Messiah University Computing, Mathematics and Physics

05/27/2026

Congratulations! A well-deserved recognition! For many years, Bev Motich has significantly contributed to the CMP department through her teaching, advising, and connections to community partners. Thank you, Bev!

👏 Congratulations to the recipients of our 2026 Adjunct Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence:

• Beverly Motich — Department of Computing, Mathematics and Physics
• Carmen de Castillo-Zerbe — Department of Language, Literature, and Writing

We’re so thankful for the lasting impact these faculty members have on the Messiah community through the ways they invest in students both inside and outside the classroom!

04/29/2026

This past Monday, Cybirds club hosted its final Women in Cyber event of the semester. Attendees decorated tote bags, made pipe cleaner flowers, and enjoyed snacks. The event was full of fun and fostered a sense of community. They look forward to continuing these traditions next year!

04/22/2026

Messiah University’s Cyber Competition team competed in the Mid-Atlantic Colligate Cyber Defense Competition (MACCDC) this past March, finishing in 5th place - the winning team was from the University of Virginia. MACCDC follows an “inherit-and-defend” format, where teams begin with vulnerable systems and must secure them while a professional Red Team of pe*******on testers actively attacks the network. This was one of the strongest showings Messiah has had in the region since the team started 4 years ago, highlighting not only the team’s growth but the overall growth of Messiah’s Cybersecurity program. The team is excited to begin training and preparing for next year’s competition, building on this momentum in the semesters ahead.

(Pictured: On day one of the competition, the team was split into Linux and Windows groups and collaborated while hardening their virtual machines. At the end of the last part of the competition, infamously known for the highest amount of Red Team activity, the team posed in front of the “red wall” showing all services for all teams offline.)

04/17/2026

CMP students and faculty have continued to make their mark at conferences this season!

Earlier this month, two CMP groups converged on Shippensburg University for annual conferences. Dr. Nick Weaver and several students attended the EPaDel conference. In addition to attending, Caleb Rice and Jack Raley presented their research titled ‘When Corrections Don’t Cut It: Multiple Testing in Microbiome Analyses.’ Nearby on the Shippensburg campus, the Competitive Programming Club with advisor Dr. David Owen attended the Pennsylvania Computer and Information Science Educators (PACISE) conference. The theme of the conference was Order in Chaos. Two teams of three students each participated in the programming competition, which was part of the PACISE conference.

During spring break, Prof. Cindy Lehman and one of our cybersecurity students attended the WiCyS 2026 conference in the Washington, D.C. area. Over the course of the three-day conference, they connected with students and faculty from WiCyS affiliates and other student chapters, as well as industry partners. The leader of the internal Defense Platforms team at Anthropic was a featured speaker. The WiCyS conference is dedicated to recruiting, retaining, and advancing women in cybersecurity.

We are so proud of our students for continuing to engage and excel beyond the classroom!

04/16/2026

This spring, several CMP Department faculty members welcomed guest speakers into their courses, and many of them are Messiah alums. There’s something special about graduates coming back to share what they’re learning in their fields!

Guest speakers provide invaluable insight that supplements coursework with pertinent experiences. These conversations also help current students to build their professional networks.

We greatly appreciate all the guest speakers who gave their time this spring:

David Bigelow, Thomas Durika, Kristina (Akselsen) McDonald, Nathan Mundis, Haley (Wagman) Pitzer, Maria Stoltzfus, and Jillian Stoltzfus – Teaching Mathematics and Computer Science (Prof. Cindy Lehman)

Mahalakshmi Aranganathan and Prasanna Srinivasan - Machine Learning and Biology (Dr. Prasanna Christodoss)

Sundeep Bobba - AI and Software (Dr. Prasanna Christodoss)

Dan Custer, Kathy Jablonski, Dr. Nate James, Jason Richwine – Data Science (Dr. Sam Wilcock)

04/14/2026

Service Day is one of our favorite annual Messiah traditions!

On April 9th, the CMP Department had the privilege of partnering with two local organizations. In the morning, students joined older adult participants at Messiah Lifeways: Pathways Institute for a workshop session on real-world cyber scam scenarios, equipping them with practical tools to stay safer online. In the afternoon, other students headed to Thrift on Purpose, an MCC non-profit thrift store in Mechanicsburg, to learn about their mission and sort clothing donations in their newly expanded space.

We greatly appreciated these opportunities to serve alongside each other and support our community!

04/07/2026

Read more about current Physics research at Messiah University in the Spring 2026 issue of The Bridge:
All Things Visible and Invisible by Matthew G. Solovey

“With a prestigious grant, a physicist and his students are delving into the mystery of dark matter.”

“This isn’t just laboratory work,” Kryemadhi says, “it’s hands-on training for the next generation of physicists, working on real-world, cutting-edge research.”

“The theologian and physicist John Polkinghorne called science and faith ‘a binocular vision’: two perspectives that, together, give a clearer picture of reality.”

Find the article here - https://www.messiah.edu/the_bridge/2026/spring/

04/07/2026

The annual Messiah University Giving Day is here!

By donating to the Dr. Gerald D. Hess Fund for Natural Sciences - Physics, you will directly support research opportunities for our Physics students and faculty! You can also make donations to support biology, bio-chemistry and chemistry research. Matching funds have been made available.

Visit www.messiahgives.com and designate where your gift goes – to The Gerald-Hess Fund for Natural Sciences – drop down to (Physics) option.

This 24-hour, university-wide virtual event aims to raise $200,000 to support students’ experience and education. Help us meet the goal!

Visit www.messiahgives.com

03/18/2026

From PA to TX, our people are on the move! CMP faculty and students have been representing the department well at conferences this season, sharing their research and ideas with the field.

From February 18-20, Dr. Prasanna Christodoss (Computer Science) attended and presented at the IEEE International Conference on AI in Cybersecurity (ICAIC) at the University of Houston, TX. He presented collaborative research titled AI-Driven Prediction of Flexural Properties in Kevlar/Carbon/Glass Fiber Hybrid Composites Using Random Forest Regression.

On February 28, Dr. Amanda Lohss (Mathematics) and five CMP students attended the Moravian Student Mathematics Conference at Moravian University, Bethlehem, PA. Three undergraduate students (Nehemiah A., Sophia D., and Tyler W.) presented their research on the distribution of columns in staircase tableaux.

03/16/2026

Just like the flowers outside Frey Academic, we’re back and blooming! Welcome back to all our students, faculty, and staff. The CMP department is ready for a beautiful second half of the semester! (Just ignore the weather for a few more days…)🌼