Randi Alexandra Plake

Davenport Study Grant recipient Anna Bisikalo ’17, a Russian, East European, and Eurasian studies major, recently completed a six-week internship at Transitions Online (TOL), a nonprofit media organization based in Prague, Czech Republic. During her internship, Bisikalo published a series of articles, including her most recent article, “Art and Politics Do Mix.” Bisikalo's internship was five days a week at the TOL office. "The office was English-speaking, but I did use my Ukrainian and Russian language skills for the articles I wrote,” she explained. “I wrote daily articles about new stories from the region, often focusing on ones that are…

Hilary Barth, associate professor of psychology, is a co-author of a paper titled, “How feedback improves children’s numerical estimation,” published in the August 2016 issue of the journal Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. Barth’s co-authors are former members of her Cognitive Development Lab, which include Shipra Kanjlia ’11 and Jennifer Garcia ’10, former lab managers Jessica Taggart and Elizabeth Chase, and former postdoctoral fellow Emily Slusser, PhD. The paper explores one theory of children’s cognitive development that there are fundamental developmental changes in the ways children think about numbers. This theory says numbers are arranged on a different mental scale for younger…

The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded the Prison University Project the National Humanities Medal for transforming the lives of incarcerated people through higher education. The Prison University Project is run by founder and executive director, Jody Lewen ’86. Lewen accepted the medal at a ceremony Sept. 22 at the White House, along with former students, Pat Mims and David Cowan. The medal honors individuals or groups whose work has deepened the nation's understanding of the humanities and broadened our citizens' engagement with history, literature, languages, philosophy and other humanities subjects. At Wesleyan, Lewen earned a BA in history. She…

Naomi Ekperigin ’05, a writer, comedian, and actress based in New York City, will make her first appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers on Sept. 29. Ekperigin, known for tackling race, politics, and religion in her routine, will perform her stand-up act ahead of her Comedy Central special, The Half Hour, which airs in October. Ekperigin, who studied English and film studies, started performing when she arrived at Wesleyan. “I always enjoyed acting and performing as a kid, but I didn’t have a lot of opportunities to do it. Once I got to Wesleyan, I did a lot of theater,…

Actor and director Kaneza Schaal ’06 returned to campus for her New England premiere of GO FORTH (2015), a series of vignettes with projection, sound, and dance inspired by the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The four performances took place over the past weekend to a sold-out audience. At a special lunch surrounded by a group of theater majors, one being GO FORTH ensemble member Cheyanne Williams ’17, Schaal explained how the Book of the Dead inspired her production: “I was drawn to the Book of the Dead after experiencing the loss of my father. I went to Rwanda for…

Wesleyan’s Transportation Services Department announces the addition of a new 14-passenger bus to the Wesleyan RIDE system fleet. The RIDE is a free shuttle service with 17 stops around campus. The department also provides a free off-campus grocery shuttle service to Price Chopper and Aldi on Sunday afternoons. “Adding this bus to the RIDE program will allow us to move more people, more efficiently, and more comfortably," said Joe Martocci, transportation services manager. The RIDE shuttles are available seven nights a week, and Martocci says volume picks up on the weekends. “We move over 500 students every weekend. The idea…

Seth Lerer ’76, literary critic and Distinguished Professor of Literature at the University of California at San Diego, spoke to Slate.com on the complex history of children’s literature. “The earliest kids books…were largely designed to teach moral behavior,” he said. "They were about social decorum and a particular way of being a child, especially in relation to parents and teachers. Some children’s books—many of the early medieval romances, for instance—had an adventure quality to them, but always a moral and spiritual quality too.” He also observed the increasing focus on young women in today’s literature. “When you look at the…

Film studies major Adam McGill ’16 screened his short film Punked! at the Princeton Student Film Festival this summer. McGill’s comedy is about a punk rock singer and guitarist named Dale, whose allegiance to his music is challenged when a new romance enters his life. McGill filmed the short in the fall of 2015 as a senior thesis project at Wesleyan. During his time at Wesleyan, McGill was taught by Jeanine Basinger, the Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, who said, “I’m happy to see his work recognized outside the classroom. He joins a long line of Wesleyan film majors who have…

Chris Weaver MALS ’75, CAS ’76, visiting professor in the College of Integrative Sciences at Wesleyan, was appointed co-director of the Video Game Pioneers Archive at the Smithsonian Institute’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. This one-of-a-kind initiative will record oral-history interviews with first-generation inventors of the video game industry, creating a multimedia archive that will preserve the evolution of the industry in the words of its founders. The archive will offer scholars and the public the opportunity to better understand the personalities, technologies, and social forces that have driven interactive media to become one of the…

Recent works by Ben Charles Weiner ’03, a New York-based artist, are on display at Mark Moore Gallery in Los Angeles. Artdaily.org praised the works in this exhibition, Textures of You, as “lush yet uneasy,” noting that Weiner was inspired by synthetic body enhancement products and used a hyperrealistic technique to create the paintings. Read the full article here. In a recent conversation with The Wesleyan Connection, Weiner explained the workflow and artistic style he used for these paintings. “Formally, my approach to painting these subjects takes inspiration from the stock textures used in graphic design and CG rendered imagery.…

John Bonin, the Chester D. Hubbard Professor of Economics and Social Science, and his former student Dana Louie ’15, are authors of a new paper published in Journal of Comparative Economics titled, “Did foreign banks stay committed to emerging Europe during recent financial crises?” In the paper, Bonin and Louie investigate the behavior of foreign banks with respect to real loan growth during times of financial crisis for a set of countries where foreign banks dominate the banking sectors. The paper focuses on eight countries that are the most developed in emerging Europe and the behavior of two types of banks:…

Laura Walker ’79, New York Public Radio CEO, was recently interviewed by Fortune on the topic of women in the podcasting industry. She discussed how she got her start in radio, what business school was like for women in the 1980s, and why more women are needed in podcasting. Walker discussed the motivation to help start Werk It, WNYC’s annual festival for women in podcasting, which is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to get more women involved in podcasting. “I think that many women are natural storytellers and aren’t fearful of mixing the personal and the factual. I…

Bisikalo ’17 Completes Writing Internship in Prague at Media Organization

Barth’s Research Published on Child Cognitive Development in Psychonomic Bulletin and Review

Lewen’s (’86) Prison University Project Receives National Humanities Medal

Ekperigin ’05, Writer and Actress, to Perform Stand-Up on Late Night with Seth Meyers

Actor, Director Schaal ’06 Returns to Campus for Sold-Out Premiere of Go Forth

Transportation Services’ New 14-Passenger Bus Moves Students More Efficiently

Lerer ’76 Interviewed By Slate Magazine on the Evolution of Children’s Literature

McGill ’16 Screens Short Film at Princeton Film Festival

Weaver MALS ’75, CAS ’76 to Co-Direct Smithsonian’s Video Game Pioneers Archive

Solo Show by Weiner ’03 at Los Angeles Gallery

Bonin, Louie ’15 Co-Author Paper in Journal of Comparative Economics

Walker ’79 Interviewed By Fortune on Women In Podcasting