Mike SembosApril 18, 201410min
The U.S. Air Force has taken a keen interest in the recent work of Tsampikos Kottos, the Douglas J. and Midge Bowen Bennet Associate Professor of Physics. Kottos, along with Graduate Research Assistant Eleana Makri, Hamidreza Ramezani Ph.D. '13 (now a postdoc at U.C. Berkeley) and Dr. Ilya Vitebskiy (AFRL/Ohio), has come up with a theoretical way to build a more effective, reusable power limiter. Generally speaking, the function of a power limiter is to protect a sensor  — be it the human eye, an antenna, or other sensitive equipment — from high-intensity radiation, like that generated by high-power lasers. Kottos, Makri, Ramezani…

Mike SembosMarch 20, 20143min
Laura Fraser '82, who majored in American studies, has cofounded and launched Shebooks, an e-publishing site dedicated to producing short e-books by and for women. The site went live in January, and it features exclusive memoirs, fiction and journalism by established authors like Hope Edelman, Marion Winik, Faith Adiele, Jessica Anya Blau and Suzanne Paola. Some contributing Wesleyan authors include Jennifer Finney Boylan '80, who wrote an original novella for Shebooks and is on its advisory board, Virginia Pye '82, who wrote an original novella, stories by Bonnie Friedman '79 and some essays by Fraser herself. All works, ranging from long…

Mike SembosMarch 14, 20141min
David Westmoreland, associate professor of chemistry, and chemistry graduate student Breanna Craft presented a paper titled, “pH-Dependent Mechanisms of 1H Relaxivity in a Series of Structurally Related Mn(II) Cyclen Derivatives” at the 245th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society held in New Orleans, La. in April 2013. Westmoreland, Craft and chemistry graduate student Sarah Hensiek also presented a paper titled, “Solution Dynamics of Transition Metal Complexes of Cyclen Based Ligands Containing Amide and Carboxylate Functional Groups."

Mike SembosMarch 14, 20141min
Assistant Professor of Theater Rashida Shaw ‘99 shared her observations as a researcher, ethnographer and audience member who has attended urban theater productions in Chicago for a chapter in a book called Black Theater Is Black Life: An Oral History of Chicago Theater and Dance, 1970-2010, written by Harvey Young and Queen Meccasia Zabriskie, and published in November 2013 by Northwestern University Press. It features interviews with producers, directors, choreographers, designers, dancers, and actors, and serves to frame the colorful four-decade period for the African American artistic community in the Windy City.

Mike SembosMarch 14, 20141min
Erika Taylor, assistant professor of chemistry, assistant professor of environmental studies; Manju Hingorani, professor of molecular biology and biochemistry; molecular biology and biochemistry graduate student Shreya Sawant and chemistry graduate student Daniel Czyzyk co-authored "E. coli Heptosyltransferase I: Exploration of Protein Function and Dynamics" published in Biochemistry, 52, 5158–5160 in 2013. They presented the paper at the 23rd Enzyme Mechanisms Conference held in Coronado Bay, Calif. in January 2013 and at the 57th Biophysical Society Conference held in Philadelphia, Pa. in February 2013.

Mike SembosMarch 14, 20142min
Elizabeth Willis, professor of English, authored several poems recently: "Alive" is forthcoming in American Reader in 2014. "Ephemeral Stream" was posted on Poem-A-Day, Academy of American Poets online on Jan. 2, 2014. "Survey” was published in A Public Space No. 17 in 2013. "The Witch" is included in the forthcoming 100 Poems Your Teachers Don't Want You to Read anthology to be published by Penguin Putnam in 2015. "Watertown Is Ninety-Nine Percent Land" is included in the forthcoming Collected in One Fund Boston Benefit anthology to be published by Granary Books in 2014. "Oil and Water" included in the Oh Sandy!:…