Campus News & Events

Six students majoring in earth and environmental sciences who said "aloha" to Hawai'i in January have completed their senior capstone project. Seniors Jackie Buskop, John Sheffer, Kelly Lam, Sara Wallace-Lee, Ryan Nelson, and Celeste Smith traveled to the Big Island of Hawai'i Jan. 8-15 to conduct original, field-based research projects. They were accompanied by Associate Professors of Earth and Environmental Sciences Tim Ku and Phil Resor. Prior to the trip, all six students enrolled in the fall semester course Senior Seminar E&ES 497, where they used the primary scientific literature to create hypothesis-driven research proposals. After collecting data in Hawai'i, the students enrolled…

More than 110 Wesleyan students, faculty, alumni, and local guests participated in the second annual Power of Language Conference, April 26-27 at the Fries Center for Global Studies. The event was open to the entire Wesleyan community. The two-day event featured six panels that focused on: Creative Language Learning, Crossing Time and Border through Translation, Language and Society, Language in Curriculum, Arabic in the U.S., and Polyphony through Literature. "The presentations ranged from class final projects (such as a comic version of Dante’s Inferno, reimagined at Wesleyan) to senior theses (such as the challenges of translating early modern Spanish into…

Meera Joshi ’20 is the recipient of an American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) Undergraduate Research Award for her work on the DNA mismatch repair system. The $1,000 award will support her research titled "Exploring the Dynamics of Msh2-Msh6 Binding to Holliday Junction Through ATPase Activity. Her advisor is Ishita Mukerji, professor of molecular biology and biochemistry. Joshi's research focuses on a DNA mismatch repair protein called Msh2-Msh6 that initiates the repair of DNA mismatches after replication in eukaryotes. This is a highly conserved process from bacteria to humans and has implications for human health. "We are particularly interested in…

Wesleyan faculty frequently publish articles based on their scholarship in The Conversation US, a nonprofit news organization with the tagline, “Academic rigor, journalistic flair.” In a new article, Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences Suzanne O'Connell writes about her work on board the JOIDES Resolution research vessel in the Scotia Sea, drilling for sediment core samples to study how much and how fast the Antarctic ice sheets melted between 2.5 to 4 million years ago, the last time atmospheric CO2 was at the same level as today. (Read more about O'Connell's experience in this AAAS article.) 60 days in Iceberg Alley, drilling…

Wesleyan's Olin Library is now home to a collection of 33 titles donated by the Consulate General of India, New York. On May 1, Consul Sandeep Chakravorty visited campus and participated in a formal dedication of the "India Corner." Housed in the Smith Reading Room, these volumes, representing India’s rich history and culture, and covering the country’s linguistic and geographical diversity, join the library's other robust holdings in Indian history, culture, and politics as well as Wesleyan’s rich heritage in Indian music, dance, and theater. Among the donations are Introduction to the Constitution of India by Durga Das Basu; Sufi Lyrics by…

Nate Gillman ’20, a computer science and mathematics double major from Maryland, is the recipient of a 2019 Barry Goldwater Scholarship. He's one of 496 college students in the country to receive the award. The Goldwater Scholarship is awarded to sophomores and juniors who show exceptional promise of becoming the next generation of research leaders in the fields of mathematics, natural sciences, and engineering. The scholarship provides up to $7,500 a year to help cover costs associated with undergraduate tuition, mandatory fees, books, and room and board. Gillman knew he wanted to study math—specifically analytic number theory—after enrolling in a calculus…

Wesleyan students and alumni impact the world in so many ways. As you explore the journeys we’re sharing this spring and reflect on your own, we hope you’re inspired to help the next generation of Cardinals take flight. View the journeys of Charles Bonar ’19 and Jessica Chukwu '11 online here.

On April 27, seven prominent thought leaders including Wesleyan alumni, two medical doctors, and local politicians shared their ideas during the second annual TEDxWesleyanU Conference held in Beckham Hall. In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. (more…)

In this recurring feature in The Wesleyan Connection, we highlight some of the latest news stories about Wesleyan and our alumni. Wesleyan in the News The New Yorker: "The Shapeshifting Music of Tyshawn Sorey" "There is something awesomely confounding about the music of Tyshawn Sorey [MA '11], the thirty-eight-year-old Newark-born composer, percussionist, pianist, and trombonist," begins this profile of Sorey, assistant professor of music. Sorey was recently featured in the Composer Portraits series at Columbia University's Miller Theatre. 2. The Register-Mail: "Video Slots Take Heavy Toll on Some Players" In this article exploring the expansion of video slot gaming in a region…

A paper by John Monroe Van Vleck Professor of Astronomy William Herbst and Assistant Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences James Greenwood will be published in the September 2019 issue of Icarus, published by Elsevier. The paper is available online. The paper, titled "Radiative Heating Model for Chondrule and Chondrite Formation," presents a new theory of how chondrules and chondrites (the most common meteorites) formed. It suggests a new approach to thinking about these rocks that populate the meteorite collections on Earth. It includes both theory and experiments (completed in Greenwood's lab in Exley Science Center). These laboratory experiments demonstrate that porphyritic olivine…

Wesleyan’s College of Film and the Moving Image (CFILM) is launching the Wesleyan Documentary Project, an initiative to teach, support, and produce nonfiction film and video. Beginning this fall, the Wesleyan Documentary Project will be led by Tracy Heather Strain and Randall MacLowry ’86, the duo behind the Boston-based documentary film company, The Film Posse. They will join Wesleyan’s faculty as professors of the practice, teaching courses in documentary creation and studies. MacLowry and Strain will also relocate their production company to Middletown, where they will continue to produce films for PBS and other outlets. Together, The Film Posse and the…

H. Shellae Versey, assistant professor of psychology, is the author of "A tale of two Harlems: Gentrification, social capital, and implications for aging in place," published in Social Science & Medicine, Volume 214, October 2018. In this paper, Versey discusses the impact of gentrification on features of the social and cultural environment. "While research generally describes gentrification as a phenomenon of housing shifts and neighborhood migration, I argue that gentrification is more so a process of slow violence that increases housing scarcity and social isolation, disrupts neighborhood social capital, and decreases a sense of belongingness, particularly among older adults and…

Students Study Volcanic Soil, Map Historic Footprints in Hawai’i as Part of Their Senior Capstone Projects

Cultural Experiences Discussed at Power of Language Conference

Joshi ’20 Honored with Research Award to Study DNA Mismatch Repair

O’Connell in The Conversation: 60 Days in Iceberg Alley, Drilling for Marine Sediment to Decipher Earth’s Climate 3M Years Ago

Consul General of India Donates “India Corner” Collection to Wesleyan

Gillman ’20 Wins Goldwater Scholarship to Pursue Education in Number Theory

Explore Wesleyan Journeys by Students, Alumni

7 Prominent Speakers Share Ideas at 2nd Annual TEDxWesleyanU

Wesleyan in the News

Study by Herbst, Greenwood Presents New Theory on How Meteorites Formed

MacLowry ’86, Strain to Launch Wesleyan Documentary Project on Campus

Versey Authors Paper on the Impact of Gentrification, Moderates Panel