Campus News & Events

Nadya Potemkina, adjunct associate professor of music, placed third in The American Prize competition, in the category of orchestral programming. The American Prize—Vytautas Marijosius Memorial Award in Orchestral Programming—honors the memory of the great Lithuanian conductor Maestro Vytautas Marijosius, who served as the music director of the Lithuanian State Opera and the director of orchestral activities at the Hartt School of Music. The prize recognizes and rewards "the best achievement in the unique field of orchestral programming, where the selection of repertoire by knowledgeable, creative and courageous music directors builds orchestras and audiences, educates young people and adults, and enriches…

Ellen Thomas, Harold T. Stearns Professor of Integrative Sciences, University Professor in the College of Integrative Sciences, is the co-author of: "Miocene evolution of North Atlantic Sea Surface Temperature," published in Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, 35, in April 2020. "Extensive morphological variability in asexually produced planktic foraminifera," published in Science Advances, 6, in July 2020. "Origin of a global carbonate layer deposited in the aftermath of the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary impact," published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 548, in October 2020.

Images depicting star collisions, atom movement in yeast ribosomes, and herbaceous plant root scans were the winning entries of the 2020 Wesleyan Scientific Imaging Contest. The Wesleyan Scientific Imaging Contest, held annually in August, recognizes student-submitted images—from experiments or simulations done with a Wesleyan faculty member—that are scientifically intriguing, as well as aesthetically pleasing. The contest is organized by the College of Integrative Sciences as part of the summer research program. The winners included Osama Elgabori '22, Carol Dalgarno '21, and Jolie Villegas '21. Elgabori's advisor is Brian Stewart, professor of physics; Dalgarno's advisor is Michael Weir, professor of biology;…

On Aug. 18, Wesleyan faculty, staff, and alumni presented a WESeminar titled "Hidden Treasures." The seminar focused on the holdings of the Dietrich American Foundation on long-term loan at Wesleyan, which includes letters, writings, and manuscripts by Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington, among others. All documents are available to Wesleyan students and faculty through Wesleyan's Special Collections and Archives. "One of the hallmarks of the experience of studying at a liberal arts college is the opportunity to interact directly with material objects of the past—documents, rare books, artworks, cultural objects—in ways that are often only reserved for graduate…

On June 30, Wesleyan hosted a virtual Summer 2020 Research Poster Session to celebrate the accomplishments of more than 150 student researchers. To emulate the excitement and camaraderie of the live poster session, students hosted their own individual presentations on Zoom and answered questions live. Examples of student research projects are below: Tyler Boone '21 shared his poster titled "Probing the Effects of YTA7 on Genetic Silencing in S. cerevisiae." Boone is double majoring in molecular biology and biochemistry and biology with a minor in chemistry. In order to better understand how the structure of chromatin, a complex of DNA…

Before children enter Kindergarten, they're often interested in mathematical concepts like patterns, numbers, and logic. However, math remains under-supported in most preschool settings in the United States. As a recipient of a $1.8 million grant by the National Science Foundation, Associate Professor of Psychology Anna Shusterman hopes to address this educational need by providing preschool settings with a research-based, developmentally appropriate, conceptually rich, flexible, and fun collection of math games that can be incorporated into any classroom. "The preschool years have long been recognized as an opportune time to engage children in mathematical thinking, bootstrapping their natural curiosity and laying a…

Manju Hingorani, visiting scholar in molecular biology and biochemistry, and Brandon Case PhD '19 are co-authors of a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA in July 2020. The paper, titled “Recurrent mismatch binding by MutS mobile clamps on DNA localizes repair complexes nearby," reports novel findings about the mechanism whereby MutS protein triggers initiation of DNA repair. The research at Wesleyan was supported by NIH grant R15 GM114743 awarded to Manju Hingorani. Case is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School. Jennifer Tucker, associate professor of history, discusses the role of material culture and visual…

On July 6, when the U.S. government made a federal ruling that international students would be deported should their studies be held exclusively online, Bryan Chong '21 took immediate action to fight back. The Hong Kong native and visa holder had already spent six years in Connecticut, attending high school in Kent before enrolling at Wesleyan. If the COVID-19 pandemic moved Wesleyan to return to an all-online format again, the policy would have forced Chong to return to China for his senior year of college. But he wasn't worried about himself as much as his international peers. "I couldn't imagine…

Following a March move to remote learning because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Wesleyan has released a detailed set of plans and launched a new Reactivating Campus website, which will serve as a key information hub for the campus community, as the University prepares to reopen to in-person instruction for the 2020 fall semester. Wesleyan announced in mid-June that it intended to resume in-person classes on Aug. 31, pending the ongoing recommendations of University, state, and federal health and safety experts. With a promising current public health trajectory in Connecticut and in Middletown, the University’s pandemic planning group is continuing to…

In late June, Wesleyan was among more than 300 colleges and universities to issue a joint statement, “Care Counts in Crisis: College Admissions Deans Respond to COVID-19,” organized by the Making Caring Common Project and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The movement underscores a commitment to equity and to encouraging students to balance self-care, meaningful learning, and care for others. We spoke to Wesleyan’s Vice President and Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Amin Abdul-Malik Gonzalez ’96 about this shared commitment, as well as how admissions at Wesleyan has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has obviously…

Several faculty have recently authored or co-authored books, book chapters, and articles that appear in prestigious academic journals. BOOKS AND BOOK CHAPTERS Eric Charry, professor of music, is the author of A New and Concise History of Rock and R&B through the Early 1990s (Wesleyan University Press, 2020). Robert "Bo" Conn, professor of Spanish, is the author of Bolívar’s Afterlife in the Americas: Biography, Ideology, and the Public Sphere (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). Anthony Ryan Hatch, associate professor of science in society, is the author of three book chapters: “The Artificial Pancreas in Cyborg Bodies,” published in The Oxford Handbook of…

Jake Kwon '21 and Jade Tate '22 are the recipients of the 2020 Shu Tokita Memorial Prize, which is awarded annually to a student of color majoring in literature or language with a focus on literature, who demonstrates financial need. The award, which comes with a $1,500 prize, was established 20 years ago by the friends and relatives of Shu Tokita '84, who passed away in 1989 from leukemia. He had received a BA in English literature from Wesleyan and an MA in Japanese literature from Tsukuba University. The prize seeks to reflect Tokita’s interest in literature and is focused…

Potemkina Wins Orchestral Programming Award

Hot off the Press: Ellen Thomas Co-Authors 3 New Papers

3 Students Win Scientific Imaging Contest

Documents by Hamilton, Washington Explored during “Hidden Treasures” WESeminar

Students Present Research Projects during Virtual Summer Poster Session

Shusterman Awarded $1.8M NSF Grant to Design and Test Preschool Math Games

Hot off the Press: New Papers by Hingorani, Tucker, Case PhD ’19

Chong ‘21 Rallies against ICE Policy, Speaks at Capitol Press Conference

Wesleyan Releases Detailed Plans for Campus Reactivation

Gonzalez Discusses How COVID-19 Has Changed College Admission

Faculty, Alumni, Students Publish Books, Journal Articles

2 Students of Color Receive Tokita Prize for Literature