David PesciDecember 19, 20112min
Three faculty members from Earth and Environmental Sciences, as well as two graduate students and two undergraduate students, presented their research at the annual conference of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco, Calif., Dec. 5-7. The conference drew more than 20,000 scientists and policy makers from around the world. Associate Professors Suzanne O’Connell and Dana Royer, Assistant Professor Phillip Resor, and Austin Reed MA-candidate, Rosemary Ostfeld BA ‘10/MA ‘12, and Julia Mulhern ’12 all attended. In addition, a poster by Katherine Shervais ’13, was also presented. “Our research in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences is so…

Olivia DrakeDecember 19, 20113min
Thirteen seniors joined the U.S.'s ninth oldest Phi Beta Kappa chapter during an induction ceremony Dec. 7. Election to the society is based on fulfillment of eligibility requirements. For students elected in the fall, admittance is based on a student’s performance at Wesleyan only through their junior year. A student first must have been nominated by his or her major department. He or she also must have demonstrated curricular breadth by having met the General Education Expectations, and have achieved a grade point average of 93.00 or above. Phi Beta Kappa was founded in 1776, during the American Revolution. The organization’s…

Olivia DrakeDecember 19, 20112min
One Wesleyan student and four alumni participated in the Echoing Green Conference Nov. 17 in San Francisco, Calif. Echoing Green invests in and supports outstanding emerging social entrepreneurs to launch new organizations that deliver bold, high-impact solutions. The organization also remains committed to very early stage support of new and untested ideas in the hands of visionary social entrepreneurs. Participants included Lara Galinsky '96, senior vice president of Echoing Green; Kennedy Odede '12 and Jessica Posner '09 from Shining Hope for Communities; and Bonnie Oliva '04 and Shivani Siroy '04 from Inveture Fund. Lara Galinsky, who sits on the advisory…

Olivia DrakeDecember 2, 20112min
Rachel Levenson '12 was featured in the Nov. 7 Jewish Daily Forward as one of "10 Young Jews, Making a Difference." In September, the Forward asked readers to nominate Jews, age 21 and younger, who are working to make a difference locally or globally. Levenson made the list for her efforts studying money-lending practices in Africa. “When I was part of the Jewish Community Teen Foundations, I was really drawn to… this question of, with limited resources, how do you maximize your effectiveness," she says in the article. Her research became part of a larger project led by schools — including Yale and…

David PesciNovember 2, 20113min
Craig Malamut '12 is the primary author of "High-Resolution Imaging of the 2010 Total Solar Eclipse at Easter Island," which will be published in the Coronal Courant, an on-line journal for students maintained by the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). The article describes some results from experiments done during the 2010 total solar eclipse, for which he traveled to Easter Island. Malamut is also a co-author of  "Structure and Dynamics of the 2010 Jully 11 Eclipse White-Light Corona," which was published by The Astrophysical Journal in its June 20 issue. Malamut was supported by the Keck Northeast…

Olivia DrakeAugust 24, 20115min
The Center for the Humanities advisory board awarded eight Wesleyan seniors with a Student Fellowship for 2011-12. These fellows will explore the themes “Fact and Artifact” and “Visceral States: Affect and Civic Life." Four Student Fellowships are awarded by the center’s advisory board each semester. During the fall semester, fellows Conan Cheong, Kevin Donohoe, Bridget Read and Alexandra Wang will will explore the theme "Fact and Artifact." They will examine the career of the modern fact and its uncomfortable companion, the artifact. The fellows will question, "Under what conditions can facts be created?" "How do efforts to pin down empirical…

Eric GershonJuly 25, 20111min
In a June 30 “Modern Love” column in The New York Times, Lindsay Abrams ’12 writes that she “designed my ideal boyfriend in a dorm room voodoo ceremony orchestrated by my roommate…” "…My specifications were that he be tall, scruffy and a bit older than me. I preferred that he major in math or the sciences to offset my artistic nature, and that he like to watch TV with me at night. I know that vague characteristics like height and age do not true love make, but I was warned that being too specific on a campus of only 2,900…

Cynthia RockwellMay 24, 20112min
While the rest of her classmates finished exams and headed for Foss Hill, Charlotte Cottier ’12 spent the sunny days of Finals Week inside the General Mansfield Home, getting ready to reveal excerpts from personal letters documenting a husband’s Western frontier travel to his wife at home, a nearly-failed courtship, and a myriad other stories that a nearly 200-year-old house can hold. Cottier, an American studies and sociology major, is a guest curator for the Middlesex County Historical Society, hanging her exhibit “Within These Walls: One House, One Family, Two Centuries,” which opened May 20. “The main theme is the…

Olivia DrakeMarch 23, 20113min
Film studies major Zachary Valenti '12 understands how cancer can devastate a family. The disease claimed two grandparents – his father's mother and mother's father – as well as a stepfather. As an adolescent, Valenti was already aware of the risks of male breast cancer. He suffered from gynocomastia, the abnormal development of breast tissue in men. For the past three months, Valenti has combined his life experiences and film studies skills for a project that raises breast cancer awareness in the local community. Valenti is creating a documentary featuring eight female breast cancer survivors for the Middlesex Hospital Comprehensive Breast…

David PesciMarch 23, 20112min
Kennedy Odede ’12 will be a featured panelist at the fourth annual meeting of former President Bill Clinton’s Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U), which will be held at the University of California - San Diego on April 1-3. Odede is one of three participants on the panel; the other two are Clinton and actor Sean Penn. “This is very exciting and a tremendous honor for me, and for my foundation, Shining Hope for Communities,” Odede said. The CGI U is part of the former president’s Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) foundation. According to CGI’s website, CGI U “challenges students (more…)