Olivia DrakeIn this Q&A, we speak with Michelle Personick, assistant professor of chemistry, assistant professor of integrative sciences. Personick, who joined the faculty at Wesleyan in 2015, is interested in developing tailored metal nanomaterials that improve the clean production of energy and enable the efficient use of energy resources. Her work has recently been published in the journals Particle and Particle Systems Characterization and American Chemical Society Catalysis. Q: Professor Personick, how would you describe your main research interests? A: The main research areas in my group are controlling the shape and composition of noble metal nanocrystals, and exploring the use of these nanoparticles…
This year, Wesleyan welcomes 11 new tenure-track faculty, one professor of the practice, and 45 visiting faculty and fellows. The new junior faculty who start this year include: Scott W. Aalgaard, assistant professor of East Asian studies Aalgaard holds BA and MA degrees from the University of Victoria, and MA and PhD degrees from the University of Chicago. His dissertation, titled “‘Homesick Blues’: Crisis, Critique, and Collectivity in Modern Japanese Cultural Production,” traces critical voices in literature, music, and everyday life in modern and contemporary Japan. His areas of research include critical practice in Japan, contemporary Japanese culture, modern and contemporary Japanese literature…
Ethan Kleinberg, director of the Center for the Humanities, is the author of Haunting History: For a Deconstructive Approach to the Past, published by Stanford University Press in August 2017. "Haunting History is about the ways we think about the past and 'do' history at a moment when the digital revolution is changing how we conduct research, store materials, and even write," Kleinberg said. "In it I argue that many of strategies for writing about, but also understanding the past, are conditioned by the analog practices of the previous century which has served to create the illusion that the past…
Laurie KenneyA star-studded cast of contributors curated by Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing Amy Bloom ’75 fill the pages of New Haven Noir, featuring original stories from Michael Cunningham, Stephen Carter, Roxana Robinson, Assistant Professor of English Hirsh Sawhney and many others. The book is the latest addition to an award-winning series of original noir anthologies published by Akashic Books, founded by publisher and editor-in-chief Johnny Temple ’88. “I’m a big fan of noir,” says Bloom, editor of the anthology, which has garnered praise from both Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews. “When Johnny called me and said, I don’t know if…
Hirsh Sawhney, assistant professor of English, is the author of a recent work of fiction titled The Diary of Rehan Malhotra, published as an e-book by Juggernaut Books (2017). In this timely story, Rehan, the son of a Muslim mother and Hindu father, is a middle-aged high school teacher in New Haven, Conn., who struggles with his growing estrangement from his wife and the affluent, white community in which he lives. A charged encounter with a neighbor causes him to look back on his troubled teenage years, when he used and sold drugs, and when he forged a problematic friendship…
A novel written by Hirsh Sawhney, assistant professor of English, was named to the longlist for the 2017 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. The DSC Prize, which carries an award of $25,000, celebrates the rich and varied world of literature of the South Asian region. In Sawhney’s South Haven (Akashic Books, 2016), grief, violence and history collide to offer a radical look at childhood and migration in suburban New England. South Haven is one of 13 books on the list. The shortlist will be announced on Sept. 27 in London. The prize brings South Asian writing to a new global audience through…
Lauren RubensteinIn the near future, the Trump Administration must decide whether to approve or reject a new scientific report on climate change. Writing in The Conversation, Gary Yohe, the Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, asserts, "If the Trump administration chooses to reject the pending national Climate Science Special Report, it would be more damaging than pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement. Full stop." Yohe backs up this bold claim by explaining why this report is so important and describing a crucial difference between the report and the Paris Climate Agreement. Namely, "the Paris accord focuses on…
Professor of Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies Victoria Pitts-Taylor, pictured at left, received the Robert K. Merton Award for her book, The Brain's Body: Neuroscience and Corporeal Politics (Duke University Press, 2016). The award was presented at a meeting of the Science, Knowledge, and Technology Section of the American Sociological Association in Montreal, Canada on Aug. 14. The Merton Award is given annually in recognition of an outstanding book on science, knowledge, and/or technology published during the preceding three years. The Brain's Body previously won the 2016 prize in Feminist Philosophy of Science given by the Women's Caucus of the Philosophy of Science Association.…
Michelle Personick, assistant professor of chemistry, and her graduate student Melissa King, are co-authors of a paper titled “Bimetallic Nanoparticles with Exotic Facet Structures via Iodide-Assisted Reduction of Palladium,” published in the journal Particle and Particle Systems Characterization, Vol. 34, Issue 5, in May 2017. The research was featured on the inside front cover of the issue. In this study, Personick and King explain how gold–palladium tetradecapods (14-pointed nanoparticles) with an unusual combination of both well-defined concave and convex facets can be synthesized by introducing dilute concentrations of iodide during nanoparticle growth. Iodide directs the formation of the tetradecapods by increasing…
Richard Winslow, the John Spencer Camp Professor of Music, Emeritus, died July 24, 2017 at the age of 99. A service will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 1 at the Antrim Baptist Church, 85 Main St. in Antrim, N.H. All are welcome. Winslow received his BA in English from Wesleyan with the Class of 1940, and his BS and MS from the Julliard School. He joined the Wesleyan faculty in 1949 and taught music here for 34 years until he retired in 1983. During this time, he advocated for and oversaw the establishment of Wesleyan’s renowned program in…
All cells — bacterial or human — secrete up to 10 or 20 percent of the proteins that they make. Human secreted proteins, for example, include components of serum, hormones, growth factors that promote cell development during embryogenesis and tissue remodeling, and proteins that provide the basis for immune cell signaling during infection or when fighting cancer. The secretion process, however, isn't an easy feat for cells, as they need to move the proteins across a membrane through a channel. Transport requires the formation of a hairpin, formed by an initiator protein. In a recent study, Don Oliver, the Daniel Ayres Professor…
In light of President Trump's tweeted ban on transgender Americans serving in the military, Richard Slotkin, the Olin Professor of English and American Studies, Emeritus, writes in The Conversation about the long history of integrating minorities into the U.S. military. The armed forces have long "played a vital role in shaping American social policy toward the country's minorities," Slotkin writes. He recalls how "fear and resentment" of African-Americans and immigrants from Asia and Europe "generated a political backlash," resulting in oppressive Jim Crow laws and an anti-immigrant movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Then, "The crisis produced by…