Brian KattenMatt Long '14 a tight end on Wesleyan's Football Team, hopes to make a new friend in about a year. Why would a 6-foot 5-inch, 240 pound scholar-athlete at a prestigious college like Wesleyan who was named an academic all-NESCAC choice in 2011 need to wait 12 months to make a new acquaintance? One very special reason. This past spring, Long, of Williston, Vt., was coaxed by a schoolmate to enlist in a bone marrow donor program during a drive on campus. It was sponsored by DKMS, the world's largest bone marrow donor program. Thus, Matt was on a donor matching…
Olivia DrakeSeven Wesleyan undergraduates presented research at the annual Keck Northeast Astronomy Consortium meeting held at Middlebury College on Sept. 22. Pictured above, from left, are: Eric Edelman '13, astronomy major, who worked with Professor Jay Pasachoff at Williams College; Miche Aaron '14, earth and environmental studies major, who worked with Associate Professor Martha Gilmore of Wesleyan; Mark Popinchalk '13, astronomy major, who worked with Professor Debra Elmegreen of Vassar College; James Dottin '13, earth and environmental studies major, who worked with Research Associate Professor James Greenwood of Wesleyan; Ben Tweed '13, astronomy major, who worked with Assistant Professor Seth Redfield of Wesleyan; Kerry Klemmer…
Q&As with outstanding students is an occasional feature of The Wesleyan Connection. This issue we speak with Catherine MacLean from the Class of 2014. Q: Catherine, what are you majoring in at Wesleyan, and why? A: I am a biology and science and society double major. I have been fascinated by biology for quite a long time, so I was pretty sure I wanted to study it when I came to Wesleyan. I am very interested in the way that such basic low-level structures can combine synergistically to give rise to an organism and the complexity of life. The combination…
Benjamin TraversMatt Donahue '14 is a double major in psychology and neuroscience and behavior, works in several departments on campus, and is the chapter president of Brighter Dawns, a student run non-profit that aims to improve health conditions in the slums of Bangladesh. Learn more about Donahue in the video below: [youtube width="640" height="420"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-xjE8Zsv2U[/youtube]
By looking at high-resolution images captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, scientists are able to see gullies, which are argued to be geologically recent. Because they are most likely formed by water, it is believed that they can answer the question of whether or not there is still "active" water on Mars. As a summer Wesleyan McNair scholar, astronomy major Lavontria Aaron '14 used a hyperspectral instrument to determine if the gullies contained minerals (salts) which would be left behind by water brines. "By examining the spectrum of the brines, we'll be able to learn more about Mars' history and…
Students majoring in earth and environmental sciences, biology, molecular biology and biochemistry, chemistry, physics, psychology, environmental health, safety and sustainability presented their summer-long research projects during the Wesleyan Summer Research Poster Session Aug. 2 in Exley Science Center. Quantitative Analysis Center summer fellows, Hughes fellows, and McNair scholars also presented their research. Photos of the event are below (Photos by Olivia Drake):
Last summer, Elsa Hardy '14 worked for a youth enrichment program in New York City. Several of the children came from the Frederick Douglass Academy, a middle school in Harlem where 75 percent of the students are black. "I asked the students who went there, 'Do you know who Frederick Douglass was?' None of them did. They had no idea," Hardy recalls. "I was shocked to learn that the students didn't know who the namesake of their school was." Hardy, who is majoring in African American studies and Hispanic literatures and cultures, became curious as to why the average middle…
Q&As with outstanding students is an occasional feature of The Wesleyan Connection. This issue we speak with Andrew Ribner from the Class of 2014. Q: Andrew, you're a rising junior, working toward a university major in educational psychology and learning theory and biology. Please explain what a university major is and why you chose this degree path. A: A university major is essentially an interdisciplinary create-your-own major. It's an option that isn't very highly publicized, and is completely unique to each student who does it. It's an intense application process that involves writing a formal proposal and four-year class schedule,…
The MINDS Foundation, an organization started by Raghu Appasani ’12, was recently featured in the June 6 Huffington Post. The MINDS Foundation is working to eradicate mental illness stigmas and provide mental healthcare services to patients in rural villages in India. According to the article, the conditions of many mental health facilities are inexcusable; people lack basic human dignity, and necessities such as clothes, clean water, and food; they are often locked away in prison-like rooms; and lack even the most basic legal protections. Since 2012, the MINDS Foundation has educated nearly 1,000 individuals, and is currently treating 36 patients suffering…
Striking clocks gongs per day from Hartford to Middletown. Silver wedding anniversary years from Laos to Chad. Squares on a chess board from Warsaw to Kinshasa. Can you solve this puzzle? If so, you've started a treasure hunt, right on Wesleyan's campus. The Wesleyan Treasure Hunt, a permanent campus installation, begins at a plaque located in the southeast corner of Usdan University Center near the Huss Courtyard. It encourages students to explore the nooks and crannies of campus, and interact with the buildings as they look for new clues. "The hunt encapsulates everything I like about Wesleyan," says its creator Jack…
Students who received academic prizes, fellowships and scholarships, were honored at a reception May 9 in Daniel Family Commons. The awards and the recipients are: George H. Acheson and Grass Foundation Prize in Neuroscience Neuroscience and Behavior: Jad Donato '12, Cassidy Mellin '12 Alumni Prize in the History of Art Senior who has demonstrated special aptitude in the history of art and who has made a substantive contribution to the major: Sarah La Rue '12, Alyssa Lanz '12, Katherine Wolf '12 American Chemical Society Analytical Award Excellence in analytical chemistry: Chinh Duong '13 American Chemical Society Connecticut Valley Section Award…
David PesciKennedy Odede ’12 was featured in a May 5 Hartford Courant article discussing his mother’s impact on all he has done in the last four years. Odede came to Wesleyan from the Kibera slum of Nairobi and has since built a school, a clean water latrine, and a health center back home. "Work hard and read books. Look around you, but don't hate," Jane Achieng Odede told the young son she struggled to feed in Kibera, one of the world's largest slums next to Kenya's capital of Nairobi. Residents there are mostly jobless or live on less than a dollar a day,…