Olivia DrakeApril 17, 20076min
Gregory Dubinsky ’07 will work with experts in Washington DC after graduation. He was named a Carnegie Junior Fellow, the first Wesleyan has had since 1991. Posted 04/17/07 Gregory Dubinsky ’07 will have the opportunity to work with two Russian scholars as a newly-accepted Junior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think-tank based in Washington, DC that focuses on promoting cooperation between nations. Dubinsky, a government and intellectual history double major, is one of only seven students in the country to receive this honor. Each year the Carnegie Endowment offers the one-year fellowships to seniors and individuals…

Olivia DrakeApril 17, 20075min
After exams finish up, Kudakwashe Ngogodo '08 hopes to provide safe drinking water in a rural community in Zimbabwe. Jessica French Smith '09 wants to spend her summer building a community center for the troubled youth of Nagarote, Nicaragua. With support from the Kathryn Wasserman Davis 100 Projects for Peace Program, Smith, Ngogodo and other students from 65 colleges and universities will receive funding to undertake their proposed projects. Philanthropist Kathryn Wasserman Davis, on the occasion of her 100th birthday in February, established the new program with a donation of one million dollars so that each of the projects will…

Olivia DrakeApril 17, 20076min
John Seamon, professor and chair of the Psychology Department, led a study titled the study, "Do you remember proposing marriage to the Pepsi Machine? False recollections from a campus walk," which appeared in a recent issue of Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. Posted 04/17/07 Did you propose marriage to a Pepsi machine two weeks ago, or did you just imagine it? That's one of the questions John Seamon, professor and chair of the Psychology Department, asked participants in a study designed to determine if memories, and, in particular, bizarre false memories, could be implanted. "We were interested in seeing if merely…

Olivia DrakeApril 2, 20077min
Members of the class of 1918, the last class to hold a "Cannon Scrap" on campus, serenade the Douglas Cannon at their 55th reunion in 1973. Rumors have it that the cannon may return this year during Reunion & Commencement Weekend. Below, the cannon makes an appearance in Paris, France in the mid 1980s. Posted 04/02/07 There are no promises, but rumors have been heard that the 139-year-old Douglas Cannon – a revered Wesleyan artifact – may make an appearance during the 175th Commencement this May. John Driscoll, director of alumni relations, says he's heard vague rumblings that the cannon…

Olivia DrakeApril 2, 20072min
Posted 04/02/07 Jacob Dorman, the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, has been awarded a research fellowship by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Dorman will conduct research at the Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library. His project title is “Everyday Life and the Harlem Renaissance.” Dorman received a bachelor’s of art from Stanford University and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in African American history. At Wesleyan, he teaches Black Urban Religious History. He will use his Gilder Lehrman Fellowship to research the social history of black life during the Harlem Renaissance. To support outstanding…

Olivia DrakeApril 2, 20075min
Jenna Gopilan '07 researches neural stem cells in mice brains, and presented her research at a recent StemCONN conference. Posted 04/02/07 Jenna Gopilan ’07 familiarized herself with the scientific research environment during her freshman year as a work study student. As a sophomore, she shadowed graduate students to learn their techniques. Now, as a senior, the neuroscience and behavior major had the opportunity to present her own research project to the Media and Legislative Briefing at the State Capitol in Hartford. The briefing took place during Connecticut's Stem Cell Research International Symposium, also known as StemCONN 07, March 27-28. Gopilan’s…

Olivia DrakeApril 2, 20073min
Michael S. Roth, a historian and president of California College of the Arts, will become the 16th president of Wesleyan at the beginning of the 2007-08 academic year. Roth, a member of Wesleyan's Class of 1978, has been a professor in history and the humanities since 1983 and is recognized both as a curator and author. He is noted for founding the Scripps College Humanities Institute in Claremont, Calif., as a center for intellectual exchange across disciplines, for his scholarly leadership in the arts community as associate director of the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, and for enhancing the…

Olivia DrakeApril 2, 20076min
In center, Suzanne O’Connell, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences, teaches visiting 5th grade students about rocks. O'Connell was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to support building a community of women geoscience leaders. Posted 04/02/07 A three-year, $488,367 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to Suzanne O’Connell, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences, and Mary Anne Holmes, research associate professor at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, will help women from all academic levels take part in a community that stresses professional development in the geosciences. The project, titled, “Building a Community of Women Geoscience…

Olivia DrakeApril 2, 20074min
A study by Dana Royer, assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences, has established a calculable relationship between increases in CO2 and global surface temperatures. Posted 04/02/07 The connection between CO2 concentrations and increased global temperatures just gained a significant amount of evidence - about 420 million years worth of evidence, to be specific. In a paper published in the March 29 issue of Nature, Dana Royer, assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences, and two colleagues from Yale University have used nearly 500 data points to create the most comprehensive model of the relationship between CO2 and temperature to…

Olivia DrakeApril 2, 20077min
  At left, Marlon Bishop ’07 and Leigh Senderowicz ‘07 received Thomas J. Watson Foundation Fellowships, which facilitate independent projects abroad. Posted 04/02/07 Two Wesleyan students will have the opportunity to travel abroad and conduct independent studies as Thomas J. Watson Foundation Fellows. Marlon Bishop ’07 and Leigh Senderowicz ‘07 each received the $25,000 award. The Thomas J. Watson Foundation Fellowship provides graduating college seniors with a one year fellowship to explore an independent project outside of the United States, to enhance their capacity for resourcefulness, imagination, openness, and leadership and to foster their humane and effective participation in the…

Olivia DrakeMarch 16, 20077min
Posted 03/16/07 A $2.5 million pledge from Board of Trustee member Joshua Boger ' 73, and Amy Boger will support planning for a new molecular and life sciences building at Wesleyan. Joshua Boger, pictured at left, who founded and currently serves as president and CEO of Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, leads Wesleyan's Science Advisory Council, which works to strengthen the sciences at Wesleyan and to raise their visibility on and off campus. He also has served as a charter trustee of Wesleyan since 1999. Payette Associates of Cambridge, Mass., is working with faculty in the molecular and life sciences…

Olivia DrakeMarch 16, 20073min
Posted 03/16/07 Competing in the 5,000M event in the NCAA Division III Indoor Track Championships for the third year in a row, Ellen Davis '07 completed her rise from eighth in 2005, to fourth in 2006, and finally national champion in 2007 at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Ind. March 10. Her winning time of 16:43.73 eclipsed the team record she set a year ago (16:46.61) when she entered the NCAAs with the fastest qualifying time in the country. This race is equivalent to 3.1 miles. Davis, pictured at far left, came into the event as the number…