Laurie KenneyWesleyan’s Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance (ICPP) has been awarded a four-year, $100,000 grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to support the participation of low-income students and students of color in ICPP’s master’s and certificate programs through the ICPP Scholarship Fund. Founded in 2010 and housed at Wesleyan’s Center for the Arts, ICPP is a center for the academic study of the presentation and contextualization of contemporary performance, and offers an interdisciplinary, graduate-level education in innovative and relevant curatorial approaches to developing and presenting time-based art. Starting in July 2015, the institute will offer a master’s degree in performance…
Lauren RubensteinManju Hingorani, professor of molecular biology and biochemistry, was awarded a grant of $408,609 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study the structure and mechanisms of DNA repair proteins responsible for fixing errors in the genetic code and preventing carcinogenesis. The three-year grant will fund PhD and undergraduate students' research on DNA mismatch repair (MMR). MMR corrects base mismatches and loops in DNA, and is therefore a critical guardian of genetic and cellular integrity. Defects in this essential, evolutionarily conserved DNA repair process cause high levels of mutations in the genome, which in turn lead to cancer. In humans, MMR…
Bryan Stascavage '18Several Wesleyan students and faculty were recently awarded grants for research by NASA's Connecticut Space Grant Program. Seth Redfield, associate professor of astronomy and campus director of NASA's CT Space Grant Consortium, was excited about the number of winners. "I was thrilled to see how successful Wesleyan was this year in getting grants through NASA's CT Space Grant program," wrote Redfield. "It demonstrates the diversity and quality of work we do that is aligned with NASA’s mission." "The grants this year support undergraduate, graduate, and faculty research, as well as special events organized by faculty at Wesleyan to promote exposure and…
Wesleyan’s Green Street Teaching and Learning Center has received a $12,500 grant from the Petit Family Foundation to support the center's Girls in Science Summer Camp. Green Street Director Sara MacSorley accepted the gift from Dr. William Petit. The Green Street Girls in Science Summer Camp will take place August 3 - 7 and will be open to girls entering grades 4, 5, and 6. Erika Taylor, assistant professor of chemistry, assistant professor of environmental studies, Ruth Johnson, assistant professor of biology, and Christina Othon, assistant professor of physics, will participate in the five-day program, covering topics from biochemistry to physics and culminating…
Professor of Religion Peter Gottschalk has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities “Enduring Questions” grant for approximately $20,000 to develop and teach a new course on different understandings of “the sacred.” Over the last five annual competitions, this competitive grant program received approximately 200 applications each year on average, and funded only 19 awards each year. (more…)
Psyche Loui, assistant professor of psychology, assistant professor of neuroscience and behavior, was awarded a grant of $20,000 in March from the GRAMMY Foundation Grant Program to study a musical biofeedback-based intervention for epilepsy. The grant will fund three different studies that combine EEG sonification, translational research and basic neuroscience for this type of intervention. Loui anticipates that the results will apply music technology as a possible solution to a neurological disorder affecting 65 million people worldwide. Loui noted that for the approximately one-third of patients with epilepsy who don’t respond well to seizure medication, (more…)
Olivia DrakeIn January, two Green Street Teaching and Learning Center programs received grants. Pratt & Whitney awarded Green Street with a $5,000 award to support its Discovery AfterSchool Program, which serves 80 Middletown students in Grades 1-8 each year. The program offers a range of classes in the arts, math, and sciences and helps children to build self-esteem and problem-solving skills. Also, the Connecticut Mathematics and Science Partnership Program presented a $168,437 award to the Project to Increase Mastery of Mathematics and Science (PIMMS) to support a continuation of PIMMS' Intel Math Institute. The institute gets K-8 teachers excited about math, prepared for Common Core, and equipped with a toolkit of…
Wesleyan recently received two grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The awards will support research by Wesleyan faculty Mary Alice Haddad and Sanford Shieh. Mary Alice Haddad, associate professor of government, received a $33,600 grant for the NEH Fellowships for Advanced Social Science Research on Japan project titled, "Environmental Politics in East Asia: Strategies that Work." “Japan has experienced some of the world’s most intense environmental crises and taken leadership roles in finding solutions," Haddad said. "The Fellowship for Advanced Social Science Research on Japan will enable me to examine the ways that Japan’s experience has served as a model for…
Jim Greenwood, assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences, was awarded a Faculty Seed Research Grant from the Connecticut Space Grant Consortium, supported by NASA. The honor comes with a $6,000 award. Greenwood will use the grant to support his research on “D/H of ‘Dry’ Extraterrestrial Materials.” Understanding the distribution, delivery, and processing of volatiles in the solar system is of fundamental interest to planetary science. Volatiles influence a number of important properties of planetary bodies, such as the cooling, differentiation, volcanism, tectonism, climate, hydrosphere/atmospheres and especially habitability. Greenwood will use the award to develop a new state-of-the-art inlet system for the measurement…
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) awarded Wesleyan's Center for the Arts a $20,000 grant to support the 2015–2016 Breaking Ground Dance Series. The CFA is one of the 919 nonprofit organizations nationwide to receive an NEA Art Works grant. The Breaking Ground Dance Series, now in its 15th season at Wesleyan, features cutting-edge choreography, world-renowned companies, and companies pushing the boundaries of the art form. Upcoming performances this season include the return of Montréal’s Compagnie Marie Chouinard on Feb. 6-7, 2015 and Tari Aceh! Music and Dance from Northern Sumatra on Feb. 27. Compagnie Marie Chouinard will be…
The NASA Connecticut Space Grant Consortium awarded two Student Travel Grants on Nov. 11. Each award is worth $1000. Lisa Korn, a graduate student in earth and environmental sciences, will attend the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, held March 16-20 in The Woodlands, Texas. Her advisor is Marty Gilmore, chair and professor of earth and environmental sciences and the George I. Seney Professor of Geology. Sam Factor, a BA/MA student in astronomy, will use the grant to attend the American Astronomical Society 223rd Meeting, held Jan 4-8 in Seattle, Wash. Factor's advisor is Meredith Hughes, assistant professor of astronomy. Dilovan Serindag '15, Jesse Lieman-Sifry '15 and Trevor Dorn-Wallenstein '15 also…
The Liberty Bank Foundation awarded the Green Street Arts Center with a $5,000 grant to support the center's Discovery AfterSchool Program. The funds help provide scholarships for students who need financial assistance to attend the program. The Discovery AfterSchool Program offers a range of classes in the arts, math, and sciences for children in Grades 1-8. The program brings those things together in a safe space for children to build self-esteem and problem-solving skills. The AfterSchool team is made up of core education staff, professional instructors and Wesleyan students who serve as teaching assistants and homework tutors.