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Olivia DrakeOctober 26, 20202min
This fall, Wesleyan welcomes 17 visiting faculty members to campus. They are: Christopher Bell, David Scott Williams Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology, received his BA in English literatures and cultures from Brown University and his MA and PhD in psychology from the University of West Georgia. His research explores the processes and outcomes of psychotherapy; his dissertation, Psychotherapeutic Subjectivities, examined the subjective experiences of individuals in psychotherapy, analyzing these experiences in terms of different psychotherapeutic techniques. He has published on projection and memories of projection as well as Lacanian psychoanalysis, and his projects advocate a contextual approach to psychotherapy research.…

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Olivia DrakeOctober 26, 20202min
This fall, Wesleyan welcomes nine postdoctoral fellows to campus. They include: Sierra Eisen, postdoctoral fellow in psychology, joins the Psychology Department for two years. She received her PhD from the Department of Psychology at the University of Virginia, where she was a researcher in the Early Development Lab. Eisen studies how children interact with and learn from different forms of media. Her research mainly focuses on how children think about and learn from touchscreen devices and educational apps. At Wesleyan, she will conduct collaborative research with students and faculty in the Cognitive Development Laboratories, directed by Anna Shusterman and Hilary…

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Olivia DrakeOctober 26, 20202min
Three Wesleyan faculty were honored with the Wesleyan Prize for Excellence in Research in October. The third annual prize is similar to the Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching, but is presented to members of the faculty who demonstrate the highest standards of excellence in their research, scholarship, and contributions to their field. Each recipient received a plaque and citation as well as research funds for their award. This year's recipients include: Division I, Sumarsam, Winslow-Kaplan Professor of Music; Division II, Lori Gruen, William Griffin Professor of Philosophy; and Division III, Bill Herbst, John Monroe Van Vleck Professor of Astronomy.…

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Olivia DrakeOctober 26, 20203min
Philosophers in the ancient world, in both the East and the West, typically viewed the practice of philosophy as an activity aimed at changing one's orientation to the world and, thus, how one lives one's life. Some of these thinkers developed views that still appear to have contemporary relevance, but many of them also held beliefs that we recognize today as not only outdated but also deeply misguided. Given these blind spots in their thinking, should ancient philosophy be "canceled"? That was the question up for consideration in a midterm debate held on Oct. 22 as part of PHIL 210:…

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Olivia DrakeOctober 26, 20202min
Ellen Thomas, Harold T. Stearns Professor of Integrative Sciences, Smith Curator of Paleontology of the Joe Webb Peoples Museum of Natural History, and University Professor in the College of Integrative Sciences, is the recipient of the 2020 Joseph A. Cushman Award for Excellence in Foraminiferal Research. At Wesleyan, Thomas investigates oceanic benthic foraminifera (eukaryotic unicellular organisms) as proxies for the impact of changes in environment and climate on living organisms on various time scales. This fall, she's teaching the courses Research Frontiers in the Sciences and Mass Extinctions in the Oceans. Brian Huber, president of the Cushman Foundation for Foraminiferal…

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Olivia DrakeOctober 17, 20202min
Katja Kolcio, director of the Allbritton Center, associate professor of dance, received a $64,745 grant from the United Nations Recovery and Peacebuilding Programme (UN RPP) this month to evaluate the impact of somatic methods on psycho-social wellness in the context of the armed conflict in Donbas, Ukraine. "Somatic methods, which are the basis of this project, are movement-based methods that hone body-mind connection in the interest of promoting self-awareness and wellness," Kolcio explained. The Vitality Donobas Project is a collaboration between Kolcio and the Development Foundation (DF), an NGO dedicated to psycho-social relief, formed in Ukraine during the Maidan Revolution.…

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Lauren RubensteinOctober 11, 20207min
Assistant Professor of Computer Science Sebastian Zimmeck is leading a major initiative to help consumers gain greater control of their personal data online. On Oct. 7, Zimmeck and his collaborator, Ashkan Soltani of Georgetown Law, as well as a group of partner organizations that includes The New York Times, The Washington Post, Mozilla, and the parent company behind WordPress.com and Tumblr, among others, announced the beta launch of the Global Privacy Control (GPC), a new effort to standardize consumer privacy online. As Zimmeck explains it, privacy regulations introduced in recent years such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and…

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Olivia DrakeOctober 6, 20205min
When the COVID-19 outbreak disrupted in-person classes last spring, several faculty found innovative and creative ways to adapt to online teaching and learning. In the fourth of a fall-semester series, we’ll be highlighting ways faculty from various departments are coping with teaching during a pandemic, and showcase individual ways courses are thriving in an in-person, online, or hybridized environment. In this issue, we spotlight Robert Kabacoff, professor of the practice in the Quantitative Analysis Center. This fall, he's teaching QAC 201: Applied Data Analysis; QAC 356: Advanced R: Building Open-Source Tools for Data Analysis; and QAC 385: Applications of Machine…

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Olivia DrakeOctober 1, 20207min
Watch the full event recording online here. And RSVP for the Theater Deparment's next event, "A Conversation with Associate Professor Rashida Shaw McMahon" at 4 p.m. Oct. 19. "Thank you again for all your support and presence," Oliveras said. "The first of many conversations, as we collectively lean into the stickiness and beautiful potential change of this moment."

Lauren RubensteinSeptember 28, 20202min
As organisms evolve over time, changes in size—both miniaturization and gigantism—are a major theme. In fish, which are the specialty of Barry Chernoff, the Robert Schumann Professor of Environmental Studies, Professor of Biology and of Earth & Environmental Sciences, miniaturization happens in many lineages, though it’s not very common. Evolutionary biology has long held that this miniaturization is often accompanied by developmental simplification or paedomorphisis (becoming sexually mature while appearing juvenile-like). Last March, just before the pandemic began, Chernoff and students in his Tropical Ecology course (ENVS/Bio/E&ES 306) took a trip to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich.,…