The Wesleyan Connection

Laura Anderson '11 (center) and fellow earth and environmental science majors and faculty kayak off the coast of Puerto Rico in January. The students worked on research projects on the island, and presented their findings in April.

This semester, 18 earth and environmental sciences majors explored dwarf mangrove forests, studied landslide susceptibility in a rainforest, examined if cave rocks record bat inhabitation, and analyzed the chemistry of coastal seagrass – all in Puerto Rico.

The students, who are enrolled in the E&ES 398 course Senior Seminar, developed observational, interpretative and research skills through their island studies. The seniors traveled to Puerto Rico in January for fieldwork, and spent the past few months analyzing their findings.

They presented their Senior Seminar Presentations on April 19 and 21 as part of the Stearns (more…)

Bill Herbst

Bill Herbst, the John Monroe van Vleck Professor of Astronomy, will serve as Director of Graduate Studies, beginning this fall 2011 through spring 2014.

Herbst received his B.A degree from Princeton University, his M. Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Toronto and has taught at Wesleyan since 1978, often serving as chair of the Astronomy Department and as director of the Van Vleck Observatory. In 2003, he received the Wesleyan Alumni Association’s Binswanger Award for Excellence in Teaching. He has recently served on the Advisory Committee, as chair of the Merit Committee, as vice-chair of RAB and, over the years, on many other faculty committees including the Faculty Planning Committee and as chair of the Student Affairs Committee.

As an astronomer who studies the formation and evolution of young stars and protoplanetary disks, his discoveries have been featured prominently in the journals of his field as well as the popular press. He is particularly known for his work on T Tauri stars, sun-like stars surrounded by disks in which the formation of planets is either already proceeding or imminent. With collaborators at the Max Planck Institute in Germany he has led the world in the discovery of rotation rates of young stars and elucidated the rotation history of sun-like stars from their earliest times. His work has been presented in many venues including the prestigious Protostars and Planets V conference hosted at the University of Hawaii in 2007.

In 1995, with graduate student Kristin Kearns, he discovered, based on observations at Wesleyan, a unique star system now known as KH 15D whose behavior continues to astound astronomers, while informing studies of terrestrial planet formation. In collaboration with his (physics) Ph.D. student Catrina Hamilton, now a faculty member at Dickinson College, (more…)

Peter Patton has taught at Wesleyan since 1976.

Peter Patton, professor of earth and environmental sciences, has been appointed as the first Alan M. Dachs Professor of Science, currently housed in the College of the Environment.

The endowed chair was created with the generous support of Alan Dachs ’70, P’98, chair emeritus of the Board of Trustees.

“I am delighted that Peter Patton will be the first to hold the Alan M. Dachs Chair in the Natural Sciences,” says Dachs. “It is only fitting that a scientist and teacher of his caliber should be recognized in this way. Wesleyan, and science at Wesleyan, have always come first in Peter’s professional life. He epitomizes the very best Wesleyan has to offer.”

Patton has taught at Wesleyan since 1976, making substantial contributions as chair of Earth and Environmental Sciences, as interim director of Information Technology Services, through twice serving as Interim Dean of the College and by serving as vice president and secretary of the University for ten years through 2008. He has served on numerous university committees (more…)

The Parade of Classes begins at 11:15 a.m. May 20. The annual event is a popular event during Reunion & Commencement Weekend.

Celebrate graduating seniors and reminisce with former classmates during the 2011 Reunion & Commencement Weekend May 19-22.

This year, classes ending in “1” and “6” will celebrate their reunions, and the Class of 2011 will become Wesleyan’s 179th graduating class.

“As always, I’m looking forward to R&C – it’s such a fun and celebratory time for the entire Wesleyan community, with over 150 events during three days,” says Gemma Ebstein, associate vice president for external relations in University Relations. “In addition to another incredible array of WESeminars, we’ll enjoy great live music from Grammy-nominated Jazz singer Tierney Sutton ‘86, performances by WEStand-up alumni comedians and the Wesleyan Spirits and – of course – the traditional Friday and Saturday night parties. With reunion class gatherings, academic department open houses and the Festival on Foss Hill, there’s literally something for everyone. And the weekend culminates with Commencement where we’ll hear from legendary anthropologist and physician, Paul Farmer. If you haven’t made plans to join us for this memorable Wesleyan weekend, it’s not too late to register.”

Registration begins at 10 a.m. May 19 in Usdan University Center. Alumni, parents, students and families should check in for a final weekend schedule, meal tickets, a welcome packet, campus maps and more. Campus tours begin at 9 a.m. and noon on May 20 at the Office of Admission. The entire May 19 schedule is online here.

Wesleyan’s interactive and inspiring WESeminar program begins at 11:30 a.m. May 20 with the topic “How to Learn to Like the Art You Love to Hate.” WESeminars provide opportunities to revisit the classroom and experience firsthand the academic excellence that is the essence of Wesleyan, with presentations by scholars, pundits, and other experts in their fields. Programs run approximately 60 minutes, followed by audience Q&A.

Other topics this year include Immigration Policy, Principles and Politics; Space Weather; Community Partnership and Scholarship at Wesleyan; Re-Branding Russia; The Ocean’s Oddest Creatures; The Wesleyan Media Project’s 2010 Analysis of Political Advertising; Thinking Critically about the Environment; The State of Queer Connecticut; Negotiation Skills; Japanese Printmaking; Wesleyan Alumni in Philanthropy and Public Service; and many more.

Other key events on May 20 include a Welcome Picnic Lunch at 11:30 a.m.; Wesleyan Farmers’ Market at noon; (more…)

Pictured are participants of the 5K for Brighter Dawns.

The student-run organization Brighter Dawns raised more than $1,150 during the 5K for Brighter Dawns on April 16.

The group is raising funds to build 30 latrines and 10 wells in Khalispur, Bangladesh. They also hope to provide sanitary kits to local households and hire three community health officers to educate the community in sanitary practices.

Brighter Dawns Development Director Jason Youngbin Lee '12 and Middletown Mayor Sebastian Giuliano.

Middletown Mayor Sebastian Giuliano and Wesleyan President Michael Roth attended the event.

Participants paid $10 to walked or run the 3.1 mile course, which was located on the Wes Fuhrman ’05 Trail near Long Lane. Brighter Dawns also raised funds by selling t-shirts at the event. Prizes were awarded to the top three finishers.

Davy Knittle ’11 will participate in the 2011 American Experience Student Freedom Ride, created by PBS.

From May 6-16, Knittle and 39 other college students will join original Freedom Riders in retracing the 1961 historic rides from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans, La. via bus.

They will explore the state of civil engagement today.

“I’m getting on the bus to work with and learn from several generations of student activists,” Knittle says. “I’m interested in thinking about what student activism can look like, does look like, and has looked like by considering what we can do to provide a model for new ways of thinking about collective engagement.”

Watch Knittle’s video online here.

Jesse Friedman ’11, Anya Olsen ’11 and Catherine Steidl ’11 received a Baden-Württemberg–Connecticut Exchange Grant for one year’s study in Germany.

The Baden-Württemberg Exchange Program offers students an opportunity to earn college credits in one of Germany’s top nine universities. Students spend the academic year at the university they choose.

The Baden-Württemberg Exchange originated from a legislative partnership formed between the State of Connecticut and the German state of Baden-Württemberg in 1989. The agreement invites all students enrolled in four-year colleges and universities in Connecticut to study at any institution of higher learning in Baden-Württemberg. With nine universities from which to choose and a large number of Fachhochschulen and Kunsthochschulen, students of all disciplines can be accommodated.

The Baden-Württemberg Exchange is a reciprocal exchange program. This means that Connecticut students prepay their usual tuition and then trade places with a German student from the Exchange, who has paid their German tuition.

Brighter Dawns members, from left, Karla Therese Sy ’13, Rashedul Haydar ’14 and Shirley Deng ’14 attended the United for Sight conference.

Members of the student-run group, Brighter Dawns, participated in the Unite for Sight Global Health and Innovation 2011 Conference April 16-17 at Yale University. The conference welcomed leaders, changemakers, and participants from all fields of global health, international development and social entrepreneurship.

Tasmiha Khan ’12, founder of Brighter Dawns, spoke about her organization during a session on “Water and Clinic Social Enterprise Pitches – Ideas in Development.” Brighter Dawns is raising funds to improve access to safe sanitation in Bangladesh.

More than 2,220 professionals and students from all 50 states attended the conference.

In honor of the centennial of the writer Sybille Bedford, and in conjunction with The Paris Review, Lisa Cohen, assistant professor of English, organized an evening of readings of her work on March 24 in New York City. Cohen writes about Bedford in The Paris Review. Cohen’s writing has appeared in Fashion Theory, Bookforum, Ploughshares, The Boston Review, and other journals and anthologies. Her book, All We Know—portraits of the neglected modernist figures Esther Murphy, Mercedes de Acosta, and Madge Garland—will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2012.

Sybille Bedford (1911-2006) was one of the great 20th-century stylists of the English language.

Guy Geyer '13, who studies an antimatter called antihydrogen, received honorable mention for the 2011-12 Barry Goldwater Scholarship.

By synthesizing the antimatter particle antihydrogen, physicists will have the ability to create a more accurate picture and explanation of the universe.

“Would antimatter fall down — or fall up?,” asks physics major Guy Geyer ’13. “If we could trap antihydrogen for a longer length of time, we could test the gravitational effects of the particle. This would certainly be what scientists aim to do in the end.”

Geyer, who studies antihydrogen at Wesleyan, received honorable mention for the 2011-12 Barry Goldwater Scholarship. He competed with 1,095 mathematics, science, and engineering students nationwide for the award.

Geyer began his antihydrogen research last summer under the direction of Reinhold Blümel, the Charlotte Augusta Ayres Professor of Physics. Since then, he has turned the project, titled “Antihydrogen Production in a Paul Trap,” into a successful thesis in partial fulfillment of the Informatics and Modeling Certificate.

While hydrogen is made of an electron and a proton bound together in orbit, antihydrogen (more…)

Chi-Young Kim '03

Chi-Young Kim ’03 has translated the international best-selling Korean novel, Please Look After Mom (Knopf), which recounts the story of a family’s search for their mother, who disappears one afternoon amid the crowds of the Seoul Station subway. The novel is told from the points of view of four of the family members.

In a review of the novel in The New York Times, Mythili G. Rao writes: “Shin’s prose, intimate and hauntingly spare in this translation by Chi-Young Kim, moves from first to second and third person, and powerfully conveys grief’s bewildering immediacy.”

The Korea Times wrote that Please Look After Mom “would not have made a sensational international debut without professional translator Kim Chi-young. The 30-year-old Korean-American suspended her law practice to devote herself to translating Korean literature.”

The newspaper also profiled Kim as a translator following in her mother’s footsteps. Kim comments about her work: “It makes me feel good to help those who don’t speak Korean learn more about Korean literature, and what many Koreans love and cherish.”

Based in Los Angeles, Kim is the recipient of the Daesan Foundation Translation Grant in 2005 and 2008, and the 34th Modern Korean Literature Translation Award in 2003. Her other translations include Kyung Ran Jo’s Tongue (Bloomsbury, 2009), Young-ha Kim’s Your Republic Is Calling You (Mariner Books, 2010) and I Have the Right to Destroy Myself (Harvest Books, 2007), and Lee Dong-ha’s Toy City (Koryo Press, 2007)..