Distinguished Lecture by Dr. Claudio Talarico, Professor, Electrical and Computing Engineering, Gonzaga University

Wednesday, February 18, 2026 | 1:00 p.m. – 2:50 p.m.
Catalyst Building, 601 E Riverside Avenue, Room 202 — Spokane, WA 99202

The future of microchip design is being rewritten—and Spokane is the place to witness it.

Join us in the Catalyst Building for an exciting Distinguished Lecture on Chip Design featuring Dr. Claudio Talarico, a leading expert in semiconductor innovation and integrated circuit design.

Powered by the momentum of the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act, this talk will explore how open-source tools and emerging design methodologies are revolutionizing the way microelectronics chips are created. Dr. Talarico will reveal how these technologies are breaking down traditional barriers, expanding access to chip development, and helping close the workforce gap in the semiconductor and microelectronics industries.

Attendees will gain insight into cutting-edge, real-world approaches that make chip design more accessible, scalable, and innovative—opening new doors for students, engineers, researchers, startups, and industry professionals alike. This is a unique opportunity to learn how the next generation of microelectronics is being built.

Meet the Speaker: Dr. Claudio Talarico

Claudio Talarico received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Genoa, Italy, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Hawai’i. He is currently a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Gonzaga University. Before joining Gonzaga University, he was with Eastern Washington University, the University of Arizona, and industry, where he held both engineering and management positions at Siemens Semiconductors, IKOS Systems, and Marconi Communications. His research focuses on the design of low-power, high-performance, and high-precision digital and mixed-signal integrated circuits and systems for a variety of applications, including wireless communication systems, non-invasive biomedical monitoring systems, and embedded systems-on-chip.

Over the last twelve years, his research activity has resulted in more than 40 peer-reviewed publications spanning a diverse range of areas, including wireless communications, biomedical circuits, and AI. In 2023–2024, he was the recipient of Gonzaga’s Faculty Award for Professional Contribution.

With a $450,000 grant from the Washington Department of Ecology, an Eastern Washington University professor and his team of student researchers are leading a project to measure the spread of potentially harmful polyfluoroalkyl substances — the “forever chemicals” more commonly known as PFAS — to sources of drinking water on the West Plains.

kxly.com

SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. – The Eastern Washington University Regional Geology and Field Methods classes studied rock formations from an old Saltese Uplands Conservation Area fault zone.

There are multiple fault zones, both active and inactive, in the greater Spokane region, and students like Marilyn Smith explained how these zones can show how our region came to be.

“Looking at the rocks and trying to figure out how to describe them, and how to map them and how to measure them. So I can see what angles they are dipping at and that can help us piece together the history and how it all got here,” Smith said.

“The biggest activity I’ve been involved with is Eastern’s Prairie Restoration Project. It includes my own research, but also with helping students with their independent research and creating a foundation for my career.”

October 2023

On October 27th EWU’s ISC Hosted “Spooky Science”

EWU’s Spooky Science hosted a fun group of activities including glowing rocks and fungus, bugs, Bones (as seen in our featured image), and many others! This event was welcome to all ages and candy was handed out to those brave enough to come! Trunk-or-treating was also held in parking Lot 12 for those not interested in the event but fully interested in their candy.

EWU host AISES

EWU’s ISC also hosted AISES (Advancing Indigenous People in Stem) for an afternoon doing fun experiments like Chemistry of Soap making, Pond Fish and Creepy Nematodes, Tesla Coils, and Stream Dynamics and Ground Water!

August 2023

EWU hosts their first ever Girls+ STEM Camp

This month Eastern hosted its first Girls+ STEM Camp teaching young students all about the fun of science through various activities, such as:

Barbie Bungee Jump, Wetland in a bottle, Microbes (a two-day experiment), Necklace making, Creating paper rockets and writing secret messages, Circuits to light up a picture, going on a fun scavenger hunt, making Chapstick, and tie-dying t-shirts!

Check out the link below to read the official post about their activities!

July 2023

Spokane Tribes comes for a fun science visit

Spokane tribes students came for a visit to learn a little bit about science! The first experiment, taught by Dr. Masiello, was about why we don’t use fire around hydrogen. Make sure to watch the video on our Instagram to hear the big boom

The second experiment, taught by Dr. Burgis, was about Elephant Toothpaste! This chemical reaction causes a big puffy foam to flow out of the beakers! You may have even seen a Mr. Beast video about this same experiment. Make sure to check out the videos on our Instagram to see exactly what happens and how the students reacted in both experiments.

June 2023

Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Physics Graduation Award Recipients 2023:

• Kyle Reum: Chemistry
• Kailani Kennedy: Biochemistry
• Richard Ingraham: Analytical Chemistry Research
• Jaelin Ishikawa: Pre-Clinical Professions
• Duncan Briggs: Service
• Olivia Sikora: Forensic Science
• Nhat Nguyen: Physics Research
• Eugene Korchemniy: Chemistry Research

Enjoy your summers everyone and Congratulations to our Graduates. We are very proud of you!

2023 Student Research and Creative Works Symposium

Ben Novak – Presented Ordinal Analysis of 2D Chaotic Maps

Ryan Breithaupt – Chaotic Forecasting via Artificial Intelligence

Nhat Nguyen – TARDYS Quantifiers: Extracting Temporal and Reversible Dynamical Symmetries

Conference Participation

Nhat Nguyen – Attending and Presenting at the SIAM Conference on Applications of Dynamical Systems, May 14th – 18th

Medical Lake School District STEM Night

Medical Lake School District hosted a STEM night on May 3^rd that brought together area STEM experts. There were over 400 kids that attended. The Chemistry group made slime and liquid nitrogen ice cream. Physics was in attendance as well.

BEI Institute at EWU

The Bilingual Educators Initiative (BEI) is a high school teacher academy that recruits multilingual, underserved, and multicultural students to explore educational opportunities through the lens of the teaching profession. The program aims to diversify the educator workforce, close the opportunity gap, and diminish the teacher shortage by working with high school students (Recruiting Washington Teachers 2019-20 Annual Report, 2020). The Noyce Project and chemistry students helped with activities during a weeklong BEI Institute at EWU. High school students learned about social justice issues with science and made soap. As well as tie-dyed shirts and had liquid nitrogen ice cream.

Tony Masiello and EWU Undergraduate John Vant publish an Article in the Journal of Molecular Spectroscopy

Tony Masiello, along with EWU undergraduate John Vant, published the article “Analysis of the rotationally-resolved infrared spectrum of CD₃⁷⁹Br and CD₃⁸¹Br between 900 and 1400 cm⁻¹” in the Journal of Molecular Spectroscopy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jms.2023.111760

CHBP people

Nick Burgis got elected for four more years as department chair.

Congratulations!

Ben Lundgren confirmed his official acceptance to be a new member of our department.

Congratulations!

Outreach

Janelle Jenkins and Andrés Aragoneses participated at an outreach event at Wilson Middle School in Spokane.

Dean Bowman will be giving a presentation on “The Magnitude 7.8 Nurdagi, Turkey Earthquake: What we know and why it happened”  at the Suds & Science events, on April 8th at 7 PM (Golden Handle Brewers, 154 S. Madison st., Spokane)