David LowBradley Whitford ’81 (The West Wing) stars as Pete Harrison, a high-powered environmental lawyer with three kids and two ex-wives in the new ABC comedy Trophy Wife, which premiered in September on ABC. On the Tuesday night show, Pete marries Kate, a younger woman, played by Malin Akerman, who previously led a rowdy, carefree life and whose life is shaken up with the new responsibilities of family life. In his review of the program in The Hollywood Reporter, Tim Goodman wrote: “Whitford shines with his surprisingly Zen-like approach to having three women he's been married to weave in and out of…
Ron Medley ’73 is a featured speaker in the hour-and-a-half commentary on the DVD of How to Survive a Plague, (Sundance Selects), a highly acclaimed documentary directed by David France that was nominated for an Academy Award. (Medley also appears briefly in the movie.) The film tells the story of the brave men and women in two coalitions—ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group)—whose activism and innovation turned AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable condition. Despite having no scientific training, these improbable, self-made activists infiltrated the pharmaceutical industry and helped identify promising new drugs, moving them from experimental…
Cynthia RockwellDr. Jeffrey Burns ’80, chief of critical care at Boston Children’s Hospital and associate professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School, is program director of OPENPediatrics, the newly created and first cloud-based global education technology platform designed to improve the exchange of medical knowledge on critically ill children around the world. OPENPediatrics was created by IBM and Boston Children's Hospital. “Nothing breaks down walls and brings people together like caring for a critically ill child," said Burns in an IBM press release, noting that with the corporation’s “technology and services arsenal” and the hospital’s expertise in pediatric critical care, the…
Natalie Robichaud ’14Karen Ocorr Ph.D. ’83 is sending fruit flies into space to study their heart development and function outside of Earth’s gravity. An assistant research professor in the Development and Aging Program at the Sanford-Burham Medical Research Institute, Ocorr is collaborating with fellow researchers at NASA Ames Research Center and Stanford University to study the effects of space travel and microgravity on the heart function of fruit flies. “We believe that our studies with fruit flies can provide us with important information that will impact astronauts’ heart health when they spend extended periods in microgravity including current missions aboard the ISS…
In her academic study Poetry of Attention in the Eighteenth Century (Palgrave Macmillan), Margaret Koehler ’95 identifies a pervasive cultivation of attention in 18th-century poetry. The book argues that a plea from a 1692 ode by William Congreve—'Let me be all, but my attention, dead'—embodies a wider aspiration in the period’s poetry to explore overt themes of attention and demonstrate techniques of readerly attention. It historicizes 18th century accounts of attention and pioneers a link between the period's poetry and recent discussions of attention in cognitive psychology. Koehler’s book contributes to the largely neglected history of a psychological trait that…
Jenifer McKim ’88 joined The New England Center for Investigative Reporting (NECIR) as the assistant managing editor and senior investigative reporter. With close to 25 years of experience as a news journalist, most recently for The Boston Globe, McKim has won many awards for her work, including the Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism in 2011 for a story about the domestic sex trafficking of minors and the California AP Investigative Journalism Award in 2008. In 2005, she led a group of reporters to write about the importation of lead-tainted Mexican candles, a project that was nominated as a finalist for…
Not So Fast: Parenting Your Teen Through the Dangers of Driving (Chicago Review Press) by Tim Hollister ’78 is an informative and empowering guide to help parents understand the causes of teen crashes and head them off each time before their teens get behind the wheel. Most of the information available to parents of teen drivers acknowledges that driving is risky, and then advises parents that their obligation is to teach their teens how to operate a vehicle. However, missing from most resources are explanations of why teen driving is so dangerous and specific, proactive steps that parents can take…
David Rabban '71 is the author of Law’s History: American Legal Thought and the Transatlantic Turn to History (Cambridge University Press), concentrating on the central role of history in late 19th-century American legal thought. In the decades following the Civil War, the founding generation of professional legal scholars in the United States drew from the evolutionary social thought that pervaded Western intellectual life on both sides of the Atlantic. Their historical analysis of law as an inductive science rejected deductive theories and supported moderate legal reform, conclusions that challenge conventional accounts of legal formalism. The book is unprecedented in its…
Olivia DrakeTed Shaw '76 will speak on “Looking Backwards; Looking Forward: The Persistence of Race in 21st Century American Life” during Wesleyan's annual Constitution Day celebration Sept. 17. Shaw is Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University Law School and counsel at the international firm of Fulbright and Jaworski. He served as director-counsel and president of the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund from 2004 through 2008 and as a Wesleyan Trustee for 15 years. Shaw's talk begins at 7:30 p.m. in Olin Library's Smith Reading Room. Wesleyan’s Constitution Day event is part of a nationwide observance the U.S. Department of Education has…
Jan Eliasberg '74 is a rarity in Hollywood—a woman who directs action dramas. In this video, she reflects on being at Wesleyan in the 1970s, and talks about founding Second Stage at the '92 Theater. Watch this video and many more on the Video @ Wesleyan website. [youtube width="640" height="420"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRuSFdFxkrY[/youtube] THIS IS WHY: http://thisiswhy.wesleyan.edu
Gabe Rosenberg '16Donaldine Temple ’95, director and senior associate counsel at the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, has been named one of The Network Journal’s "40 Under Forty" for 2013. Temple, who doubled majored in history and African-American studies, advises on legal and regulatory matters for fixed income securities. She earned her JD from Boston College Law School. Temple also advises nonprofit, arts-oriented organizations on matters of corporate law and governance, and she is associated with both the Corporate Counsel Women of Color and the Association of Black Women Attorneys. Also an avid volunteer with nonprofits such as New York Cares, Temple…
Dr. Nicole Hubbard Longwell ’92 has joined the Board of Directors of Art beCAUSE Breast Cancer Foundation (ABCBCF) in addition to serving as the co-chair of ABCBCF’s Young Professionals Group. Longwell is National Director of the Medical Science Liaisons at Questcor Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and a member of the American Academy of Neurology, the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers, and the Drug Information Association. She earned a bachelor’s in psychology from Wesleyan, a master’s in psychology from Northeastern University and a doctorate in psychopharmacolgy from Tufts University. “The goal of Art beCAUSE Breast Cancer Foundation is to prevent breast cancer for…