Cynthia RockwellNovember 2, 20113min
Jan Eliasberg ’74 of Aquinnah Films directs the episode of N.C.I.S.-Los Angeles that airs on Nov. 8 on CBS at 9 p.m. The episode, entitled “Greed,” marks the second time Eliasberg has been tapped to put her directorial perspective on the dramatic action series featuring a Naval Criminal Investigative squad working in conjunction with local Southern California law enforcement. Eliasberg, a theater major at Wesleyan who earned her graduate degree in directing at the Yale School of Drama and studied in London, says that she enjoyed directing plays by Bertolt Brecht and Shakespeare for “the large-scale themes, examining where the…

Cynthia RockwellNovember 2, 20112min
"The secret to writing is knowing interesting people," playwright Willy Holtzman ’74 told the Portland (Maine) Press Herald. His play, The Morini Strad, opened the 2011-12 season  for the Portland Stage, receiving rave reviews. It is slated to open in New York City in March. The “interesting person” he is refering to is his friend since Wesleyan days, Brian Skarstad ’73, now an artist who crafts high-end violins. "Brian called me one day with this story," Holtzman continues. Skarstad had received a request from an aging violinist, Erica Morini, asking him to help sell her Stradivarius. He found her to be unpleasant and demanding—and…

Cynthia RockwellOctober 3, 20112min
Joy Anderson ’89, the founder and president of Criterion Ventures, was selected for Fast Company’s 2011 list of “100 Most Creative People in Business.” Criterion Ventures is a hybrid for-profit/non-profit firm consisting of Criterion Ventures and Criterion Institute. It identifies large-scale social and environmental problems and designs and implements collaborative ventures and projects that generate solutions to the problems. A political science major at Wesleyan, Anderson was an teacher and administrator in Brooklyn, with professional leadership roles at the national level. She completed her her Ph.D. in American History from New York University in 2001. Since founding Criterion Ventures in…

Cynthia RockwellOctober 3, 20112min
Award-winning TV news producer and documentarian Paul Mason ’77 was appointed president and CEO of Link TV, the U.S.-based global-affairs independent broadcaster. Mason, a 28-year veteran of ABC News, says his plan for Link TV includes digital news platforms in combination with independent global journalism. In a video interview, Mason explains: "In some ways global news is covered like a sporting event, as opposed to actual lives that are lived…And I also ask: Since the earthquake in Japan, how often has an American news audience actually seen follow-up coverage about what has happened in Japan, and about of how lives are…

Cynthia RockwellSeptember 15, 20112min
Life During Wartime, an exhibition by New York-based artist Melissa Stern ’80, opens Friday, Sept. 16, with a reception at the Barbara Archer Gallery in Atlanta, Ga. A collection of new work by Stern, Life During Wartime explores 1940s America as seen from a contemporary vantage point, using collage materials from that era, as well original drawings. The exhibition continues through Oct. 29. In an article for NY Arts, Stern wrote: “Images of the 1940s have long played a subtle but important role in my artwork. My father was a World War II veteran, along with most of the other…

Cynthia RockwellSeptember 15, 20112min
Rebecca Sender ’85 was appointed deputy director for finance and administration for The Yale Center for British Art. She comes to the Center from the Princeton University Art Museum, where she served as associate director for the last decade; she was also its acting director from January 2008 to June 2010. At Yale, she will manage the operating budget for the Center for British Art, as well as oversee the institution’s security, facilities and operations, human resources, Information Technology and the Museum Shop. She also will manage the institution’s emergency plan and will work with the center’s partner institution, the…

Cynthia RockwellAugust 24, 20111min
Paul Bennett ’75 was appointed vice president and treasurer of Chevron Corporation in May 2011. He  joined Chevron in 1980 as a financial analyst in the comptroller's department. Over the course of his career, Bennett earned positions of increasing responsibility in the finance department. Previously, he served as vice president of finance, downstream and chemicals, from 2009 to 2011 A cum laude graduate of Wesleyan, he majored in history. He earned his master’s degree in finance at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1980.

Cynthia RockwellAugust 24, 20113min
Jerry M. Melillo ’65, Distinguished Scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), was named chair of a joint public-private sector committee that will produce the next National Climate Assessment report for the United States. Gary Yohe, Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and environmental studies, is also a vice-chair of the National Climate Assessment. The National Climate Assessment analyzes the latest science and information about the current and projected effects of climate variability and change across the United States. The committee is an advisory body to the U.S. Global Change Research Program. His appointment to lead the National Climate Assessment committee…

Cynthia RockwellAugust 24, 20113min
A new study by University of California - San Diego Professor of Psychology Nicholas Christenfeld and graduate student Jonathan Leavitt ’92 suggests that people enjoy a story more when they they already know how it ends. Writer Mary Elizabeth Williams, for Salon.com suggests that those on constant  alert for “spoilers” in media reviews should chill out: “For their study, Nicholas Christenfeld and Jonathan Leavitt provided participants with a variety of 'ironic-twist, mystery and literary' short stories…. Some readers read the stories in their original forms. Some were given a preface with the spoiler. Others had a spoiler rewritten into the…

Cynthia RockwellJuly 25, 20113min
Dr. Joseph J. Fins ’82, an internationally renowned medical ethicist and pioneer in the field of neuroethics and disorders of consciousness, was named the first recipient of a newly established professorship, The E. William Davis Jr. ’47 M.D., Professor of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Fins serves as chief of the Division of Medical Ethics and is a tenured professor of medicine, professor of public health, and professor of medicine in psychiatry. He is also director of medical ethics and a physician at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center and on the adjunct faculty of Rockefeller University. His…

Cynthia RockwellJuly 25, 20113min
Tim Cavanaugh of Reason.TV interviews writer Nancy Rommelmann '83 about her newest work, The Bad Mother, a short (144-page) piece of fiction set on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Wilcox. The plot follows the lives of three homeless girls—one a pregnant teen— and their friends, over the course of six months. Rommelmann, who is an award-winning journalist, makes it clear to Cavanaugh that this is entirely fictional, despite a style that seems reportorial, and a topic—the homeless who show up in the glamorous city of Los Angeles, hoping for a better life—that is not dissimilar to other stories which…