Cynthia RockwellThe nationwide tour of the Tony award-winning Broadway musical In the Heights ended its run with a Wesleyan flourish. Andy Peretz ’84, inspired by the Wesleyan on Broadway alumni events, began organizing an event in Miami to celebrate with the local Wesleyan community at the Arsht Center Theater. In The Heights, created and composed by Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02, was directed by Thomas Kail ’99, who agreed to conduct a talk for the alumni at a special reception at the Miami performance on April 2. “What an amazingly articulate guy, so full of life,” says Peretz of Kail, who also directed…
David LowMatthew Weiner ’87 was featured recently by Time magazine on The 2011 Time 100, a list that recognizes the most influential people in the world. This list includes artists, activists, reformers, researchers, heads of state, and captains of industry. Weiner is the Emmy Award-winning creator, writer and executive producer of the highly regarded dramatic series, Mad Men, which has been renewed by AMC for two more seasons. In Time, actress Elizabeth Moss who plays Peggy Olson on Mad Men, said: “Matthew Weiner is no less than a genius. His influence on the world of television is unparalleled. He created a…
Hollywood’s highly successful writing and producing team Alex Kurtzman ’95 and Roberto Orci were recently featured in in an article by Dorothy Pomerantz in Forbes, “Hollywood‘s Secret Weapons.” The duo has worked on a number of films that together have earned $3 billion at the box office in six years, including Transformers I and II, The Proposal, and the 2009 blockbuster Star Trek, and they are able to transform genre pictures into something very special to audiences and studio heads. This summer they are behind big summer movie, Cowboys & Aliens, starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford as 19th-century cowboys…
Anna Sobel ’01 is the owner Talking Hands Theater, an educational puppetry company she began in New York City and now runs in western Massachusetts. She was recently profiled about her work by Steve Pfarrer in the Amherst Bulletin. Sobel makes her own puppets of all sizes to entertain children, but she also uses them to educate kids about such social issues as environmentalism, healthy eating, and conflict resolution. Sobel first started working with puppets after seeing a performance at Wesleyan of the Bread and Puppet Theater, which uses puppets to convey political messages. As an undergraduate she worked with…
Amy Baltzell ’87 is the author of Living in the Sweet Spot: Preparing for Performance in Sport and Life (Fitness Information Technology), an inspiring guide to getting ready for life’s big performances. The author integrates the best of the new field of positive psychology with the essentials of sport psychology. Every chapter contains practical, effective reflective exercises that will help readers rise to the challenge of performing at their best when it counts. The book is divided into three parts: The Building Blocks of a Champion Approach, Preparing for Performance and Competition, and The Day of Performance. Readers will learn…
Olivia DrakeJan Naegele, professor of biology, professor of neuroscience and behavior, is the author of "Tangled Roots: Digging Deeper into Astrocyte or Interneuron Dysfunction in Temporal Lobe Epilepsy," published in Epilepsy Currents, Volume 11, Issue 1, 2011. The article is online here. She's also the author of "STEP Regulation of Seizure Thresholds in the Hippocampus," published in Epilepsia by Wiley Publishers, 2011. The article is online here.
Jessica Sullivan '08; Barbara Juhasz, assistant professor of psychology; and Hilary Barth, assistant professor of psychology, assistant professor of neuroscience and behavior, are the co-authors of a paper titled, "Adults’ number-line estimation strategies: Evidence from eye movements," published in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, Issue 18, pages 557-563, in June 2011.
Barb Juhasz, assistant professor of psychology, assistant professor of neuroscience and behavior, and Rachel Berkowitz '09 are the co-authors of "Effects of morphological families on English compound word recognition: A multitask investigation," published in Language and Cognitive Processes, Issue 26, pages 653-682, in 2011.
Sumarsam, University Professor of Music, is the author of the essay, "Past and Present Issues of Islam within the Central Javanese Gamelan and Wayang," published in Divine Inspirations: Music and Islam in Indonesia by Oxford University Press, pages 45-79, in 2011. According to the abstract: "Sumarsam's contribution to the volume addresses Islam in the context and development of the Javanese gamelan and wayang kulit shadow play. The chapter uniquely combines the interpretation of primarily Javanese and European texts, the author's personal experience as teacher, performer, and practitioner of gamelan and wayang kulit, and a assessment of the public attitudes of…
Suzanne O'Connell, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences, director of the Service Learning Center, received a grant worth $21,000 from the Keck Geology Consortium on April 27. The award will support an undergraduate research project titled "Sediment Dynamics in the Lower Connecticut River" this summer.
Fred Cohan, professor of biology, professor of environmental studies, and biology graduate student Sarah Kopac received a $20,000 Connecticut Space Grant Consortium Training Grant on March 9. The award, which is subcontracted through the University of Hartford, supports a study titled "The Speciation of Bacillus Subtilis along a natural Salinity Gradient in Death Valley."
Sumarsam MA '76, University Professor of Music, participated in an ethnomusicology panel during the State of Indonesian Studies Conference April 28 at Cornell University. Sumarsam spoke on "Javanese Music Historiography: The Lost Gamelan of Gresik." The interdisciplinary conference focused on Indonesia's anthropology, art history, history, language, government and ethnomusicology. Marc Perlman MA '78, Ph.D. '94, associate professor at Brown University; Martin Hatch '63, MA'69, associate professor at Cornell University; Kaja McGowan '82, associate professor at Cornell; and Christopher Miller MA '02, a Wesleyan ethnomusicology Ph.D. candidate, also participated in the conference. The conference was hosted by Cornell's Southeast Asian Program.…