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Julia Mitchell '19 paced the women's cross country team with a first-place finish at the Little Three Championship on Sept. 8 in Amherst, Mass. Although Williams College ultimately won the Little Three title, the Cardinals had four runners place in the top 10 as they finished in second place, ahead of Amherst College. Little Three Championships are declared when a varsity team from Wesleyan, Williams, and Amherst defeats the other two rivals. The fierce competition among the schools dates back to at least 1910. In 2017-18, women’s crew, volleyball, men’s basketball and men’s lacrosse won Little Three titles. Mitchell, of Bellevue, Wash.,…

Lewis “Lew” Lukens, professor emeritus of molecular biology and biochemistry, passed away on Sept. 8 at the age of 91. Lukens received his BA from Harvard University and his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. He came to Wesleyan in 1966, first in the Biology Department and then as one of the founding members of the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, where he remained until his retirement in 1999. Lukens' research involved the regulation of gene expression by eukaryotic cells, specifically the genes for Type I and Type II collagen. He received many research grants from the National Institutes…

Three Wesleyan faculty were honored with the Wesleyan Prize for Excellence in Research on Sept. 4. The inaugural prize, presented by Joyce Jacobsen, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, is similar to the Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching, but is presented to members of the faculty who demonstrate the highest standards of excellence in their research, scholarship, and contributions to their field. Each recipient received a plaque and citation as well as research funds for their award. Nominations by faculty colleagues for this new prize will be accepted through the end of April each spring, and the…

Since arriving on campus freshman year, Ingrid Eck ’19 has fully immersed herself in all Wesleyan has to offer: working on the Wesleyan Green Fund; founding Veg Out, a student group dedicated to food justice; and joining—and currently serving as president of—Wesleyan’s only sorority, Rho Epsilon Pi. She is also working toward not one, but three majors: government, environmental studies, and French studies. More recently, she’s felt a desire to get involved in the broader Middletown community and “truly get to know the city in which I have been living.” This summer, Eck had a unique opportunity to become intimately…

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In this issue of The Wesleyan Connection, we speak with Assistant Professor of Psychology Alexis May ’05, who joined the Department of Psychology this fall. May will be among the speakers at the Shasha Seminar for Human Concerns on Sept. 14–15. Q: Welcome (back) to Wesleyan, Professor May! You earned your BA from Wesleyan in psychology and neuroscience and behavior in 2005. Please tell us about your journey since then. A: After gaining substantial clinical research experience in the psychology department as a project coordinator for [Walter Crowell University Professor of Social Sciences, Emerita] Ruth Striegel Weismann, I was sure of my…

Inspired by Fête de la Musique (also known as Make Music Day or World Music Day), the seventh annual The MASH festival on Sept. 8 highlighted Wesleyan's student music scene, with multiple stages on campus featuring everything from a cappella ensembles and soloists to student and faculty bands. The name “MASH” is derived from the idea of a mash-up, since the festival features a mixture of different styles, genres, and musical expressions. Stages were set up near Foss Hill, Olin Library, and North College. Performers included Baby Jeremy, Beach Juice, Rebecca Roff, Slavei, FieldFare, Jack Canavan-Gosselin, Myles Johnson, Quasimodal, Philippe Bungabong, Lila…

Stéphanie Ponsavady, assistant professor of French, is the author of a new book titled Cultural and Literary Representations of the Automobile in French Indochina: A Colonial Roadshow, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2018. In the book, Ponsavady aims to answer the question: How are the pleasures and thrills of the automobile linked to France’s history of conquest, colonialism, and exploitation in Southeast Asia? Ponsavady addresses the contradictions of the “progress” of French colonialism and their consequences through the lens of the automobile. She examines the development of transportation systems in French Indochina at the turn of the 20th century, analyzing…

A book written by María Ospina, assistant professor of Spanish and assistant professor, Latin American studies, was recently nominated for the Gabriel García Márquez Spanish American Short Story Award. The prize is awarded annually by the National Library of Colombia and the Colombian Ministry of Culture to a short story collection in Spanish that has been published the year before by authors from the Spanish-speaking world (Spain and Latin America). This year, the jury selected 14 titles from 127 submissions. This award is considered the most important prize in the short story genre in the world of Hispanic letters and honors…

This summer, Mariel Middlebrook '20 gathered archival material on 19th-century alkali workers in London through a Wesleyan Student-Faculty Research Internship. The Student-Faculty Internship program provides students with paid opportunities to work on research projects in collaboration with Wesleyan faculty. As a recipient of the internship award, Middlebrook was able to work alongside Associate Professor of History Jennifer Tucker, who is collecting information on Widnes, an industrial town in Halton, Cheshire, Northwest England, that is known for being the birthplace of Britain's chemical industry in the late 1840s. (Tucker's article, "It’s No Downton Abbey, but It’s Just as Much a Part of…

Sonia Sultan, professor of biology and professor, environmental studies, and her former students Brennan Baker BA/MA '18 and Lars Berg '16 are the coauthors of a paper published in the August 2018 issue of Frontiers in Plant Science. The study, "Context-Dependent Developmental Effects of Parental Shade Versus Sun Are Mediated by DNA Methylation," presents work that Baker completed as a BA/MA student in 2017–18. The article is part of a special Frontiers theme on the emerging area of ecological epigenetics. In this study, the coauthors compared the development of individual plants when their parents were grown in shade or in full…

On Sept. 1, Wesleyan President Michael Roth '78 appointed Jeanine Basinger, Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, to the position of Special Advisor to the President. As she prepares to retire from Wesleyan, Basinger will work closely with President Roth on matters relating to Wesleyan Film--cultivating partnerships with organizations like the American Film Institute; conducting master classes and workshops; and supporting fundraising for the expansion of the Center for Film Studies. Though Basinger is stepping away from full-time teaching, she will continue her service to the Ogden and Mary Louise Reid Cinema Archives and offer support to Scott Higgins, the Charles…

Cross Country’s Mitchell ’19 Takes 1st Place at Little Three Championship

Lukens Remembered for Cofounding the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry

Yohe, Siry, Sultan Awarded Wesleyan Prize for Excellence in Research

Eck ’19 Helping City of Middletown Earn Sustainability Certification

Student Fire-Spinners Perform for the Class of 2022

New Assistant Professor May ’05 Researches Suicide Risk and Prevention

More than 20 Bands, Musicians Perform during The MASH

Ponsavady’s New Book Examines the Development of French Transportation Systems

Ospina’s Fiction Nominated for Prestigious Spanish American Short Story Award

Tucker, Middlebrook ’20 Study the History of U.K. Alkali Workers

Sultan, Baker ’18, Berg ’16 Coauthor Paper on Plant Development

Basinger Appointed Special Advisor to the President