Olivia DrakeWesleyan University received a grant worth $177,918 from the U.S. Department of Education to help establish a Middle Eastern Studies Certificate Program at Wesleyan. The grant will be applied over two years. Bruce Masters, the John E. Andrus Professor of History, says he and other interested faculty will propose to the Educational Policy Committee an interdisciplinary cluster of courses that will allow interested students to graduate with a certificate in Middle Eastern Studies, in addition to their departmental/program major. The grant, along with a commitment from Academic Affairs, is supporting a long-term contract adjunct instructor in Arabic language.
Amy MacQueen, assistant professor of molecular biology and biochemistry, received a $746,997 grant from the national Institute of Health for her research titled "Regulation of Synaptonemal Complex Assembly During Meiosis in S. cerevisiae." The grant, awarded Aug. 21, will be applied over three years.
Robert Lane, associate professor of molecular biology and biochemistry, received a grant from the National Science Foundation/American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for this research titled "Cross-Disciplinary Science & Investigation of Olfactory Receptor Gene Regulation." The award, worth $299,955 will be distributed over two years.
Bill HolderDr. Geoffrey Ginsburg ’78 of Duke University and his colleagues have developed an experimental genetic test that can detect common infections before people know they are sick, according to an article in USA Today. The test can distinguish between bacterial and viral illnesses, which may help physicians determine when they first see a patient whether giving antibiotics to a person will be helpful. Unlike existing diagnostic tests, which typically detect either the germ itself or antibodies, the new approach detects the activation of genes that govern an immune response. It requires no more than a finger-prick of blood. USA Today…
David LowSadia Shepard ’97 is one of the producers of the new documentary The September Issue, directed by R. J. Cutler, which opened in movie theaters on August 28 to positive reviews. The movie focuses on the world of Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine, and her influence on the fashion industry. Wintour was also the inspiration for the novel and movie The Devil Wears Prada. In his review of the film in Entertainment Weekly, Owen Gleiberman writes: “… we observe the process by which Wintour and her vast army of editors, designers, photographers, models, and gofers labor, throughout the summer…
Novelist Kaylie Jones ’81 has written a new memoir, Lies My Mother Never Told Me (William Morrow, 2009) in which she explores her life growing up with her well-known father, who was also a writer (From Here to Eternity) and her mother, who as an alcoholic who could be cruel and unloving. Jones also writes about her adulthood as she struggles to overcome her own drinking problem and to become a writer in the shadow of her father, and the difficulties of dealing with her mother as she declines physically and mentally. In her review of the book in The…
Deb Olin Unferth, assistant professor of English, won the 2009 Cabell First Novelist Award for her book, Vacation, (McSweeney's Press). She recieved $5,000 for being the contest winner. According to an Aug. 15 edition of The Los Angeles Times, about 100 readers from Virginia Commonwealth University and the broader Richmond, Va. Community, participated in the selection process.
Gary Yohe, the Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of Economics, is quoted in an Aug. 21 USA Today article titled "Poor communities hit hardest by global warming." The article focuses on a study produced by the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report about its economic forecasts. Yohe is an author on the IPCC report. "IPCC identified the poor, the elderly, and the very young as the most vulnerable categories of people on the planet ... regardless of location, as Katrina and the European (2003) heat wave taught us," Yohe says in the article. "Nonetheless, the most vulnerable are more likely to…
Four Wesleyan spring athletes were named first-team All-Americans in the July/August edition of the Jewish Sports Review, the pre-eminent national publication honoring Jewish athletes. Among those honored from Wesleyan, softball standout Talia Bernstein ’11 (#9), who earned first-team all-NESCAC as well as regional honors from both the New England Softball Coaches Association and the National Fastpitch Coaches Association after leading the Cardinals to a second-place finish in the NESCAC tournament with her .482 batting average, was a first-team Jewish All-American. Two members of the Wesleyan men's lacrosse team, Jason Ben-Eliyahu ’09 (#27) and Lonny Blumenthal ’10 (#13), found spots on…
Keera Bhandari ’08, MA ’09 and Hilary Barth, assistant professor of psychology, are the authors of a new article on children's social cognition. The article, based on Bhandari's research project for her master's degree in psychology, is titled "Show or tell: Testimony is sufficient to induce the curse of knowledge in three- and four-year-olds." It will appear in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2009.
Corrina KerrPatrick Dowdey, curator at the Freeman Center for East Asian Studies, adjunct assistant professor of anthropology, and adjunct assistant professor of East Asian Studies, is a co-curator of Pearl of the Snowlands: Buddhist Printing at the Derge Parkhang, an exhibit of original prints from Tibetan Buddhists. The exhibit will be held from Sept. 11 to Dec. 5 at The Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College in Chicago. The prints from the Derge Parkhang are still created from hand-carved woodblocks, as they have been for over 300 years. Dowdey will participate in a Nov. 21 panel discussion about the prints he helped retrieve…
A recent New York Times story noting that Shanghai and Beijing are “new lands of opportunity for recent American college graduates” featured Joshua Arjuna Stephens ’07, who took a temporary job with China Prep, an educational travel company. Stephens told the Times that he new little about China and didn’t speak the language, but he wanted to “do something off the beaten track.” Now, two years after leaving for China, his is fluent in Mandarin and works as a manager for XPD Media, a social media company based in Beijing that makes online games. Young Americans are attracted by the…