Research Powered by Sagehen HPC
From journal covers to senior theses, work computed on Pomona’s cluster is showing up in print, at conferences, and in classrooms. A few highlights from the labs that make Sagehen busy.
papers, theses & presentations
journal covers
departments and counting
student co-authors
Featured publications
Peer-reviewed work with computation on Sagehen at its core, and Pomona students all over the author lists.
Multivalent binding mechanism of LRP1-fibrinogen interactions
Liam Kwak ’26 led this study combining experimental QCM-D with molecular dynamics simulations run on Sagehen, and painted the cover art too.
Biophysical Journal, 2026 • Garza-Lopez & Johal labs, Chemistry
Copper(II) inhibition of the SARS-CoV-2 main protease
Three Pomona students co-authored this docking and molecular dynamics study with collaborators at Caltech’s Beckman Institute, simulated on Sagehen.
Natural Sciences, 2025 • Garza-Lopez lab, Chemistry
Selecting ChIP-seq normalization methods
Sara Colando ’24’s thesis-era bioinformatics work grew into a peer-reviewed methods paper, with revision-cycle simulations completed on Sagehen.
Briefings in Bioinformatics, 2025 • Hardin lab, Mathematics & Statistics
Measuring the impact of missingness in traffic stop data
Student-faculty analysis of policing data, computed on the Pomona RStudio server backed by Sagehen.
Harvard Data Science Review, 2026 • Hardin lab, Mathematics & Statistics
ADAPT: assessing diversity in physics textbooks
An NLP and machine learning pipeline built with two Pomona students identifies whose work gets cited in physics teaching, with HPC support acknowledged in the paper.
American Journal of Physics, 2024 • Hudgings lab, Physics & Astronomy
Magma beneath Olympus Mons
A NASA Mars Data Analysis Program grant underwrites finite element and Monte Carlo modelling on Sagehen, producing a book chapter, conference abstracts, and student theses on Mars and Venus volcanism.
Elsevier, Planetary Tectonism across the Solar System, 2026 • Grosfils lab, Geology
Beyond the papers
Senior theses
Running a large language model on an A100 GPU to study privacy, simulating how moss launches its spores in ANSYS Fluent, modelling Martian magma reservoirs, and analyzing 1.5 TB of brain imaging data. Sagehen theses span the college.
In the classroom
Computational chemistry students run Gaussian jobs, neural networks courses train models on cluster GPUs, and a behavioral neuroscience lab tracks C. elegans with pipelines on Sagehen.
On the conference circuit
Sagehen-computed results have traveled to ACS, the Society for Neuroscience, the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, CNS, and international meetings from Croatia to Korea, often with students presenting.
Conservation science, powered from Claremont
Researchers at the California Botanic Garden run conservation genomics on Sagehen: sequencing pipelines for federally listed rare plants, forensic botany of poached Agave, and a phylogenomic study spanning roughly 350 species.
Published with Sagehen’s help?
Tell us about it and we’ll add your work to this page. An acknowledgment line in your paper helps us keep the cluster funded, too.
Last reviewed: August 2026