Students – Page 32

On Aug. 29, the Office of Graduate Student Services hosted a new graduate student orientation and lunch at Exley Science Center. In 2017-18, Wesleyan welcomes 15 new PhDs; 12 MAs; 17 BA/MAs (all received a BA in May 2017); nine foreign language teaching assistants in romance languages, Asian languages and Arabic languages; and two new writing fellows. During the course of orientation, the new graduate students were introduced to the Graduate Student Association, Wesleyan culture and Wesleyan resources that can support their academic career and life at Wesleyan. Students were introduced to Wesleyan staff representing student accounts, public safety, sustainability initiatives, residential…

Writing in the Forward, Matt Renetzky '18 and Talia Kaplan '18 share their experience with the "vibrant Wesleyan Jewish Life" scene. "Perhaps the most unique thing about our community is just how student-run it is. Jewish life evolves from year-to-year based on the desires and needs of the current student body," write Kaplan, who is affiliated with the Wesleyan Jewish Community, and Renetzky, who is affiliated with Chabad. "If you’re looking for pluralism in Jewish background and practice, Wesleyan is for you." (more…)

This summer, Wesleyan hosted the second annual Wesleyan Scientific Imaging Contest, which recognizes student-submitted images from experiments or simulations done with a Wesleyan faculty member that are scientifically intriguing as well as aesthetically pleasing. This year, 33 images were submitted from six departments. The entries were judged based on the quality of the image and the explanation of the underlying science. The images were judged by a panel of four faculty members: Steven Devoto, professor of biology, professor of neuroscience and behavior; Ruth Johnson, assistant professor of biology, assistant professor of integrative sciences; Brian Northrop, assistant professor of chemistry, assistant professor of…

More than 120 undergraduate research fellows shared their summer and ongoing research during the Wesleyan Summer Research Poster Session held July 27 in Exley Science Center. “This really is wonderful that all these students are on campus this summer and that they are here, sharing their research,” said faculty advisor Tom Morgan, the Foss Professor of Physics. "It's really incredible." Photos of the poster session are below: (Photos by Olivia Drake) (more…)

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Six members of the Wesleyan women's tennis team, and four members of the men's squad were named 2017 Division III Scholar Athletes, as announced by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) in July. In addition, both the men's and women's tennis programs earned All-Academic Team honors. Representing the women's team were Aashli Budhiraja '18, Dasha Dubinsky '18, Helen Klass-Warch '18, Ella Lindholm-Uzzi '17, Nicole McCann '18 and Victoria Yu '19. On the men's side, Steven Chen '18, Jonathan Holtzman '20, Michael Liu '17 and Jake Roberts '17 all earned praise. In order to earn ITA Scholar-Athlete status, a player must be…

This summer, graduate student Suhail Yusuf Khan and his band Yorkston Thorne Khan are performing in music festivals around the world. The band is comprised of Khan, a sarangi violinist and a vocalist of Indian classical music; James Yorkston, a folk singer and guitarist; and Jon Thorne, a jazz bassist. Yorkston, Thorne and Khan performed at the Glastonbury Festival June 25 in Somerset, England. Afterwards, the group was mentioned in The Telegraph's "10 highlights" article written by Alice Vincent: While it's easy to stumble upon a whole new field or an excellent hidden bar at Glastonbury, the best festivals give you a…

Assistant Professor of Government Yamil Velez and Grace Wong '18 are the authors of a new paper, "Assessing Contextual Measurement Strategies," published May 17 in The Journal of Politics. According to the paper's abstract, "Contextual scholars have explored the impact of residing in racially and ethnically diverse environments on political attitudes and behavior. Traditionally, the literature has employed governmental administrative units such as counties as proxies for citizens’ social contexts. Recently, these measures have come under attack by scholars desiring more personalized measures. This article evaluates the performance of two personalized measures of intergroup context and finds that census-based measures are…

Wesleyan's newest students and their families are welcomed to the Wesleyan community during a series of Summer Sendoffs June 20 to Aug. 25. Alumni and parents are hosting the events at various locations around the world. All members of the Wesleyan community are invited to attend the casual socials. Pictured below are photos from a few of the gatherings: (more…)

Scattered throughout campus are remnants of not only Wesleyan's history, but world history. After the closing of the Wesleyan Museum in 1957, thousands of specimens in many collections were displaced, often haphazardly, to nooks, crannies, tunnels, attics, storage rooms, and random cabinets at Exley Science Center, Judd Hall, and the Butterfield and Foss Hill residence complexes. Many of these specimens haven't been accessed in 60 years. "Sadly, few people are aware that Wesleyan has these unique resources," said Ellen Thomas, the University Professor in the College of Integrative Sciences and research professor of earth and environmental sciences. "The collections have not been…

Two Wesleyan students received top prizes in the Five College Korean Language Speech Contest held April 14 at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. This was Wesleyan's second year participating in the contest. The recipients include Madison McClain-Frederick '20, who took first prize for the beginning level with her speech titled "My Red Sneakers," and Bethlehem "Betty" Bekele '19, who took second place at the intermediate level with her speech titled "My Country Ethiopia and Korea." Bekele is supported through a Center for East Asian Studies language study grant to spend this summer studying language in Korea. The contest is sponsored by the Five College East…

The Boston Globe recently published a profile of Audrey Pratt, an incoming student in Wesleyan's Class of 2021 and the winner of the inaugural Wesleyan University Hamilton Prize for Creativity. Pratt, a graduate of Needham (Mass.) High School, won a four-year, full-tuition scholarship to Wesleyan for her short fiction submission, "Thorns, Black and White." Pratt, who was accepted early decision to Wesleyan, told the Globe that when she applied for the prize, she "didn't think in a million years I'd win," but she was excited for the chance to have Lin-Manuel Miranda '02 and Thomas Kail '99 read her work. Miranda, writer/creator and former star, and Kail, the director…

55 Graduate Students New to Wesleyan

Wesleyan Students Capture “Vibrant Wesleyan Jewish Life” in Forward

Plasma Bubble, Stem Cell Images Win Scientific Imaging Contest

Research Shared at Summer Poster Session

WILD Wes Celebrates 5 Years of West College Courtyard Growth

10 Student-Athletes Named 2017 Division III Scholar Athletes

Graduate Student Khan Performs at Multiple Summer Music Festivals

Velez, Wong ’18 Author Paper in ‘The Journal of Politics’

New Students Welcomed to Wesleyan at Summer Sendoffs

Students Catalog Wesleyan’s Lost Fossil Collections

McClain-Frederick ’20, Bekele ’19 Excel at Korean Language Speech Contest

Inaugural Hamilton Prize Winner Featured in Boston Globe