Faculty – Page 30

Recognize the Wesleyan faculty who have had a lasting impact on your academic and personal development by nominating them for the 2018 Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching! Juniors, seniors, graduate students and Graduates of the Last Decade (GOLD) are invited to nominate up to three professors for 2018 Binswanger Prizes, which will be awarded during Wesleyan's Commencement Ceremony on May 27. The deadline for nominations is Feb. 12, 2018. NOMINATE NOW. The Binswanger Prize is made possible by gifts from the family of the late Frank Binswanger Sr. Hon. ’85 and underscores Wesleyan’s commitment to its scholar-teachers who are responsible for the university’s…

Peter Rutland, the Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor in Global Issues and Democratic Thought, recently spoke on a panel of political economy experts at The Gaidar Forum 2018, held at the Presidential Academy of Economics and Public Administration in Moscow. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev gave the keynote address at the forum. "How can Russia get onto a more knowledge-intensive, non–resource-based economic sustainable growth path? How can it escape from the middle income trap?" asks Rutland in his talk. "You could look across the continent to China," which has been amazingly successful in recent years, he says. Russian companies do not invest at…

J. Kehaulani Kauanui, professor of American studies and anthropology, chair of American studies and director of the Center of the Americas, spent part of winter break in Qatar. She was there to present her research on “Settler Colonialism and the Politics of Occupy Wall Street: Indigeneity and the 'Other' 1%” for a panel on "Against Exceptionalism." Kauanui joined a global roster of leading scholars in American studies, Middle Eastern studies and other closely related fields who were invited to speak as part of a conference held Jan. 8–11 at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies with support from the Qatar…

In this recurring feature in The Wesleyan Connection, we highlight some of the latest news stories about Wesleyan and our alumni. Recent Wesleyan News 1. President Michael Roth publishes op-eds in The Washington Post titled, "We can't let cynics ruin college," and "What is college for? (Hint: It's not just about getting in.)." He also sat for an "On Leadership" interview with The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2. The Conversation: "The dangerous belief that white people are under attack" Assistant Professor of Psychology Clara Wilkins writes about her research on perceptions of reverse discrimination in light of recent societal trends. 3. Marketplace: "Here comes the tax bill…

Assistant Professor of Music Tyshawn Sorey MA '11, a MacArthur "Genius" Award-winner, and Distinguished Fellow in the College of the Environment Allison Orr, artistic director of Forklift Danceworks, have been chosen as 2018 fellows by United States Artists (USA), an organization that illuminates the value of artists to American society. Sorey and Orr will each receive a $50,000 unrestricted award as part of the honor. Read more about Tyshawn Sorey's MacArthur "Genius" Award Read more about Allison Orr's work teaching dance and movement to local children A total of 45 recipients were announced for the annual awards, which recognize achievements and innovation across nine disciplines,…

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Yaniv Feller is the Jeremy Zwelling Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies and assistant professor of religion. Feller specializes in Jewish philosophy, Jewish-Christian relations, post-Holocaust theology, material culture and museum studies. His current book project is titled "Leo Baeck and the Tradition of Dialogical Apologetics.” Prior to Wesleyan, Feller worked as an exhibition curator for the new permanent exhibition project at the Jewish Museum Berlin. In this Q&A, Feller speaks about his time working at a renowned Jewish museum, the importance of incorporating the lives and histories of objects into his courses and woodworking. Q: You just joined the faculty at Wesleyan this year.…

An article by Barbara Juhasz, associate professor of psychology, associate professor of neuroscience and behavior, has been published in the January 2018 edition of the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. The study, titled "Experience with compound words influences their processing: An eye movement investigation with English compound words" appears in Issue 71, pages 103–12. Recording eye movements, Juhasz explains, provides information on the time-course of word recognition during reading. Eye movements also are informative for examining the processing of morphologically complex words such as compound words. In this study, Juhasz examined the time-course of lexical and semantic variables during morphological processing.…

Melanie Khamis, assistant professor of economics and assistant professor of Latin American studies, has co-authored a new paper published in the December 2017 issue of Labour Economics. The paper, titled "Women make houses, women make homes," examines the effects of historical labor market institutions and policies on women’s labor market outcomes. To conduct the research, Khamis and her colleagues studied the “rubble women” of post–World War II Germany, who were subject to a 1946 Allied Control Council command that required women between the ages of 15 and 50 to register with a labor office and to participate in postwar cleanup and…

A new article by Visiting Assistant Professor in Computer Science Kelly Thayer and students in her Spring 2017 Scientific Computing class is challenging conventional metrics used in allosteric signaling—the regulation of an enzyme by a binding molecule at a site other than the enzyme's active site. “What’s special about allostery is that a molecule called an allosteric effector binds at one location, and the change happens somewhere else,” Thayer explained. “What we were trying to understand was: How does that signal get across?” (more…)

Paula Paige, adjunct professor of romance languages and literatures, emerita, is the author of five short stories published in literary magazines in 2016-18. These include: “Flu Story” published in Newfound, Vol, 8, Issue 2, 2018. "Daddy," published in The Umbrella Factory, Issue 29, September 2017. "Roman Ruins: an Update on a Once Great Beauty," published in Artes Magazine, May 26, 2017. "The Baby Sitter," published by the Diverse Arts Project, August 2016. “Gluten and Other Abominations,” published by Sundress Publications, June 2016. Paula Paige taught at Wesleyan for 30 years. She is the recipient of the 2010 Our Stories Gordon Award for her flash…

Earth and Environmental Sciences faculty and senior seminar students have identified a potentially fast and inexpensive method for collecting and measuring Saharan dust in the Caribbean. E&ES faculty members Dana Royer, Tim Ku, Suzanne O’Connell, and Phil Resor, and students Kylen Moynihan ’17, Carolyn Ariori ’09, Gavin Bodkin ’09, Gabriela Doria MA’09, Katherine Enright ’15, Rémy Hatfield-Gardner ’17, Emma Kravet ’09, C. Miller Nuttle ’09, and Lisa Shepard ’17 have coauthored an article published in the January 2018 issue of Atmospheric Environment. The paper, titled “Tank Bromeliads capture Saharan dust in El Yunque National Forest, Puerto Rico,” summarizes student research…

Nominate Faculty for the 2018 Binswanger Prize

Rutland Speaks at Gaidar Forum in Moscow

Kauanui Presents “Politics of Occupy Wall Street” Research in Qatar

Wesleyan in the News

Sorey MA ’11 and Orr Awarded Artistic Fellowships

Basinger Speaks to Staff about Film Studies, Musicals

Former Curator Feller Expert on Jewish Philosophy, Museum Studies

Juhasz Authors Eye Movement Study on Compound-Word Processing

Khamis Co-Authors Article on Effects of Historical Labor Policies on Women

Thayer, Galganov ’17, Stein ’17 Publish Article on Allosteric Signaling

Paige’s Short Stories Published in Literary Magazines

E&ES Faculty, Alumni Author Article on New Method for Saharan Dust Collection in the Caribbean