Olivia DrakeA $298,736 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will allow Wesleyan to remain competitive in numerical modeling research and education on an international level. Francis Starr, associate professor of physics, David Beveridge, the Joshua Boger University Professor of the Sciences and Mathematics, and Michael Weir, professor of biology, director of the Hughes Program in the Life Sciences, received the grant for a project titled “Major Research Instrumentation – Recovery and Reinvestment program (MRI-R2): Acquisition of Shared Cluster and Database Computing Facilities at Wesleyan University.” The grant, awarded over three years beginning May 1, will fund growth of the computer…
Ten years from now, Daniela Ivanova ’10 envisions herself working as an advisor to a European commissioner or member of the Bulgarian government. Her next step in the quest will take place at the University of Oxford, in England. Ivanova is a recipient of a Weidenfeld Scholarship and Leadership Programme for 2010-11. Awarded by the London-based Institute for Strategic, the scholarship will allow Bulgaria native Ivanova to pursue her career goal by supporting her studies on European politics and society at Oxford. “Daniela came straight to Wesleyan from a high school in a remote Bulgarian provincial town,” says Peter Rutland,…
David PesciAnne Mariel Peters, assistant professor of government, has been selected as a 2010-2011 Academic Fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) in Washington, D.C. As an FDD fellow, Peters will participate in an intensive course on terrorism and counterterrorism at the University of Tel Aviv from May 30 to June 9. The course examines terrorism from a variety of political, academic, and law enforcement perspectives. It also includes site visits to Israeli security installations and border zones, as well as meetings with Israeli, Jordanian, Turkish and Indian officials. Peters’ expertise is in the political economies of the…
Shining Hope for Communities, a student-founded non-profit organization, has been named the winner of the 2010 Dell Social Innovation Competition. The award is based on a world-wide competition among college students who create projects that can “make the world a better place.” Shining Hope for Communities founded The Kibera School for Girls in 2009 in the Kenyan slum of Kibera, and is creating the Johanna Justin Jinich Memorial Clinic and a community center this year at the same site. Initial funding for the Kibera School for Girls was provided by the Davis 100 Projects for Peace program. The Dell award…
Corrina KerrFor this issue, we queried Laurie Nussdorfer, professor of history, letters and medieval studies and author of Brokers of Public Trust: Notaries in Early Modern Rome (published by The Johns Hopkins University Press in 2009). She supplied her answers in writing, of course. Q: How did the idea for the book begin? A: Daniel Rosenberg ’88 wrote a senior honors thesis in the History Department about the historiography of literacy (how historians had interpreted and investigated the ability of people to read in the past). I was one of the readers of this fascinating thesis, and it occurred to me…
The Deans’ Office honored recipients of the ‘10 Academic Scholarships, Fellowships and Prizes during a ceremony May 5 in Daniel Family Commons. This year, 167 students received scholarships, fellowships, prizes and awards; Forty-seven students received multiple prizes, with four students receiving four or five. One employee received a prize, as did two Graduate Liberal Studies Program students. The deans and several faculty gathered at the reception to honor the students who represent the highest ideals of Wesleyan University – intellectual curiosity, academic excellence, creative expression, leadership and service. (more…)
Brian KattenThe softball team claimed a NESCAC tournament title and automatic bid to the NCAA championship May 14. Recovering from a disappointing 5-2 loss to Bowdoin in a potential title game, the Cardinals came back to trounce Bowdoin 10-1. Wesleyan softball, coached by Jen Lane, adjunct associate professor of physical education, joins the 2005 men's soccer team and 2009 men's lacrosse team as NESCAC titlists. The Cardinals will play Kean University of New Jersey in the NCAA first-round game May 14 at Rhode Island College (R.I.C.). (more…)
Olin Library welcomes one of the country’s largest King Arthur collections to Wesleyan’s Special Collections and Archives department. The Nathan Comfort Starr Collection of Arthuriana is one of Wesleyan's great hidden treasures. It comprises of more than 900 volumes related to the legends of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. The Friends of the Wesleyan Library funded a three-month, full-time librarian to catalog the collection. Rare book cataloger Samantha Klein began the task in January 2010, and finished in March. The collection was the 1981 bequest of Nathan Comfort Starr, (more…)
Liana Woskie '10 believes that Community Health Workers (CHWs) can be effective and vital components of systems that serve the health needs of hard-to-reach populations. However, their success varies across cultures and program models. She wants to know why. As a 2010 Watson Fellow, Liana Woskie ’10 will research CHWs systems through case studies of programs located in Bangladesh, Tanzania, India, Thailand and Lesotho. Woskie, a College of Social Studies major, is one of only 40 students in the world to receive a Watson Fellowship this year. The fellowship, which includes a $25,000 stipend, offers promising college graduates a year…
"Keeping Our Feet to the Fire: Joining Art and Science to Engage Environmental Issues" is the topic of Wesleyan's 2010 Earth Day celebration on April 22. The event will feature a world premier screening of Paul Horton's film Connections within a Fragile World. A panel of environmental experts will discuss the question "are art and science as natural allies in communicating environmental issues to the public?" It will be moderated by Jeremy Isard '11, with panelists: Godfrey Bourne, University Missouri St. Louis; Marda Kirn, EcoArts Connections, Colorado; Cassie Meador, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, Washington, D.C.; and Barry Chernoff, the Robert…
This year Wesleyan received 10,656 applications to join the university’s class of 2014, an increase of nearly 6 percent from last year. Of those, 2,125 or just under 20 percent, were offered admission, giving Wesleyan its most selective admission cycle on record. “This is a really superb and exciting group of students who are poised to join the Wesleyan community,” says Nancy Hargrave Meislahn, dean of admission and financial aid. “We had another significant increase in the overall number of applications this year and we had to make a lot of difficult decisions. But the students we chose were absolutely…
Hilary Barth, assistant professor of psychology, was recently awarded a five-year, $761,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study “magnitude biases in mathematical cognition, learning, and development.” Barth will be conducting a series of studies with children and adults in the Cognitive Development Laboratory at Wesleyan to investigate abstract and perceptual magnitude biases. The grant, which begins this year, comes from the NSF’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program. The program is only available to non-tenured faculty. Barth’s colleague Anna Shusterman was awarded a CAREER grant in 2009. “The psychology department is thrilled about Professor Barth's accomplishment,” says Lisa…