Olivia Drake – Page 114

The College of East Asian Studies (CEAS) received two major, multi-year grant awards to hire new faculty and improve library resources. The Korea Foundation has awarded the CEAS a $314,330 five-year grant to support the hiring of a tenure-track faculty member in Korean political economy. The mission of The Korea Foundation is to promote better understanding of Korea within the international community and to increase friendship and goodwill between Korea and the rest of the world through various exchange programs. Located in Seoul, the foundation was established in 1991 with the aim to enhance the image of Korea in the…

Manju Hingorani, professor of molecular biology and biochemistry, is the co-author of "MutL Traps MutS at a DNA Mismatch," published in the July 21 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Postdoctoral researcher Miho Sakato also co-authored the article. DNA mismatch repair is the process by which errors generated during DNA replication are corrected. Mutations in the proteins that initiate mismatch repair, MutS and MutL, are associated with greater than 80 percent of hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer and many sporadic cancers. The assembly of MutS and MutL at a mismatch is an essential step for initiating repair; however,…

Ellen Thomas, the University Professor in the College of Integrative Sciences, received a grant in August from the National Science Foundation to support her research on “Evaluating Deep-Sea Ventilation and the Global Carbon Cycle during early Paleocene Hyperthemals.” The $105,000 award is part of a combined $619,000 grant shared with Yale University and the University of Texas at Arlington. Rapid, short-term global warming events in the Early Paleogene (~65-45 million years ago) were caused by massive greenhouse gas release into the ocean-atmosphere system. These warming events, called hyperthermals, had far-reaching effects on the evolution of life on Earth, ecosystems and…

This fall, Wesleyan welcomes 15 new faculty to the university. They are: Francesco Aresu, assistant professor of Italian; Joseph Coolon, assistant professor of biology; Daniel DiCenzo, adjunct associate professor of physical education and head coach of football; Candice Etson, assistant professor of physics; Anthony Hatch, assistant professor of Science in Society; Han Li, assistant professor of mathematics; Jeffrey Naecker, assistant professor of economics; Paula Park, assistant professor of Spanish; Michelle Personick, assistant professor of chemistry; Felipe Ramírez, assistant professor of mathematics; Ben Somera Jr., adjunct associate professor of physical education, head coach of volleyball; Ying Jia Tan, assistant professor of…

On July 15, the Petit Family Foundation awarded Wesleyan’s Physics Department with a $5,000 grant to support the 2016 Northeast Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP). The three-day conference, scheduled for January 15-17, 2016, will showcase career opportunities available to physicists through plenary talks, panel discussions and a career fair. Attendees will have the opportunity to network and interact with more than 200 fellow undergraduate women physicists as well as a variety of industrial and academic leaders. Chris Othon, assistant professor of physics, and Meredith Hughes, assistant professor of astronomy, are co-organizing the conference with help from Nisha Grewal ’17 (physics/economics) and Julia…

The Wesleyan Mathematics and Science Scholars (WesMaSS) Program is a highly selective academic program designed to support students from traditionally underrepresented groups who are interested in pursuing study in mathematics and natural sciences. The program aims to foster community building and provides the scholars, who are all incoming first-year students, with mentoring and academic resources which encourage and facilitate their sustained involvement in these fields. Each scholar also receives a Wesleyan faculty mentor. From July 26-31, 10 of the 32 WesMaSS scholars participated in an intensive introduction to studying science at Wesleyan. Students toured the science departments, became familiar with the…

The Green Street Teaching and Learning Center hosted a Girls in Science Camp Aug. 3-7. Wesleyan faculty members Ruth Johnson, assistant professor of biology (pictured third from left); Erika Taylor, assistant professor of chemistry, assistant professor of environmental studies (pictured at far right); Chris Othon, assistant professor of physics (pictured at left), along with three undergraduate students, worked with the campers on various experiments. Sara MacSorley, director of the GSTLC (second from left), coordinated the activities. Johnson led the campers on a bug hunt through Wesleyan's West College Courtyard garden. There, the girls observed insects while considering insect diets and insect life-cycles. The girls…

On July 16, Physical Plant began spearheading a College Row sidewalk replacement project. After removing the existing concrete sidewalk, that spans from Church Street to Wyllys Avenue, contractors installed a 13-foot-wide asphalt path that will accommodate large groups of people, such as campus tours. The existing path was 8-feet-wide. "This sidewalk has a large amount of foot traffic all year round," said Wesleyan grounds manager Rob Borman. "The concrete sidewalks around campus also have shown considerable decay, primarily due to salt use in winter." The wider sidewalk also will allow grounds maintenance staff to remove snow faster and easier by using a larger machine. Asphalt,…

Seth Redfield, associate professor of astronomy, and Marshall Johnson '11 are the co-authors of an article titled "The Interstellar Medium in the Kepler Search Volume," published in The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 802, No. 2, July 2015. The article highlights ways scientists are studying the gas and dust in the galaxy near where the Kepler Space Telescope is discovering exoplanets. "Stars, with planets, can interact with the gas surrounding them in interesting ways, like bubbles in a drink, where each of the bubbles is an individual star (perhaps with planets) and the drink is the 'interstellar medium', the gas in between the stars," Redfield explained. In…

Seth Redfield, associate professor of astronomy, and Wilson Cauley, postdoctoral researcher in astronomy, led the effort on a paper titled "Optical hydrogen absorption consistent with a thin bow shock leading the hot Jupiter HD 189733b" accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. Bow shocks are ubiquitous astrophysical phenomena resulting from the supersonic passage of an object through a gas. In this paper, the authors present a robust detection of a time-resolved pre-transit, as well as in-transit, absorption signature around the hot Jupiter exoplanet HD 189733b using high spectral resolution observations of several hydrogen lines. Better knowledge of exoplanet magnetic field strengths is…

Two Wesleyan faculty received NEH Public Scholarships to encourage new research and support their upcoming publications. Only 36 writers in the country received the award. The Public Scholar program, a major new initiative from the National Endowment for the Humanities, is designed to promote the publication of scholarly nonfiction books for a general audience. On July 29, the NEH awarded a total of $1.7 million to 36 writers including Wesleyan’s Jennifer Tucker, associate professor of history, and Andrew Curran, the William Armstrong Professor of the Humanities and professor of French.

University Professor of Music Sumarsam is the author of an article titled “Bali–Java Cultural Exchange: Gamelan Carabalen,” published in Interculturalism and Mobility of the Performing Arts, Sound, Movement for the Proceeding of the 3rd Symposium of the International Council for Traditional Music Study Group on Performing Arts in Southeast Asia. Gamelan Carabalen is an ancient, processional Javanese ensemble whose creation was inspired by a processional Balinese gamelan. "Ethnicity and cultural identity is the product of specific historical condition. Viewed in a context of history of ethnic relations, we find very complex picture, dynamic process, and multifaceted forms and meanings of ethnicity…

Grants Support New CEAS Faculty Positions, Japanese Language Databases

Hingorani’s DNA Mismatch Study Published in PNAS

NSF Supports Thomas’s Study on the Impact of Rapid Carbon Emissions on Global Climate

Wesleyan Welcomes 15 Faculty this Fall

Petit Family Foundation Supports Women in Physics Conference

WesMaSS Scholars Get Intensive Introduction to Studying Sciences at Wesleyan

Faculty Teach Local Girls about Science

College Row Receives Safer Sidewalk Replacement

Study by Redfield, Johnson ’11 Published in Astrophysical Journal, New Scientist

Bow Shock Study by Redfield, Cauley Published in Astrophysical Journal

NEH Supports Research, Writing Projects by Tucker, Curran

Sumarsam Writes Article on Gamelan Carabalen