Olivia DrakeLisa Drennan ’09 signed a professional volleyball contract in Europe and will play for a team in Brondby, Denmark for the 2009 season. Drennan closed out her Wesleyan volleyball career in 2008 with her second NESCAC Player of the Year honor as well as second-team AVCA Division III All-America laurels. Also named a second-team CoSIDA/ESPN the Magazine Academic All-American in 2008, Drennan ranked among the top five players in Division III for average kills per set for three straight seasons (2006, 2007 and 2008) while leading the NESCAC each of those years as well. She ended her Wesleyan career ranked…
Richard Slotkin, the Olin Professor of English Emeritus, is the author of the book, No Quarter: The Battle of the Crater, 1864 published by Random House on July 21. No Quarter is a dramatic recount of one of the Civil War’s most pivotal events — the Battle of the Crater on July 30, 1864. At first glance, the Union’s plan seemed brilliant. A regiment of miners would burrow beneath a Confederate fort, pack the tunnel with explosives, and blow a hole in the enemy lines. Then a specially trained division of African American infantry would spearhead a powerful assault to…
Edward Moran, chair and associate professor of astronomy, director of the Van Vleck Observatory, received a grant from the National Science Foundation for his research titled "Black Holes in the Milky Way's Backyard." The grant, worth $275,164, will be applied over three years. The award, presented on Aug. 26, is funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Charles Sanislow, assistant professor of psychology, received a $349,939 grant from the National Institute of Health for his research titled "Cognitive Control in Borderline & Trauma Psychopathology." The grant, awarded Aug. 24, will be applied over two years. It is a continuation of a six-year grant transferred from Yale University.
Wesleyan University received a grant worth $177,918 from the U.S. Department of Education to help establish a Middle Eastern Studies Certificate Program at Wesleyan. The grant will be applied over two years. Bruce Masters, the John E. Andrus Professor of History, says he and other interested faculty will propose to the Educational Policy Committee an interdisciplinary cluster of courses that will allow interested students to graduate with a certificate in Middle Eastern Studies, in addition to their departmental/program major. The grant, along with a commitment from Academic Affairs, is supporting a long-term contract adjunct instructor in Arabic language.
Amy MacQueen, assistant professor of molecular biology and biochemistry, received a $746,997 grant from the national Institute of Health for her research titled "Regulation of Synaptonemal Complex Assembly During Meiosis in S. cerevisiae." The grant, awarded Aug. 21, will be applied over three years.
Robert Lane, associate professor of molecular biology and biochemistry, received a grant from the National Science Foundation/American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for this research titled "Cross-Disciplinary Science & Investigation of Olfactory Receptor Gene Regulation." The award, worth $299,955 will be distributed over two years.
Bill HolderDr. Geoffrey Ginsburg ’78 of Duke University and his colleagues have developed an experimental genetic test that can detect common infections before people know they are sick, according to an article in USA Today. The test can distinguish between bacterial and viral illnesses, which may help physicians determine when they first see a patient whether giving antibiotics to a person will be helpful. Unlike existing diagnostic tests, which typically detect either the germ itself or antibodies, the new approach detects the activation of genes that govern an immune response. It requires no more than a finger-prick of blood. USA Today…
David LowSadia Shepard ’97 is one of the producers of the new documentary The September Issue, directed by R. J. Cutler, which opened in movie theaters on August 28 to positive reviews. The movie focuses on the world of Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine, and her influence on the fashion industry. Wintour was also the inspiration for the novel and movie The Devil Wears Prada. In his review of the film in Entertainment Weekly, Owen Gleiberman writes: “… we observe the process by which Wintour and her vast army of editors, designers, photographers, models, and gofers labor, throughout the summer…
Novelist Kaylie Jones ’81 has written a new memoir, Lies My Mother Never Told Me (William Morrow, 2009) in which she explores her life growing up with her well-known father, who was also a writer (From Here to Eternity) and her mother, who as an alcoholic who could be cruel and unloving. Jones also writes about her adulthood as she struggles to overcome her own drinking problem and to become a writer in the shadow of her father, and the difficulties of dealing with her mother as she declines physically and mentally. In her review of the book in The…
Deb Olin Unferth, assistant professor of English, won the 2009 Cabell First Novelist Award for her book, Vacation, (McSweeney's Press). She recieved $5,000 for being the contest winner. According to an Aug. 15 edition of The Los Angeles Times, about 100 readers from Virginia Commonwealth University and the broader Richmond, Va. Community, participated in the selection process.
Gary Yohe, the Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of Economics, is quoted in an Aug. 21 USA Today article titled "Poor communities hit hardest by global warming." The article focuses on a study produced by the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report about its economic forecasts. Yohe is an author on the IPCC report. "IPCC identified the poor, the elderly, and the very young as the most vulnerable categories of people on the planet ... regardless of location, as Katrina and the European (2003) heat wave taught us," Yohe says in the article. "Nonetheless, the most vulnerable are more likely to…