faculty achievements

Susanne Fusso, professor of Russian, East European, and Eurasian studies, is the translator of Sergey Gandlevsky's autobiographical novel, Trepanation of the Skull, published in November from Northern Illinois University Press. Sergey Gandlevsky is widely recognized as one of the leading living Russian poets and prose writers. His autobiographical novella Trepanation of the Skull is a portrait of the artist as a young late-Soviet man. At the center of the narrative are Gandlevsky’s brain tumor, surgery and recovery in the early 1990s. The story radiates out, relaying the poet’s personal history through 1994, including his unique perspective on the 1991 coup by Communist hardliners resisted by Boris Yeltsin.…

It turns out that teaching language arts, math and science to fourth graders is not the same as manufacturing cars on an assembly line. That is, the microeconomics principle of economies of scale—or the cost advantages that businesses get by increasing the scale of production—do not always apply to educational interventions. Put another way, an intervention that works great in one specific educational setting cannot necessarily be “scaled up” to work in many other settings. This is the finding of a major new study funded by the National Science Foundation, on which Associate Professor of Psychology Steven Stemler collaborated with…

On Nov. 3, Brian Northrop, assistant professor of chemistry, spoke to students at the Green Street Arts Center about polymers. As part of the hands-on workshop, Northrop taught the participants how to make their own silicone polymer putty with glue, water, Borax and food coloring. Similar putty was accidentally invented during World War II when an American scientist working for General Electric in New Haven, Conn. was trying to create synthetic rubber using silicone oil and boric acid. The result produced a "solid-liquid" goo that had a high melting temperature, could bounce when dropped, and stretch. The product is most commonly known as Silly Putty, a trademark…

Wesleyan faculty Joop Varekamp and Ellen Thomas are among the authors of a paper on rates of sea-level rise along the eastern U.S. seaboard titled "Late Holocene sea level variability and Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation," published in the journal Paleoceanography, Volume 29, Issue 8, pages 765–777 in August 2014. Varekamp is the Harold T. Stearns Professor of Earth Science, professor of earth and environmental sciences and professor of environmental studies. Thomas is research professor of earth and environmental sciences at Wesleyan, and also a senior research scientist in geology and geophysics at Yale University. Pre-20th century sea level variability remains poorly understood due to…

Assistant professor of Astronomy Meredith Hughes and eight colleagues have found evidence of magnetic fields in stardust – an indication that magnetic fields are important in the process of planetary system formation, according to a new paper in the journal Nature. The discovery is another step in work by Hughes and other astronomers to understand how celestial bodies are formed. It is known that magnetic fields in the “accretion disks” of stars play a dominant role in the star formation process. Using data from an observatory near Bishop, Calf., Hughes and her colleagues were able to spot signs of magnetic…

Gina Athena Ulysse, associate professor of anthropology, participated in "Imagining and Imaging the Caribbean,” the inaugural conference of Columbia’s Greater Caribbean Studies Center, on Oct. 18. Ulysse discussed "Writing in the Caribbean Diaspora" with fellow panelists Cuban writer and artist Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo (Brown University) and Kittian-Brittish novelist Caryl Phillips (Yale University). Other topics included "The Greater Caribbean as a Geo-Historical and Cultural Region," "Writing about the Caribbean from National Perspectives" and "Photographing the City in the Greater Caribbean." The event concluded with a Caribbean concert.

Vera Schwarcz, the Mansfield Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies, professor of history, is the author of a new book titled Colors of Veracity: A Quest for Truth in China, and Beyond, published by the University of Hawai'i Press in November 2014. In Colors of Veracity, Schwarcz condenses four decades of teaching and scholarship about China to raise fundamental questions about the nature of truth and history. In vivid prose, she addresses contemporary moral dilemmas with a highly personal sense of ethics and aesthetics. Drawing on classical sources in Hebrew and Chinese (as well as several Greek and Japanese texts), Schwarcz…

The Wesleyan Media Project's research was cited by U.S. Senator Angus King of Maine during a hearing April 30 of the Senate Committee on Rules & Administration. The subject of the hearing was "Dollars and Sense: How Undisclosed Money and Post-McCutcheon Campaign Finance Will Affect 2014 and Beyond." Watch a recording of the webcast here. The Wesleyan Media Project, directed by Assistant Professor of Government Erika Franklin Fowler and collaborators at Bowdoin College and Washington State University, works to increase transparency about political advertising. It tracks political ad airings on television and reports in real time about ad sponsors, spending,…

Meredith Hughes, assistant professor of astronomy, received a grant from the National Science Foundation to support her research on "Dust and Gas in Debris Disks Reveal the Origins of Planetary Systems." The grant, awarded on April 21, is worth $532,943. Hughes’ research focuses on understanding the formation and evolution of planetary systems. She particularly studies the huge disks of gas and dust surrounding a young star, which can give insight into how and when a star planet might form. The disk is made up of “junk” left over from the star’s formation. The main technique Hughes uses to observe these circumstellar…

Professor Don Oliver received a three-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Academic Research Enhancement Award (AREA) (R15) for his research titled “Mechanism of SecA-dependent protein translocation." The grant, worth $374,148, was awarded on April 15. Oliver is the Daniel Ayres Professor of Biology and professor of molecular biology and biochemistry. Oliver studies how proteins are targeted to and transported across biological membranes utilizing bacteria as a simple model system."The current genetic and biochemical studies are designed to elucidate a molecular motor protein, SecA ATPase, that drives proteins through a universally conserved protein-conducting channel by a largely unknown molecular mechanism,"…

Academic Affairs has named Norman Shapiro, professor of romance languages, as the university’s Distinguished Literary Translator. Shapiro is one of the country’s leading contemporary translators of French. He holds a BA, MA and Ph.D. from Harvard University, and, as Fulbright scholar, the Diplôme de Langue et Lettres Françaises from the Université d’Aix-Marseille. At Wesleyan, Shapiro teaches courses in French theater, poetry, Black Francophone literature and literary translation. His many published volumes span the centuries, medieval to modern, and the genres poetry, novel and theater. His book, The Complete Fables of Jean de La Fontaine is the recipient of the American Translators…

Erika Taylor, assistant professor of chemistry, assistant professor of environmental studies, delivered the keynote address at the 16th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, hosted by the School of Natural Sciences of Fairleigh Dickinson University on April 25. Taylor spoke on "Alternative Energy Sources: Enzymology That Is Essential for Making Lignin." At Wesleyan, Taylor is exploring the enzymology that is essential for making Lignin a viable biomass source for production of energy and as a commodity chemical feedstock.

Fusso Translates Gandlevsky’s Trepanation of the Skull

Stemler’s New Study Finds Educational Interventions Cannot Be “Scaled Up”

Northrop Teaches Students at Green Street about Polymers through Putty Workshop

Studies by Varekamp, Thomas Published in Paleoceanography

Hughes Finds Magnetic Fields in Stardust; Study Published in Nature

Ulysse Panelist at Columbia’s Caribbean Conference

Schwarcz Addresses Moral Dilemma, Ethics in China in Colors of Veracity

Wesleyan Media Project’s Research Cited in Senate Committee Hearing

Hughes Receives NSF Grant for Research on Planetary Systems

Oliver Honored with NIH Award for Protein Translocation Research

Shapiro Named Distinguished Literary Translator

Taylor Keynote at Undergraduate Research Symposium