The Wesleyan Connection

Barry Chernoff, professor of biology, Robert Schumann Professor of Environmental Studies, director of the environmental studies certificate program, received a $6,950 renewal award  to support his continued research of Fish and Benthic Invertebrate Assemblages-Zemko Dam from the Nature Conservancy.

Mark Slobin, professor of music, is the author of Global Soundtracks: Worlds of Film Music published by Wesleyan University Press in September, 2008. The collection of essays analyzes the music of films ranging from mainstream and sub-cultural American films through case studies of those from China, India, Indonesia, Egypt, Nigeria, Latin American, and the Caribbean, and includes a variety of key films, periods, and studio practices. Global Soundtracks is the first anthology to suggest methods for understanding how the conventions of standard film music became localized and expanded around the world in many different periods and cinema systems, and to suggest comparative approaches of analysis.

Chia Wei “Wade” Hsu ’10 and Francis Starr, are co-authors of “Hierarchies of networked phases induced by multiple liquid-liquid critical points,” published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 105, 13711-13715. Hsu and Starr showed that by attaching specific single strands of DNA to nano-sized particles to create customizable “nano-atoms,” they could generate new materials with phase diagrams never previously seen in nature. Their work is based on a massive set of computations on the new university computer cluster. Fred Ellis, professor of physics, is Hsu’s faculty advisor.

Norman Shapiro, professor of romance languages and literatures, is the editor and translator of French Women Poets of Nine Centuries published by Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2008. The 1,182 page book features more than 600 poems from 56 different authors. Shapiro provides a window into the development and evolution of French poetry from the Middle Ages to the present.

Masami Imai, assistant professor of economics, assistant professor of East Asian Studies, received a research grant from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s Center for Financial Research for a proposal titled “Real Effects of Finance: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Japan” on April 30.

Janice Naegele, professor of neuroscience and behavior, professor and chair of biology, is the co-recipient of a grant from the Fragile X Foundation worth $69,450 for the “Role of STEP in Fragile X Syndrome.” The grant was awarded May 1. Fragile X is the most common inherited cause of mental impairment and the most common known cause of autism. About 25 percent of children with Fragile X have seizures and epilepsy. The grant will support research on the causes and potential treatments for epilepsy in a mouse model of Fragile X. In addition to the grant, Professor Naegele and her collaborators were invited to participate in the FRAXA Research Foundation Investigators Meeting in September 2008 in Durham, N.H.

Barbara Juhasz, assistant professor of psychology, received a contract worth $19,818 to examine eye movements of older adults during webpage viewing.

David Beveridge, the University Professor of the Sciences and Mathematics, professor of chemistry, received a National Institutes of Health grant renewal to support the Molecular Biophysics Training Program. Wesleyan is the only liberal arts college to have such a program. The grant will support the program for an additional three years.

Ann Burke, associate professor of biology, and Sonia Sultan, professor of biology, received individual grants from the Eppley foundation for research. The Eppley Foundation for Research supports advanced post-doctoral work in the physical and biological sciences, computer science, social sciences, and educational programs. Burke’s grant, worth $32,442, will help to support her postdoctoral research fellow, Rebecca Shearman. Sultan’s grant, worth $25,000, provides support while she writes a book.

The ninth annual Molecular Biophysics Retreat was held at Wadsworth Mansion in Middletown on Sept. 18. The event was organized by David Beveridge, professor of chemistry and the University Professor of the Sciences and Mathematics; Manju Hingorani, associate professor of molecular biology; and Ishita Mukerji, professor of molecular biology.
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Wesleyan students built a bird-viewing platform for the Helen Carlson Wildlife Sanctuary in Portland, Conn. The architecture project, named SplitFrame, will be celebrated by a reception for the project at 2 p.m. Oct. 19 at the sanctuary.

Imagine this architectural challenge: create a site-appropriate structure for a former cranberry bog covered with 3 feet of water; use durable and sustainable materials and construction technologies as extensively as possible; work within a budget and; make it optimal for observing Redwing Blackbirds, Scarlet Tanagers, Hooded Mergansers, and the occasional Great Blue Heron. (more…)

During a restless winter day in northeast Vermont, Katherine Bascom ‘10 had an indoor wrestling match with her overly energetic dog, Ori. Midway through the contest, Bascom grabbed a camera off her nightstand and began snapping some shots.

One of these photographs, a close-up action-shot of Ori, is the page 36 feature photo of Wesleyan’s new, student-run magazine called Exposure.

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