College of Science

A 1992 Mason Gazette story about the hatching of the very first Komodo dragons born in captivity outside of Indonesia.

In 1992, after incubating for 220 days in Robinson Hall on the Fairfax Campus, the very first Komodo dragon born in captivity outside of Indonesia hatched.

In 2007, Mason chemistry professor Abul Hussam won the $1 million Grainger Challenge Prize for Sustainability Gold Award from the National Academy of Engineering for his inexpensive water filtration system designed to remove arsenic from drinking water in his native Bangladesh.

Mason alumni John Whalan, Elaine "Chipper" Petersen, and Bob Veenstra built the university's first telescope and observatory with $200 in start-up funds from the Physics Department.

Jim Trefil, a Mason physicist and Robinson Professor, explains the importance of a scientific worldview. The author of more than 50 books and one of the developers of the modern theories about quarks as a fundamental component of the universe, Trefil is helping pioneer a new way of teaching science.

A remarkable journey has brought Mason Professor Jagadish Shukla from his childhood in rural India to world prominence as a climate researcher.

Robinson Professor of Physics James Trefil is a huge proponent of science literacy and has written extensively about science for a lay audience. With his colleague, Robinson Professor of Earth Science Robert Hazen, he created and taught Great Ideas in Science, a popular course for nonscience majors.

Robinson Professor James Trefil, who is the third Mason faculty member to reach the milestone of 50 years of service, taught at the University of Virginia for more than a decade before joining Mason’s then brand-new Robinson Professor Program in 1987.