Olivia DrakeDavid Beveridge, the Joshua Boger University Professor of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, professor of chemistry, was on sabbatical last spring at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in New Delhi, India. He was visiting and working on research projects with Professor B. Jayaram, director of the Supercomputer Center for Bioinformatics, SCFBIO. Beveridge's former student, Becky Lee '10, was spending a year doing research in Jayaram's SCFBIO research group on a project in computational biophysics. Beveridge presented one of the thematic lectures on "Dynamic Allosterism" in a lecture series celebrating the 50th anniversary of IIT-Delhi.
Eric GershonFacilities managers Jeff Sweet, Mario Velazquez and Deborah Holman began the summer of 2011 staring down the number 2,863. That’s the total number of beds in Wesleyan’s undergraduate housing pool – somewhat greater than the number of bedrooms in the university’s 225 residences. In an annual rite known as the summer maintenance program, Sweet, Velazquez and Holman oversee the inspection, basic repair and cleaning of each and every room in Wesleyan’s varied housing stock, from the aptly named High Rise to the stately Eclectic Society to the multitudinous wood-frame houses. The project amounts to a carefully choreographed dash toward the end…
Jessica Carso, managing director of the Green Street Arts Center, was named to The Hartford Business Journal's "40 Under 40" 2011 list. From more than 250 nominations for more than 160 individuals, the judges honed the list to the best and brightest. The Hartford Business Journal has been selecting "40 Under 40" honorees for 15 years. According to the Journal, "Among this year’s honorees, we have entrepreneurs and corporate executives, folks who work in nonprofits and folks who advise others on handling their profits. They all have achieved a level of success early in their careers, yet for each, the best…
David LowWriter and journalist Alex Kotlowitz ’77, best known for his book There Are No Children Here, has co-produced a powerful new documentary, The Interrupters, directed by Steve James (Hoop Dreams), which was released in select theaters around the country in mid-August. Based on a 2008 New York Times magazine piece by Kotlowitz, the film follows the lives of three members (called “interrupters”) of the Chicago-based anti-violence organization CeaseFire, who risk their lives as the perform violence mediation on the streets of some of Chicago’s most dangerous neighborhoods. The film follows the three interrupters upclose on the street and in offices,…
Cynthia RockwellPaul Bennett ’75 was appointed vice president and treasurer of Chevron Corporation in May 2011. He joined Chevron in 1980 as a financial analyst in the comptroller's department. Over the course of his career, Bennett earned positions of increasing responsibility in the finance department. Previously, he served as vice president of finance, downstream and chemicals, from 2009 to 2011 A cum laude graduate of Wesleyan, he majored in history. He earned his master’s degree in finance at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1980.
Jerry M. Melillo ’65, Distinguished Scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), was named chair of a joint public-private sector committee that will produce the next National Climate Assessment report for the United States. Gary Yohe, Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and environmental studies, is also a vice-chair of the National Climate Assessment. The National Climate Assessment analyzes the latest science and information about the current and projected effects of climate variability and change across the United States. The committee is an advisory body to the U.S. Global Change Research Program. His appointment to lead the National Climate Assessment committee…
A new study by University of California - San Diego Professor of Psychology Nicholas Christenfeld and graduate student Jonathan Leavitt ’92 suggests that people enjoy a story more when they they already know how it ends. Writer Mary Elizabeth Williams, for Salon.com suggests that those on constant alert for “spoilers” in media reviews should chill out: “For their study, Nicholas Christenfeld and Jonathan Leavitt provided participants with a variety of 'ironic-twist, mystery and literary' short stories…. Some readers read the stories in their original forms. Some were given a preface with the spoiler. Others had a spoiler rewritten into the…
More than 75 Wesleyan employees, contractors, friends and families participated in the Wesleyan Open Golf Tournament, held July 9 at Banner Country Club in Moodus, Conn. Golfers raised $1,500 for Middletown United Fathers, Inc. MUF is a non-profit organization that operates as an advocate for underprivileged and underserved men and youth of color throughout Middlesex Country. Areas of advocacy are centered on issue regarding education, health, finances, personal, family and community responsibility. Future programming will include ongoing fatherhood parenting classes as well as job placement services for youth and fathers participating in services through the organization. All participants pay an entry…
Ellen Thomas, research professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, has accepted an offer to become one of four science editors for the journal Geology, a prestigious journal in Earth Sciences. She starts her four-year term in January 2012 as the editor for paleoceanography, paleoclimate, stratigraphy, paleontology and related topics. The journal is published by the Geological Society of America, online at http://geology.gsapubs.org/. During the upcoming 2011 GSA Annual Meeting & Exposition, held Oct. 9-12 in Minneapolis, Minn., Thomas will meet the other editors and GSA personnel in order to get organized for the commitment.
David PesciIn an opinion piece for The Hartford Courant, Jonathan Cutler, chair and associate professor of sociology, explains how a austerity budget deal brokered by Connecticut’s governor with a coalition of public employee union leaders was then torpedoed by rank-and-file union members. The Connecticut deal was initially applauded nationally because Democratic Governor Malloy, unlike Wisconsin’s Republican governor Scott Walker, seemed better positioned to win painful union concessions without sparking street protests by labor and liberals. Those applause came too early, however, as state employee union members rejected the cuts agreed by an anti-democratic union structure created by the the state and…
Shamar Chin '13 was featured in the Aug. 3 edition of The Middletown Press for her efforts running the Green Street Art Center's Young Women's Leadership Institute. The program is designed to empower girls in fifth through seventh grades and to teach them leadership through art, dance, music and writing. Chin, an environmental studies major, started volunteering at Green Street earlier this summer and took on the five-week summer program because she wanted to help young girls succeed. “Especially with what we see in the media, what is being presented to young women, I feel like we are expected to look…