Academics at Oxy

Explore Oxy’s academic programs within the Arts & Humanities, Social Sciences and Sciences. 

Oxy Courses

Oxy students and faculty are fully engaged in their courses. Explore this page to tune in to real Oxy classes, read through senior comprehensives and see data from international research projects within Oxy’s academic disciplines.

Faculty Spotlight

Oxy students are engaged members of the campus Community of Scholars, building strong relationships with faculty. Watch these videos to see seniors talk to their own Oxy faculty mentors about the courses and academic experiences that inspired them, across the curriculum:

Student Research & International Programs

Students complete their own impressive research at Oxy through programs like the Undergraduate Research Center and the Young Initiative. The International Programs Office sponsors research abroad as part of their many different programs of off-campus study. Read about Oxy's Rebellious Lawyering program, led by Associate Professor of Politics Thalia González. Like the College’s Kahane United Nations and Campaign Semester programs, it is a unique opportunity for students to combine classroom theory with hands-on experience—in this case, with public-interest law firms and nonprofits in Los Angeles. 

Oxy is a top producer of Fulbright recipients and other national and international fellowships, with students regularly receiving these highly selective awards thanks to the individual guidance provided by the Office of National & International Fellowships.

  • Occidental students on a faculty-led research trip to the La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica. The group studies plants and animals of the tropical rain forest in an intensive and immersive program.

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  • Geology professor Ann Blythe and her students in GEO105 take a field trip to Vasquez Rocks, San Andreas Fault Road Cut in Palmdale, and the Devils Punchbowl in Pearblossom.

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  • Students in Professor Jesse Mora’s economics class, "Firm-Level International Trade and Investment," take a tour of the Port of Long Beach.

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  • Clarasophia Gust ’19 collects water samples and data in Eaton Canyon as a summer intern for the Council for Watershed Health, part of Oxy’s InternLA program.

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  • Josh Medina '19 undertook a multi-year project to 3-D digitize bird specimens at the Moore Lab of Zoology that culminated in a submitted journal article, an appearance on NPR’s Science Friday, and an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

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  • Alice Feng ’20 and Alexandra Pfleegor ’20 give presentations on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects to students at Buchanan Street Elementary School in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.

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  • A student presents the results of her summer research to peers and faculty at the Undergraduate Research Center's annual Summer Research Conference.

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Arts & Humanities

Studio Art Course | Introduction to Letterpress Printing
Get an inside glimpse into Asst. Professor Jocelyn Webb Pedersen's project supply kits! These boxes were mailed to students in her ARTS 227: Introduction to Letterpress Printing class for their book making project.
Media Arts & Culture Senior Comp | Before the Interview
Danny Scharar '17 produced this comedic short as his Media Production Senior Comprehensives project. It was an official selection at the 2018 Portland Comedy Film Festival and garnered a Special Mention at the 2018 London-Worldwide Comedy Short Film Festival.
Music Research in Guam | Suppotte i Kuttura'-ta
As part of the Richter Summer Research Fellowship, Micah Garrido '17 headed to Guam where he interviewed musicians, scholars, and activists to understand the cultural psychology and preservation that music has offered as part of his "Suppotte i Kuttura'-ta: Contemporary Chamorro Music and Language Preservation on the Island of Guam" project.
East Asian Studies Independent Research Project | Modernization and Repression
Kevin Conroy '20, a history and East Asian studies major, has leveraged various funding opportunities at Oxy to research his Chinese family history and conduct oral histories about the era of the Cultural Revolution. Read more about his independent research project "Modernization and Repression: The Japanese Industrialization of Manchuria."
Theater Senior Comp | Scenic Design Project
Take a look inside Zoë Speer's Scenic Design senior comprehensive project of Jaclyn Backhaus's "Men on Boats." Read along as Speer describes her vision of Backhaus's story and how she would bring it to life on stage.
Media Arts & Culture Senior Comp | Consuming Time
Miranda Clancy '18 produced the video essay "Consuming Time: Examining Efficiency in Food Television" as her Critical Media Comprehensives project, researching the ways television cooking shows' narrative fixations with time management fit into a larger history of Western industrialism and capitalism.
Theater Senior Comp | Working Class: The Unofficial Gay Agenda
Check out Richard H. Via's senior comprehensive project, Working Class: The Unofficial Gay Agenda, a written, performed, produced and designed one-man storytelling show about Via's life.
First-Year Seminar Course | Health & Humanities
Professor Upson-Saia provides an overview of the interdisciplinary Health & Humanity seminar as part of Occident's Core Studies Program. This popular course, CSP 50: Health and Humanities, looks at contemporary healthcare issues through a historical, moral, and economic lens.
Philosophy Senior Comp | Love and the Epistemic Distance Between Us
Caroline Dahl '21 connected the themes in Chris Lebron's The Making of Black Lives Matter to those found in the work of James Baldwin. Her senior thesis reflects on the power and limitations of love as an emancipatory force for racial justice.
History Senior Comp | Student Club to Supreme Court
Emily Jo Wharry '19 examines the precarious and occasionally conflicted balancing act of the Federalist Society's presence in American politics in her Senior Comprehensives project, "Student Club to Supreme Court: The Federalist Society's Origins on Law School Campuses."
Spanish Senior Comp | The representation of the binaries of sexual gender and sexuality within works by Manuel Puig
Annika Moen '20 explores gender and sexuality within the traditions of patriarchal society as reflected within Spanish literature in her Spanish Senior Comprehensives project.
History Senior Comp | Fascism’s Final Hour
Xander Klas '19 explore the long participation of Italian leaders in the Fascist state and party that existed before Mussolini’s fall in 1943 in this Senior Comprehensives project, "Fascism’s Final Hour: Italian Agency in the Republic of Salò."
Music Course | Introduction to Digital Audio Workstation
Instructor J.B. Bontemps explores removing silence in vocal tracks using Digital Audio Workstation in this Music Production track class, MUSC 148: Introduction to Digital Audio Workstation.
French Senior Comp | L’Identité
Andrea DeVries '20 relates her experience abroad to those with ​a Francophone identity, as in people who speak French fluently and live in France but are not French, in this Senior Comprehensives project, "L’Identité: Basée sur la Fiction."
Art & Art History/Religious Studies Research in Italy & France | The Dormition of Mary
Aneesah Ettress '16 traveled to France and Italy to examine different dormition works from the 13th-15th centuries and identified iconographical elements in renaissance artwork as part of the Richter Summer Research Fellowship.
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Social Sciences

Latino/a & Latin American Studies Senior Comp | Guatemalan and Argentine Women’s Response Towards State-Sanctioned Violence
Citlaly Madrid '20 investigates the endeavors of women-led human rights organizations in Argentina and Guatemala in her Senior Comprehensives project, "Guatemalan and Argentine Women’s Response Towards State-Sanctioned Violence: The Role of Motherhood Identity and Family Ideology in Daily Activism."
Pursuing Politics and Law | Student Opportunities in Faculty-Led Research
Hear from politics faculty, students, and alums as they discuss their current research initiatives, the significance of student-faculty collaboration, and how these research opportunities prepare graduates for life after Oxy.
Urban & Environmental Policy Senior Comp | Diabetes Management Confidence and Emergency Room Visits in Los Angeles
Sarah Moore '19 addresses healthcare gaps in treating diabetes among different racial groups in her Senior Comprehensives project, "Diabetes Management Confidence and Emergency Room Visits in Los Angeles."
Diplomacy & World Affairs Student Speaker Series | China & Africa in the Age of Globalization
Diplomacy & World Affairs Associate Professor Sophal Ear speaks to Oxy students on Asia's role in developing Africa.
Politics Senior Comp | The Effect of Candidate Gender on Campaign Strategy
Sophie Tieman '15 looked at television advertisements from two Senate races in 2014 to explore the influence candidates' gender has on campaign strategy and agenda in her Senior Comprehensives project, "The Effect of Candidate Gender on Campaign Strategy."
Black Studies Senior Comp | Death-Worlds and Literary Form
Reilly Torres '19 investigates, through Jesmyn Ward's literature, the concept theorized by Black Studies scholars that African Americans live in particularly close proximity to death because the nation deems their lives expendable. Torres dives into this topic within his Senior Comprehensives project "Death-Worlds and Literary Form: Capturing Black Death in Jesmyn Ward’s Novels."
Diplomacy & World Affairs Senior Comp | The Violence of Imagined Communities
Hallaamal Keir '19 explores Israeli national identity, nationalism and their implications on various groups within the state of Israel within this Senior Comprehensives project, "The Violence of Imagined Communities: an Analysis of the Relationship Between National Identity and the State of Israel."
Sociology Senior Comp | Taking off the 'Masc'
Zander Granath '20 conducted qualitative interviews with gay identifying men (ages 18-23) to research how gay men navigate hyper-masculinity and “mascing” culture online through his Senior Comprehensives project, "Taking off the 'Masc': How Gay-Identifying Men Perceive and Navigate Hyper-Masculinity and 'Mascing' Culture Online."
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Sciences

Oxy's Moore Laboratory of Zoology
At Oxy's Moore Laboratory of Zoology you will find a museum of 65,000 vintage bird and mammal specimens. With our team of students, we conduct cutting-edge research—combining vintage specimens with modern DNA technology—to understand how Earth’s biodiversity got here and where it is headed in the future. Welcome to the largest Mexican bird collection in the world!
Computer Science Course | Game Design
Students Stephanie Malter '20, Makayla Keasler '20, Maximianne Castaneda '22 and Olivia Baldwin-Geilin '22 use software development, game mechanics, and psychology to build their own interactive game in Computer Science 277: Game Design.
Oxy's Vantuna Research Group
The Vantuna Research Group has been monitoring and researching the marine environment of Southern and Baja California since 1966. The purpose of the Palos Verdes Reef Restoration project is to restore rocky-reef habitats and associated marine species on the Palos Verdes Shelf that were impacted by contamination, sedimentation and scour. Watch the video to learn more!
Biology Research in Ecuador | Galapagos Mockingbirds : Mapping the Distribution, Behavior, and Oral MicroBiome
Sammy Herdman '19 headed to the Galapagos Islands as part of the Richter Summer Research Fellowship to analyze four different species of mockingbirds and determine how variance in islands and environmental factors led to species differences.
Kinesiology Senior Comp | Femoroacetabular Impingement
Josh Yee '20 presents the risk factors of high impact sports on adolescent participants in his Senior Comprehensives project, "Femoroacetabular Impingement: Etiology and analysis of its pathomechanics, associated pathologies, and treatment options in adolescent athletes participating in high impact sports."
Pre-Health Student Guide
This guide for Pre-Health students at Oxy outlines the basic course requirements, explains what your four years in the program would look like, and shares the colleges specific resources for Pre-Health students.
Chemistry Course | Organic Chemistry
Assistant Professor Raul Navarro explores organic reactions in this Organic Chemistry seminar, Chem 220: Organic Chemistry.
Biology Published Student Research | The High Speed Radular Prey Strike of a Fish-Hunting Cone Snail
Professor Joseph R. Schulz, Ian Jan '20, Gurleen Sangha '17 and fellow scientist, Emanuel Azizi had their ground-breaking research published in the August 2019 issue of Current Biology.
Chemistry Senior Comp | Dispersant Effect on Coatings of POSS-Based Poly Methylmethacrylate Hybrids
Cheyenne Orozco '20 explores solvent changes solubilization of polymers and their ability to increase lifespan of stone monuments in her Senior Comprehensives project, "Dispersant Effect on Coatings of POSS-Based Poly Methylmethacrylate Hybrids and their Protective Performance to Sandstones."
Chemistry Senior Comp | Wool/Acrylic Blended Fabrics
Ayanna Lynch '20 investigates how photodynamic dyed fibers can cause inactivation of microbes and provide viable microbial control in her Senior Comprehensives project, "Wool/Acrylic Blended Fabrics as Next-Generation Photodynamic Antimicrobial Materials."
Biology Course | Plant Physiological Ecology
Jade Thurnham '20 explores the relationship between soil microbes and pine success in Professor North's course on Plant Physiological Ecology.
Cognitive Science Senior Comp | Contextualizing Evidence for Plant Intelligence
Sarah Hoffman '20 presents her research on whether plants can be identified as having intelligence in her Senior Comprehensives project poster.
Math Course | Junior Colloquium
In this Math 300: Junior Colloquium seminar, students lead the class in proofs and analyses of discrete mathematics including countability, the Chinese Remainder Theorem, and injective, surjective and bijective functions.
Computer Science Senior Comp | Replicating the Entire Product Development Process
Julian Chan '20 details the step-by-step process in creating a fully functional, more user-centric, alternative to course review websites such as Ratemyprofessors.com in this Senior Comprehensives project poster, "Replicating the Entire Product Development Process: Building a Better Alternative to Ratemyprofessors.com."
Biology Published Student Research | Primary Cell Culture of Adult Zebrafish
Max E. Meade '19, Jessica E. Roginsky '16, and Professor Joseph R. Schulz had their collaborative research,"Primary cell culture of adult zebrafish spinal neurons for electrophysiological studies," published in the April 2019 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience Methods.
Physics Senior Comp | Calibration and Background Studies for a Light Dark Matter Search
Nan Ma '18 conducted a series of benchmarking experiments measuring neutron attenuation and other promising dark matter candidates in this Senior Comprehensives project, "Calibration and Background Studies for a Light Dark Matter Search."
Computer Science Research | Training A Convolutional Neural Network to Output a Blum MedialAxis Skeleton
This video provides an overview of Oxy student Joaquín Madrid Larrañaga's '23 research regarding "Training A Convolutional Neural Network to Output a Blum MedialAxis Skeleton." This research was done in collaboration with Say Brown, under the direction of Kathryn Leonard at Occidental College.
Biology Course | Cell Biology
Associate Professor Cheryl Okumura takes a special look at the novel coronavirus in her Cell Biology seminar, Bio 226: Cell Biology.
Kinesiology Research in Argentina | Evaluating Fundacion Nutrir's Malnutrition Interventions in Salta Capital, Argentina
By partnering with a community-based health center in Argentina, Luis Torres '19 studied ways to improve family-based education on nutrition and wellness as part of the Richter Summer Research Fellowship.
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