David LowDar Williams ’89 has released a new double retrospective CD, Many Great Companions (Razor and Tie). The first CD contains live acoustic performances that reimagine fan favorites, while the second showcases original recordings from past albums of her 20-year career. The collection features guests such as Mary Chapin Carpenter, Sara and Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek, Patty Larkin and the trio Motherlode. Songs Williams revisits include “As Cool as I Am,” “Spring Street,” “When I Was a Boy” and “The Babysitter’s Here.” In his recent review of the album in American Songwriter, Matt Popkin writes: “Throughout the new recordings, Williams’…
Cynthia RockwellKatherine O’Brien ’75 was promoted to senior vice president and deputy general counsel at New York Life Insurance Company. She is responsible for managing the employment, litigation, ERISA, contracts, intellectual property, corporate transactions and administrative units of the Office of the General Counsel. Previously, she was first vice president and deputy counsel after serving as the company’s chief diversity officer. She had joined New York Life in 1995 as a litigator, specializing in employment litigation and benefits compliance. O’Brien earned a J.D. degree from Brooklyn Law School. At Wesleyan, she majored in English.
“Mapendo International’s efforts to rescue and resettle one Darfuri family to the U.S. aired on ABC’s World News with Bob Woodruff (standing in for Diane Sawyer), Sunday, Nov. 21,” writes Sasha Chanoff ’94, founder and executive director of the Boston-based international refugee agency. Mapendo International rescues refugees in life-threatening situations by permanently relocating them to countries where they can rebuild their lives in safety and with dignity. Earlier this year, David Low ’76 wrote about Chanoff for WesLive, when Chanoff was awarded the Charles Bronfman Prize, which recognizes an individual under the age of 50 who has contributed to the…
Adrienne Bentman ’74, M.D., director for the adult psychiatry residency program at the Institute of Living/Hartford Hospital, received the 2010 Robert Cancro Academic Leadership Award from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP). The Cancro award recognizes a professional serving in a leadership role for his or her contributions to the promotion of child and adolescent psychiatry. At the annual meeting of the AACAP, Bentman presented a talk on her recent work: “The Little Engine That Could; Re-Establishing the Institute of Living’s Residencies.”
Beth Rose ’84, P’14, of Sills Cummis and Gross P.C., was recognized as one of the 10 Most Admired Product Liability Attorneys by Law 360: Newswire for Business Lawyers. Rose, whose specialty is defending pharmaceutical and medical device companies facing product liability and mass tort litigation, has “earned a reputation as a quick thinker and a team player,” according to fellow litigators who nominated her for the title. A history major at Wesleyan, she received her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and joined Sills Cummis immediately afterward. Her first case involved defending medical device manufacturer Becton Dickinson & Company in…
Olivia DrakeVera Schwarcz, the Mansfield Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies, professor of history, was selected by the United States’ Department of State to serve in the Speakers Program Oct. 20-24. She lectured at several universities in Chongqing and Beijing—on the subject of the 150th anniversary of the destruction of the old summer palace of Yuan Ming Yuan, in 1860. Having been selected by the State Department as a member of the very first group of American exchange scholars to live and study in China in 1979, Schwarcz has been returning regularly to China for the past three decades. This was…
(submitted by Ella Doo P'12) Rachel Cross '12 and Alicia Castagno '12 participated as panel members in a session of the Critical Mixed Race Conference sponsored by dePaul University in Chicago Nov. 5-6. The conference was attended by academicians and students (primarily graduate students) from across the country. Cross and Castagno co-taught a Wesleyan student forum on mixed race last year and were on a panel discussing the development and teaching of this topic as students. In the question and answer period someone asked how many student-taught classes on mixed race there were in the country. A member of the…
Erika Taylor, assistant professor of chemistry and environmental studies, has received a $193,809 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for a project called “Imaging Lignin Degradation." Taylor will collaborate with colleagues at Penn State University and the University of Tennessee. Taylor hopes to use fluorescence imaging and isotope trace experiments to develop probes for finding organisms that can break down lignin. She plans to test complex biological samples. "Think going to the forest and bringing home a bucket of dirt containing small insects and lots of microorganisms and then figuring out which ones can break down lignin. This is…
Pam Tatge, director of the Center for the Arts, received a $500 New England Foundation for the Arts grant on Nov. 22. The CFA will use the grant to support travel expenses to the Association of Performing Arts Presenters Conference.
Running back Shea Dwyer ’10 became the second Wesleyan player to receive the distinction of Gagliardi Trophy finalist when the 10 players still eligible for Division III's version of the Heisman Trophy were announced Nov. 23. In total, 26 players were nominated for the coveted award before the Gagliardi committee narrowed the choice to 10. Dwyer joins Wesleyan receiver Matt Perceval '00, who was a Gagliardi Trophy finalist during the 1999 season. To see the breakdown of the 10 Gagliardi Trophy finalists on d3football.com and find out how to become a part of the voting for the winner, click here.…
Every day, The Huffington Post highlights one ‘Greatest Person‘ — an exceptional individual who is confronting the country’s economic and political crises with creativity, generosity and passion. On Nov. 9, the Post featured Jessica Carso, managing director of University Relations and the Green Street Arts Center, ”who has made a career out of giving back to the small Connecticut town where she grew up.” According to the article, Carso “struck us as a prime example of someone truly making a difference in her community. She is currently the managing director of the Green Street Arts Center, a community-based organization that works to make the…
Music department doctoral students presented papers at the Society for Ethnomusicology's annual convention in Los Angeles, Nov. 10-14. The students presented were Hae-joo Kim, Aaron Paige, Jorge Arevalo Mateus Po-wei Weng, and Min Yang. Kim, Paige and Weng were on a panel chaired by the Rochard K. Winslow Professor of Music Mark Slobin, on global film music analysis.