet entirely covered in liquid water with a hydrogen-rich atmosphere, according to previous research led by Madhusudhan, a professor of astrophysics and exoplanetary science at the University of Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy. And as such, K2-18b has rapidly attracted attention as a potentially habitable place beyond our solar system. Convinced of K2-18b's promise, Madhusudhan and his Cambridge colleagues used observations of the planet by the largest space telescope in operation, the James Webb Space Telescope, to study the planet further. But two scientists at the University of Chicago — Dr. Rafael Luque, a postdoctoral scholar in the university's department of astronomy and astrophysics, and Michael Zhang, a 51 Pegasi b / Burbidge postdoctoral fellow — spotted some problems with what they found. After reviewing Madhusudhan and his team's April paper, which followed up on their 2023 research, Luque and Zhang noticed that the Webb data looked 'noisy,' Luque said. Noise, caused by imperfections in the telescope and the rate at which different particles of light reach the telescope, is just one challenge astronomers face when they study distant exoplanets. Noise can distort observations and introduce uncertainties into the data, Zhang said. Trying to detect specific gases in distant exoplanet atmospheres introduces even more uncertainty. The most noticeable features from a gas like dimethyl sulfide stem from a bond of hydrogen and carbon molecules — a connection that can stretch and bend and absorb light at different wavelengths, making it hard to definitively detect one kind of molecule, Zhang said. 'The problem is basically every organic molecule has a carbon-hydrogen bond,' Zhang said. 'There's hundreds of millions of those molecules, and so these features are not unique. If you have perfect data, you can probably distinguish between different molecules. But if you don't have perfect data, a lot of molecules, especially organic molecules, look very similar, especially in the near-infrared.' Delving further into the paper, Luque and Zhang also noticed that the perceived temperature of the planet appeared to increase sharply from a range of about 250 Kelvin to 300 Kelvin (-9.67 F to 80.33 F or -23.15 C to 26.85 C) in research Madhusudhan published in 2023 to 422 Kelvin (299.93 F or 148.85 C) in the April study. Such harsh temperatures could change the way astronomers think about the planet's potential habitability, Zhang said, especially because cooler temperatures persist in the top of the atmosphere — the area that Webb can detect — and the surface or ocean below would likely have even higher temperatures. 'This is just an inference only from the atmosphere, but it would certainly affect how we think about the planet in general,' Luque said. Part of the issue, he said, is that the April analysis didn't include data collected from all three Webb instruments Madhusudhan's team used over the past few years. So Luque, Zhang and their colleagues conducted a study combining all the available data to see whether they could achieve the same results, or even find a higher amount of dimethyl sulfide. They found 'insufficient evidence' of both molecules in the planet's atmosphere. Instead, Luque and Zhang's team spotted other molecules, like ethane, that could fit the same profile. But ethane does not signify life. Arizona State's Welbanks and his colleagues, including Dr. Matt Nixon, a postdoctoral researcher in the department of astronomy at the University of Maryland College Park, also found what they consider a fundamental problem with the April paper on K2-18b. The concern, Welbanks said, was with how Madhusudhan and his team created models to show which molecules might be in the planet's atmosphere. 'Each (molecule) is tested one at a time against the same minimal baseline, meaning every single model has an artificial advantage: It is the only explanation permitted,' Welbanks said. When Welbanks and his team conducted their own analysis, they expanded the model from Madhusudhan's study. '(Madhusudhan and his colleagues) didn't allow for any other chemical species that could potentially be producing these small signals or observations,' Nixon said. 'So the main thing we wanted to do was assess whether other chemical species could provide an adequate fit to the data.' When the model was expanded, the evidence for dimethyl sulfide or dimethyl disulfide 'just disappears,' Welbanks said. Madhusudhan believes the studies that have come out after his April paper are 'very encouraging' and 'enabling a healthy discussion on the interpretation of our data on K2-18b.' He reviewed Luque and Zhang's work and agreed that their findings don't show a 'strong detection for DMS or DMDS.' When Madhusudhan's team published the paper in April, he said the observations reached the three-sigma level of significance, or a 0.3% probability that the detections occurred by chance. For a scientific discovery that is highly unlikely to have occurred by chance, the observations must meet a five-sigma threshold, or below a 0.00006% probability that the observations occurred by chance. Meeting such a threshold will require many steps, Welbanks said, including repeated detections of the same molecule using multiple telescopes and ruling out potential nonbiological sources. While such evidence could be found in our lifetime, it is less likely to be a eureka moment and more a slow build requiring a consensus among astronomers, physicists, biologists and chemists. 'We have never reached that level of evidence in any of our studies,' Madhusudhan wrote in an email. 'We have only found evidence at or below 3-sigma in our two previous studies (Madhusudhan et al. 2023 and 2025). We refer to this as moderate evidence or hints but not a strong detection. I agree with (Luque and Zhang's) claim which is consistent with our study and we have discussed the need for stronger evidence extensively in our study and communications.' In response to the research conducted by Welbanks' team, Madhusudhan and his Cambridge colleagues have authored another manuscript expanding the search on K2-18b to include 650 types of molecules. They have submitted the new analysis for peer review. 'This is the largest search for chemical signatures in an exoplanet to date, using all the available data for K2-18b and searching through 650 molecules,' Madhusudhan said. 'We find that DMS continues to be a promising candidate molecule in this planet, though more observations are required for a firm detection as we have noted in our previous studies.' Welbanks and Nixon were pleased that Madhusudhan and his colleagues addressed the concerns raised but feel that the new paper effectively walks back central claims made in the original April study, Welbanks said. 'The new paper tacitly concedes that the DMS/DMDS detection was not robust, yet still relies on the same flawed statistical framework and a selective reading of its own results,' Welbanks said in an email. 'While the tone is more cautious (sometimes), the methodology continues to obscure the true level of uncertainty. The statistical significance claimed in earlier work was the product of arbitrary modeling decisions that are not acknowledged.' Luque said the Cambridge team's new paper is a step in the right direction because it explores other possible chemical biosignatures. 'But I think it fell short in the scope,' Luque said. 'I think it restricted itself too much into being a rebuttal to the (Welbanks) paper.' Separately, however, the astronomers studying K2-18b agree that pushing forward on researching the exoplanet contributes to the scientific process. 'I think it's just a good, healthy scientific discourse to talk about what is going on with this planet,' Welbanks said. 'Regardless of what any single author group says right now, we don't have a silver bullet. But that is exactly why this is exciting, because we know that we're the closest we have ever been (to finding a biosignature), and I think we may get it within our lifetime, but right now, we're not there. That is not a failure. We're testing bold ideas.'
