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Editorial StaffMay 4, 20235min
By Maia Bronfman '24 Talia Zitner ’23 organized the Garden Festival under the mentorship of Professor of Physics Brian Stewart as a “non-traditional thesis,” about sustainability and community in recognition of Earth Day, she said. Student performers and bands, including Maganda, High Standards, Noise Baby, Loose Geese, and Lily Gitlitz, played throughout the afternoon and into the evening on Friday, April 21. Zzzahara and Billy Woods, visiting musicians, closed the event in the backyard of Russell House. Zitner—an English and environmental studies double-major—started working on the festival a year ago, but it was inspired by her earlier experience transferring to…

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Mike MavredakisMay 2, 20236min
Art, like many areas of creative expression, does not always get the full attention it deserves. On average, visitors only spend 15 to 30 seconds looking at an artwork before moving on, according to studies done by several notable art museums. Peter Ketels Fulweiler ’23 said hearing this statistic fascinated him and made him want to create art that kept people’s attention. He exhibited his senior thesis piece “Terms and Conditions,” an interactive sculpture, at the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery on March 28 to April 2. And yet, 15 to 30 seconds would seem long for many to view…

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Mike MavredakisApril 26, 20236min
By amplifying the personal experience of women in Jamaica who are living with HIV/AIDS, Nilukshi Chen ’23 hopes to explore the rampant fear and stigma surround the disease in the island nation. Chen interviewed four women for her senior thesis on the stigma surrounding HIV and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in Jamaica. Her thesis, titled “Sounding Subaltern Voices: Conversations with Jamaican Women Living with HIV/AIDS,” considers Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak” to grapple with what it means give a voice to individuals who have been historically voiceless. The term “subaltern” refers to an individual or group who is excluded from…

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Editorial StaffApril 25, 20232min
A team of Wesleyan students won "Best Data Story" at the 6th Annual Wesleyan DataFest hosted by the Quantitative Analysis Center April 21 through April 23. The Wesleyan team, called “Team Into the Tidyverse,” consisted of Ethan Brill-Cass ‘23, Aaron Foote ‘24, Calvin Gao ‘23, Edvin Tran Hoac ‘24, and Emma Tuhabonye ‘23. In addition to the Wesleyan squad, teams from Yale University, Connnecticut College, Trinity College, University of Connecticut, and Bentley University, encompassing 55 students, participated in the event. In addition to Wesleyan’s honor, Connecticut College was given honorable mention, University of Connecticut was recognized for best statistical insight, and Bentley…

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Mike MavredakisApril 25, 20234min
Michael Greenberg ’76, P’14 is one of three winners of the Lundbeck Foundation’s The Brain Prize 2023—the largest personal award for neuroscience research—for his contributions to the field. Greenberg, the Nathan Marsh Pusey Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, said it was “very gratifying” for his life’s work to be recognized by neuroscientists at the highest level. He has spent more than four decades researching the brain, specifically neuroplasticity—the ability of the brain to change in response to learning, experience, or following injury. “It's also been gratifying to see the work come to fruition in ways that we think…

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Mike MavredakisApril 20, 20235min
Thomas J. Watson Fellow Jocelyn Velasquez Baez ’23 will travel to at least six countries in a year’s time to explore how the integration, adaptation, and practice of traditional medicine is perceived in diverse Indigenous and ethnic communities around the world. The Watson Fellowship, sponsored by the Watson Foundation, allows recent graduates from 41 partner institutions to do year-long independent exploration projects outside of the United States. Velasquez Baez will travel to the Philippines, Ecuador, Nepal, Ghana, New Zealand, and Canada—with the hope of more—to visit and learn from various Indigenous and ethnic communities in each country over the course…

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Editorial StaffApril 19, 20235min
Five Wesleyan University faculty and students were announced as recipients of grants from the NASA Connecticut Space Grant Consortium. “I would say that these awards are a wonderful example of the broad range of research areas and activities that occur at Wesleyan. We are lucky to have such exciting research, active faculty, and motivated students, and Wesleyan always does very well. I am grateful that these NASA CT Space Grant funds enable wonderful activities here at Wesleyan,” said Seth Redfield, professor of astronomy. Candice Etson, assistant professor of molecular biology and biochemistry, received a Faculty STEM Education Research Grant for her…

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Andrew ChatfieldApril 5, 20237min
A group of artists and academics came together in the first of a series of climate change conversations to examine how art can impact policy. This event is part of the Ocean Filibuster: Art and Action series—a semester of art and activism, science and storytelling—building to the Connecticut premiere performances of PearlDamour’s "Ocean Filibuster" in the CFA Theater from Thursday, May 4 through Saturday, May 6, 2023. For more information and related events, please visit www.wesleyan.edu/cfa/ocean. The first panel discussion on March 28 considered the relationship between artmaking and policy—how artists, scientists, and policymakers can be more powerful, and more able to shape…

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Mike MavredakisApril 4, 202311min
Who collects your data? Which data? Why? Where does it go? Who is buying it? What are they doing with it? Can we protect our data or choose who gets to use and sell it? What laws are in place to protect your data? What’s the path forward for data privacy? These were all questions tackled by data privacy experts from Wesleyan, New York University, Google, Harvard, Boston University, Carnegie Mellon, and others who spoke at the annual Shasha Seminar for Human Concerns on March 31 and April 1. “The importance of freedom from unauthorized intrusion is on the top…

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Editorial StaffMarch 29, 20235min
In a recent article in the journal Regional and Federal Studies James McGuire, Professor of Government, found that Trump's 2020 vote share was a strong and robust predictor of a lower COVID-19 vaccination rate across US states, US counties, and Connecticut towns alike, adjusting for wide range other factors thought to affect the vaccination rate. At each of the three subnational levels, McGuire showed, the Trump 2020 vote share was also correlated more closely than the Trump 2016 vote share or the Romney 2012 vote share with the COVID-19 vaccination rate. McGuire estimated the statistical impact of the Trump 2020…

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Mike MavredakisMarch 14, 20238min
One of Wesleyan’s hallmarks is its ability to foster conversation, difference of opinion and creativity. It’s a place where thinking one way isn’t always the way. The experience of Wesleyan is unique, it’s open and it’s broad. It’s a community, but it’s also individual. Despite its nuances, it shares a few universal fixtures that most other universities have too. It has stately buildings with hallways lined with classrooms, its students can be seen rushing from lectures to library study rooms, and if you listen closely enough you can hear the faint beeping of construction vehicles backing up in the distance.…