Olivia DrakeOn Nov. 9, more than 200 people gathered to celebrate the launch of The World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Research and Capacity Building in Mental Health at Columbia University, Department of Psychiatry. The event, Global Mental Health Priorities and Opportunities, provided a platform for discourse around the challenges humans are tackling in mental health. Ruth Weissman, the Walter A. Crowell University Professor of the Social Sciences, professor of psychology, joined a panel discussion on "Global Mental Health Priorities and Opportunities," which was moderated by Pulitzer Prize winning author Sheryl WuDunn. Weissman and other leaders in the field discussed stigma…
(by Fred Wills '19) Joseph Rouse, the Hedding Professor of Moral Science, is the author of a new book titled Articulating the World: Conceptual Understanding and the Scientific Image, published by University of Chicago Press in December 2015. Rouse also is professor of philosophy, professor and chair of the Science in Society Program, professor of environmental studies. In his new book, Rouse examines naturalism as a historically situated philosophical project, "as we find ourselves in the midst of ongoing conflicts over what naturalism’s commitments are and why they matter, along with challenges to those commitments," he explained. According to Rouse, “the most…
In the 1920s, a team of scientists working in the Zhoukoudian cave system in Beijing, China unearthed Peking Man, a roughly 700,000 year-old sample of Homo erectus. After the communist revolution of 1949, Peking Man became a prominent figure in bringing science and the story of human evolution to the masses. As part of the required reading for the HIST 368 class, History of Science and Technology in Modern China, Ying Jia Tan, assistant professor of history, is having his students read The People's Peking Man, written by Wesleyan alumna Sigrid Schmalzer '94. The People’s Peking Man offers a skilled…
Associate Professor Barbara Juhaz, Yun-Hsuan Lai '14 and Michelle Woodcock '14 are the co-authors of a paper titled "A database of 629 English compound words: Ratings of familiarity, lexeme meaning dominance, semantic transparency, age-of-acquisition, imageability, and sensory experience," published in Behavior Research Methods, 47(4), pages 1004-1019 in 2015. Juhasz is associate professor of psychology, associate professor of integrative sciences, associate professor of neuroscience and behavior. In this study, the authors collected ratings on 629 English compound words for six variables: familiarity, age of acquisition, semantic transparency, lexeme meaning dominance, imageability, and sensory experience ratings. All of the compound words selected for this study are contained…
From Nov. 4-7, Gabriel Lipton Galbraith '16 participated in the 67th annual Student Conference on United States Affairs (SCUSA) at the United States Military Academy at West Point. The conference, titled "Confronting Inequality: Wealth, Rights and Power" brought together students, scholars and members of the military to talk about pressing challenges currently facing U.S. policy makers. Student delegates were split into roundtables to discuss specific topics touching on this broader theme. Lipton Galbraith's roundtable focused on international trade and inequality. Over the four day conference they authored a position paper focusing on the possible consequences of the recently signed Transpacific Partnership (TPP) on inequality.…
The Office of Human Resources reported the following new hires and departures for October 2015: Newly hired Timothy Bacon was hired as assistant squash coach intern in the Department of Athletics on Oct. 1 Mildred Rodriguez was hired as health professions advisor in the Wesleyan Career Center on Oct. 9 Jordan Knicely was hired as associate director of institutional research on Oct. 29 Departures Mickie Dame, administrative assistant in the College of Social Studies Devin Ford, Public Safety dispatcher Annette Howard, analyst programmer, project leader in Information Technology Services Armando Ortiz, Public Safety officer Parker Smathers, acquisitions editor for Wesleyan University Press
Lauren Rubenstein"Kennedy Odede is one of the most joy-filled people I've met," begins David Brooks in his regular New York Times column. On November 10, Brooks turned his column over to Odede '12, who grew up in the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya and attended Wesleyan. Together with his wife Jessica Posner Odede '09, Odede created the community organization Shining Hope for Communities (Shofco) and a school for girls in Kibera. Together, they've authored the new book, Find Me Unafraid: Love, Loss and Hope in an African Slum. In the column, Odede tells his story in his own words. He describes a tumultuous childhood filled with hunger,…
Suzanne O'Connell, professor of earth and environmental sciences, received the Exchange Award from the Association for Women Geoscientists at its annual awards breakfast on Nov. 2. The Exchange Award recognizes the contribution of those who exchange technical, education, and professional information in the field. The award ceremony took place at the Baltimore Convention Center in Maryland in conjunction with the Geological Society of America's annual meeting. O'Connell is also faculty director of the McNair Program. According to Blair Schneider, president of the Association for Women Geoscientists, O'Connell won the organization's Outstanding Educator Award in 2000. Since then, she has been an active…
In this News @ Wesleyan story, we speak with Michelle Personick, a new member of Wesleyan's Chemistry Department. Q: Welcome! Please fill us in on your life before Wesleyan. A: I’ve lived in the Northeast for most of my life. I grew up in New Jersey and then moved a bit further north to go to college in Vermont. I did my graduate work at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, which is just outside of Chicago. It was fun to be a short train ride away from Chicago and to be able to experience a new city for a few years.…
David LowRead more about the discussion in this Wesleyan Argus article and more about his book in this Q&A, below: Q: What motivated you to write the book? A: I wrote it to give voice to patients and families touched by severe brain injury and chose this genre because it was a complex interdisciplinary problem that needed a broader frame than that afforded by the typical truncated article in a medical journal. Rights Come to Mind is a story that straddles the sciences and the humanities and fundamentally is a question of how scientific advance compels us to change our views about ethics…
Elisa Cardona and Bulaong Ramiz from the Office of Student Activities and Leadership Development each received a Cardinal Achievement Award for their extraordinary efforts in facilitating a series of community discussions and educational workshops (over several weekends) in the wake of the publication of a controversial op-ed about the Black Lives Matter movement in the Wesleyan Argus. “These have been significant time commitments in addition to their already hectic job responsibilities” said Dean Mike Whaley. “I also want to highlight my observation that these discussions have been especially helpful and healing because they were designed in a way that participants were…
