Olivia DrakeDana Royer, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences, is the co-author of “Plant Ecological Strategies Shift Across the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary,” published in PLOS Biology on Sept. 15. The study reveals that a meteorite that hit Earth 60 million years ago – and may have led to the mass extinction of the world’s dinosaur population – also led to a shift in the landscape of plants, particularly deciduous plants. Royer and his colleagues showed how they applied bio-mechanical formulas to fossilized leaves of flowering plants dating from the last 1.4 million years of the Cretaceous period and the first 800,000 of the Paleogene. Read more about…
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Lauren RubensteinQ: Welcome to Wesleyan, Professor Burge! Please fill us in on your life up to now. A: I’m originally from Michigan, and attended undergrad at Michigan Tech. I moved out to Massachusetts and worked on radar systems for quite a few years. I did a lot of off-site work traveling all around the country; it’s exciting to see the products you build in action. I always planned to go back to graduate school, and I decided to pursue a master’s in computer science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. I started out there part time, but then an opportunity arose and I…
On Sept. 23, Wesleyan celebrated the 15th anniversary of Bon Appétit's Farm to Fork program during the annual Eat Local Challenge. Bon Appétit, Wesleyan's campus dining provider, served a menu with all local ingredients. All food — including produce and meat — came from farms or suppliers within a 150 radius of campus. The menu included New England clam chowder, fried haddock and chips, clam bake, roasted pork, BBQ seitan with rosemary potatoes and mushrooms, wood-fired pizza, steamed potatoes and corn, farmhouse salad and strawberry and blueberry crisp for dessert. Students also voted for their favorite farm. The winner, announced next week, will…
Maho Ishiguro, an ethnomusicology doctoral student, received a Fulbright Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) Fellowship to study the female Saman dance in Indonesia. The award came with a $29,508 stipend. Ishiguro's proposed research title is “Saman Dance in Diaspora Presence of Female Saman Dance as Expressions of Piety Cultural Identity and Popular Culture.” Her DDRA project will examine the contemporary life of female Saman dance in Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Banda Aceh. Saman dance, or the dance of a “thousand hands” is typically performed in Gayo Lues, a mountainous region of Aceh, by eight to 20 male performers who kneel in…
Faculty and student researchers from Wesleyan's Cognitive Development Lab recently received a $3,000 stipend from the National Living Laboratory® Initiative, which receives support from the National Science Foundation. The award will support an ongoing collaboration between Wesleyan and the the Connecticut Science Center. Hilary Barth, associate professor of psychology, associate professor of neuroscience and behavior, oversees a Living Laboratory® site at the science center's museum. For the past year and a half, Wesleyan researchers have visited the museum on Saturdays to collect data for current studies, talk with children and their families about child developmental research, and guide visitors in hands-on activities that demonstrate important findings in developmental psychology. The…
Wesleyan's Molecular Biophysics Program Hosted its 15th Annual Retreat Sept. 18 at the Wadsworth Mansion in Middletown. Wesleyan faculty and alumni delivered talks at the day-long event. (Photos by Jennifer Langdon) (more…)
The father of psychoanalysis is still relevant 75 years after his death, writes Roth
On Sept. 22, President Michael Roth '78 and Joshua Boger '73, P'06, P'09, chair of the Board of Trustees, sent the following message to the Wesleyan community: To the Wesleyan community: As you may know, we have been considering the future role of Greek life at Wesleyan, and over the summer a great many Wesleyan alumni, students and faculty offered their views. Some have urged that we preserve the status quo; others have argued for the elimination of all exclusive social societies. (more…)
Loui is part of a quartet that uses music to explore mental illness from a different angle
Richard Grossman, professor of economics, was invited to become a Research Network Fellow of CESifo, a leading European economic research organization based in Munich, Germany. The CESifo Group consists of the Center for Economic Studies at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the Ifo Institute of Economic Research, and the CESifo Munich Society for the Promotion of Economic Research. CESifo combines the theoretically oriented economic research with empirical research and is often at the center of economic policy debates in Germany and throughout Europe. As a fellow, Grossman will be a member of the Network’s Money, Macro, and International Finance area and…
Becker says a killer rhubarb pie is to thank for starting her biology career at Wesleyan