Mike Mavredakis

After working on a controlled environment aquaponics farming project at The Pomfret School, Brinton Thomas ’23 was a full-on believer in the concept. He thought it was the next phase in sustainable farming and he had planned to write his senior thesis on its benefits. Then something changed. After a few days of research on the rapidly-growing farming practice while preparing an investment memo for an asset management company he interned at last summer, Thomas realized that these systems are not developed enough to be impactful on a large scale. He thought it was the future of farming, and it…

Wesleyan students from four research labs in the Neuroscience and Behavior program (NS&B) attended the 36th annual Northeast Undergraduate and Graduate Research Organization for Neuroscience (NEURON) conference at Quinnipiac University on April 23. Students presented their research during the poster sessions and attended neuroscience-related workshops. They got the opportunity to meet faculty and students from other neuroscience programs throughout the region, and to discuss and get feedback on their work. Professor Charles Sanislow, Chair of the Neuroscience and Behavior Program, said, “These kinds of opportunities offer students the experience of sharing their research efforts with the professional community, and highlight…

President Michael S. Roth ’78 spoke about “Safe Enough Spaces” and their place in the debate around free speech at a symposium on Speech and Expression on College Campuses at Skidmore College on April 15. President Roth wrote a book review of “The Age of Guilt: The Super Ego in the Online World” by Mark Edmundson for The Washington Post. The book examines online judgementalism through a Freudian lens, Roth writes. He called Edmundson’s writing “engaging” with a “friendly yet incisive” tone. The Chronicle of Higher Education’s The Review newsletter quoted a tweet from Roth in a piece about scholars…

Art, like many areas of creative expression, does not always get the full attention it deserves. On average, visitors only spend 15 to 30 seconds looking at an artwork before moving on, according to studies done by several notable art museums. Peter Ketels Fulweiler ’23 said hearing this statistic fascinated him and made him want to create art that kept people’s attention. He exhibited his senior thesis piece “Terms and Conditions,” an interactive sculpture, at the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery on March 28 to April 2. And yet, 15 to 30 seconds would seem long for many to view…

By amplifying the personal experience of women in Jamaica who are living with HIV/AIDS, Nilukshi Chen ’23 hopes to explore the rampant fear and stigma surround the disease in the island nation. Chen interviewed four women for her senior thesis on the stigma surrounding HIV and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in Jamaica. Her thesis, titled “Sounding Subaltern Voices: Conversations with Jamaican Women Living with HIV/AIDS,” considers Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak” to grapple with what it means give a voice to individuals who have been historically voiceless. The term “subaltern” refers to an individual or group who is excluded from…

A collection of Wesleyan's seniors gathered on the steps of Olin Memorial Library on April 19 to celebrate the submission of their senior theses with a champagne shower. Smiling faces, hugs between friends, and cries of joy and relief fluttered through the air alongside the popped corks and bubbly.

Michael Greenberg ’76, P’14 is one of three winners of the Lundbeck Foundation’s The Brain Prize 2023—the largest personal award for neuroscience research—for his contributions to the field. Greenberg, the Nathan Marsh Pusey Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, said it was “very gratifying” for his life’s work to be recognized by neuroscientists at the highest level. He has spent more than four decades researching the brain, specifically neuroplasticity—the ability of the brain to change in response to learning, experience, or following injury. “It's also been gratifying to see the work come to fruition in ways that we think…

Thomas J. Watson Fellow Jocelyn Velasquez Baez ’23 will travel to at least six countries in a year’s time to explore how the integration, adaptation, and practice of traditional medicine is perceived in diverse Indigenous and ethnic communities around the world. The Watson Fellowship, sponsored by the Watson Foundation, allows recent graduates from 41 partner institutions to do year-long independent exploration projects outside of the United States. Velasquez Baez will travel to the Philippines, Ecuador, Nepal, Ghana, New Zealand, and Canada—with the hope of more—to visit and learn from various Indigenous and ethnic communities in each country over the course…

The ability to explore, open-mindedness, diversity of thought, the culture, the community, an emphasis on the arts—these were all reasons that prospective students gave for why they were considering enrolling at Wesleyan in the Fall. “We try to create a culture where people can listen to each other; because by listening to each other, we discover things about ourselves and about the world that we wouldn't otherwise,” President Michael S. Roth ’78 said at WesFest 2023 on April 14. For Elizabeth Littell, 18, of Portland, Maine, the community at Wesleyan is the main attraction, she said. “Everyone is just so…

President Michael S. Roth ’78 authored a review of “Unearthed: A Lost Actress, a Forbidden Book, and a Search for Life in the Shadow of the Holocaust” by Meryl Frank for The Wall Street Journal. The memoir details her research into her family’s history and a book inherited from her aunt, Mollie, which depicts the brutal murder of Jewish performers by Nazis—including one of her cousins. Roth told The New Yorker that reading storied texts with specific lens’ geared toward re-affirming your own beliefs is like “shooting fish in a barrel.” He spoke on the topic for a piece on Hillsdale College’s…

Every time author and Assistant Professor of English Rachel Heng begins a new project, she asks herself, “what are the stakes?” Why is she writing this story? When writing her new novel, The Great Reclamation, she saw her mother reminiscing about former greenscapes converted to tall buildings in her native Singapore. She grew up hearing stories of life before the high-rise filled city she grew up in. “My mother would go to places and say, ‘oh, you know, we used to live here, but I don't really know where it is anymore because they changed all the roads,’” Heng said.…

Who collects your data? Which data? Why? Where does it go? Who is buying it? What are they doing with it? Can we protect our data or choose who gets to use and sell it? What laws are in place to protect your data? What’s the path forward for data privacy? These were all questions tackled by data privacy experts from Wesleyan, New York University, Google, Harvard, Boston University, Carnegie Mellon, and others who spoke at the annual Shasha Seminar for Human Concerns on March 31 and April 1. “The importance of freedom from unauthorized intrusion is on the top…

Senior Thesis: Thomas ’23 Believes in Regenerative Agriculture

Wesleyan Students Present at NEURON Conference

Wesleyan in the News: May 2023

Senior Thesis: Peter Ketels Fulweiler ’23 Comments on AI and Surveillance with Sculpture

Senior Thesis: Chen ’23 Studies HIV/AIDS and STD Stigma in Jamaica

Gallery: Wesleyan Seniors Celebrate Thesis Submissions

Michael Greenberg ’76, P’14 Wins The Brain Prize 2023 for Neuroscience Research

Watson Fellow Jocelyn Velasquez Baez to Explore Ethical Understandings of Traditional Medicine in 6 Countries

WesFest 2023: Wesleyan’s Community, Culture at the Top of Mind for Prospective Students

Wesleyan in the News: April 2023

Heng Publishes New Novel The Great Reclamation

Internet Privacy Roadmap Developed at Shasha Seminar