Cynthia RockwellJuly 1, 20135min
Sasha Chanoff ’94, founder and executive director of RefugePoint, hosted an inaugural event on June 19 in advance of World Refugee Day in Cambridge, Mass., near the organization’s headquarters. Featured was the work of photojournalist Amy Toensing, a regular contributor to National Geographic, whose latest project, In the Shadows: Urban Refugee Children, documented the lives of urban refugee children in Africa, one of the populations RefugePoint works to protect. RefugePoint, an action-oriented organization, is focused on locating people whose lives are caught in an untenable zone—unable to go home, yet unable to find themselves a new, safe place to live—and helping…

Natalie Robichaud ’14July 1, 20133min
In her new book Geographical Diversions  (The University of Georgia Press), Tina Harris ’98 employs cultural anthropology, human geography, and material culture to explore the social and economic transformations that take place along one trade route that extends through China, Nepal, Tibet, and India. She makes connections between the seemingly mundane motions of daily life and more abstract levels of global change by focusing on two generations of traders and how they create “geographies of trade that work against state ideas of what trade routes should look like.”  She observes the tensions between the apparent fixity of invisible national boundaries…

Natalie Robichaud ’14July 1, 20134min
Tejas Desai '03, author of The Brotherhood and creator of The New Wei Collective, will release Dhan's Debut and Other Stories, his first collection of short stories, this fall. Desai's previous novel, The Brotherhood, the first book in The Brotherhood Trilogy, is a noir thriller that deals with contemporary social issues facing the Indian-American population.While at Wesleyan he wrote a collection of short stories with the same title and similar themes. Reworked over the years into its current version, the novel expresses Desai's interest in “the different ideologies inherent in Hinduism and Buddhism, differences of personality and outlook, the relationship…

Natalie Robichaud ’14July 1, 20133min
Maya Gomes ’06 and her co-author Matthew Hurtgen published their paper, “Sulfur isotope systematics in a permanently euxinic, low-sulfate lake: Evaluating the importance of the reservoir effect in modern and ancient oceans,” in the June issue of the journal, Geology. In the paper, the authors present data that shows how geologists can use sulfur isotope compositions of marine sediments to discover variations in oceanic sulfate levels through Earth history. Gomes explained that the paper is very important to researchers who study the climate of the past because “marine sulfate levels play a role in regulating oxygen and carbon dioxide levels…

Bill FisherJuly 1, 20131min
At a special Reunion & Commencement appearance with all ticket sales going to financial aid, Amanda Palmer '98 played the piano and the ukulele and joyfully performed a set of her inimitable songs on the stage in Crowell Concert Hall on May 24. Her husband, Neil Gaiman, winner of writing honors from the Newbery Medal to the Hugo Award to the Will Eisner Comic Award, read from his work and joined Palmer in fielding questions from a rapt audience of alumni, parents and students. [youtube width="640" height="420"]http://youtu.be/v8GwhGkZauI[/youtube] More information about Wesleyan's THIS IS WHY campaign and upcoming events can be…

Olivia DrakeJuly 1, 20132min
Several Wesleyan alumni, staff and friends participated in the four-mile Hartford Marathon Foundation's Legend Run June 30 on Wesleyan's campus. The Legends Run brought legends Bill Rodgers ’70 and Amby Burfoot ’68 back to campus, along with some running stars of younger generations. (Photo by Steve McLaughlin) View more photos of the event in this Hartford Courant article: