Olivia DrakeBiology Ph.D candidate Sarah Kopac was invited to speak at the 2014 Spring Symposium of the Space Telescope Science Institute on the campus of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, M.D. on April 29. Kopac spoke on "Specialization of Bacillus in the Geochemcially Challenged Environment of Death Valley." Watch a video of her 20 minute presentation online here. Kopac's talk was part of a four-day interdisciplinary meeting titled "Habitable Worlds Across Time and Space" featuring speakers from around the world working in such diverse fields as biology, geology and astronomy. The focus of the seminar was on identifying places within our…
Lauren RubensteinWes students are "very much a part of the fabric of our school," says MacDonough School principal
Gruen's new book on the treatment of animals in captive settings is reviewed
Bill HolderThe broad contextual education that Wesleyan and peer institutions offer is frequently critiqued, sometimes excoriated, by those who accuse it of not preparing graduates for success in today’s world. But that accusation, says President Michael S. Roth in his sixth and latest book, Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters (Yale University Press, 2014), is as old as liberal education itself – and never less convincing than now. A historian whose previous scholarship has focused on making sense of the past, Roth charts the development of pragmatic liberal education through a succession of important American thinkers. Liberal education has deep…
The Campus Activities Committee sponsored the 3rd Annual Taste of Middletown, an event offering samples from 15 local restaurants and hotels including Typhoon Asian Cuisine, Sweet Harmony Bakery, Lyman Orchards and more. The event took place on April 30 in Beckham Hall and included a raffle prizes. More than 225 Wesleyan faculty and staff attended. Employees were encouraged to donate non-perishable food items to Amazing Grace, a food pantry located in Middletown. "Amazing Grace is grateful to all of our employees who donated a whopping 227 pounds of food and an additional $80 in cash," said event organizer Olga Bookas, director…
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,…
The Wesleyan Media Project has received a grant of $74,800 from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to track and analyze campaign ad spending in the 2014 midterm election cycle. The project is directed by Assistant Professor of Government Erika Franklin Fowler, along with Michael Franz of Bowdoin College and Travis Ridout of Washington State University. A resource for journalists, policymakers, scholars and voters, the project has worked to increase transparency in federal elections since it was established in 2010 with support from Knight Foundation. Read more about the grant and the Wesleyan Media Project’s work here.
The Wesleyan Media Project: interest groups, dark money, play a growing role in campaign advertising
Sonali Chakravarti, assistant professor of government, is the author of Sing the Rage: Listening to Anger after Mass Violence, published by University Of Chicago Press on April 23. In Sing the Rage, Sonali Chakravarti examines the relationship between anger and justice through a careful look at the emotionally charged South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Between 1996 and 1998, the commission saw, day after day, individuals taking the stand to speak—to cry, scream, and wail—about the atrocities of apartheid. Uncomfortable and surprising, these public emotional displays, she argues, proved to be of immense value, vital to the success of transitional justice and…
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,"…
Kate CarlisleAssistant Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences James “Jim” Greenwood has received a $331,000 grant from NASA to support his research on the moon’s water. His proposed research, tracking water in rock samples brought back by the Apollo missions, will “take a giant leap towards solving one of the most important questions in planetary science – whether the Moon is wet or dry,” Greenwood said. “We’ll be studying pockets of glass trapped in early and late-crystallizing minerals in lunar mare basalt samples,” Greenwood said. “We will measure water and other volatile elements in these trapped melt pockets to reconstruct the…