Class of 2013

Sofia Warren ’13 has always loved to draw, but she didn’t know she could make a career out of it until graduating from Wesleyan and entering the world of animation. Now she works as a cartoonist for The New Yorker and recently launched a virtual advice column called “You’re Doing Great.” “It feels like a really fun fusion for me of art, which I love to do, and listening to people and figuring out how to help them,” Warren said about the column. She originally began posting doodles on her Instagram stories around the time of the election and asking…

Jeopardy! fans around the world are mourning the passing of longtime host Alex Trebek, who died on Nov. 8 at age 80. According to The New York Times, Trebek had hosted the show consistently since 1984, missing only one episode during that time—on April Fools' Day in 1997, when he swapped places with the host of Wheel of Fortune as a gag. Many Wesleyans had the opportunity to compete on Jeopardy! over the years. Below, some reflect on their experiences and share remembrances of Trebek. J.R. Mannetta '13 competed on Jeopardy! in January 2020. When you go on Jeopardy! you don't actually…

Three Wesleyan alumnae are the producers of podcasts that recently received 2020 Webby Award honors. The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. Julie Magruder '17 was one of the co-producers and David Shadrack Smith '92 is the executive producer of Daily Breath with Deepak Chopra, which won a Webby Award in the Health and Wellness category. In Daily Breath, listeners expand their minds by exploring impactful ideas and themes. According to the show's description, "Together we will delve into topics such as happiness, gratitude, love, sex, the true self, physical well-being, death and more.…

Scores of commencement ceremonies around the United States have been canceled or postponed this spring due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That means scores of graduation gowns could sit unused in closets. Instead, Taran Catania ’13, an MBA student at the University of Vermont, wants students past and present to put those gowns to a different use. Together with her classmate Nathaniel “Than” Moore, who works as an emergency medicine physician assistant in the UVM Medical Center, Catania earlier this month launched Gowns4Good, which coordinates the donation of gowns to health care providers on the front lines of the pandemic. The…

J.R. Mannetta ’13 is not a super genius. Nor is he the kind of guy who goes around flaunting his broad grasp of esoteric facts. In fact, he’s pretty much a regular guy. A regular guy with impressive knowledge of wide-ranging arts, sports, and pop culture, who, with a healthy dose of perseverance, patience, and practice, made it to the big stage to compete on that bastion of television trivia, Jeopardy! The Boston native’s interest in trivia—and Jeopardy! in particular—began when he was in high school and continued through his college years at Wesleyan, where he competed in trivia contests…

On Feb. 27, the Gordon Career Center hosted a Google Career Virtual Panel featuring Wesleyan alumni who offered insight on their roles in sales, business, product management, marketing, legal issues, and other roles at Google. The panel was assembled by Sherry Liang ’20, who completed a WEShadow at Google last winter, and Peer Career Advisor Esmye Lytle ’21. Speakers included: Aaron Stoertz '03: Stoertz graduated with a BA in English. Since then he worked in conservation biology, public health, and international health policy at the World Health Organization before landing in tech, where he's worked his way into a position…

Numerous students, alumni, and faculty from Wesleyan's Cognitive Development Labs recently presented their research at the 2019 Cognitive Development Society biennial meeting, held Oct. 17–19 in Louisville, Ky. The labs are led by Professor of Psychology Hilary Barth and Associate Professor of Psychology Anna Shusterman. Barth and Kerry Brew '18, MA '19 presented their poster, "Do Demand Characteristics Contribute to Minimal Ingroup Bias?" The work was done in collaboration with lab alumni Taylar Clark '19 and Jordan Feingold-Link '18. Sophie Charles '20, lab coordinator Katherine Williams, and former lab coordinator Alexandra Zax presented their poster, "The Role of Digit Identity…

Every day, 100 Americans are shot and killed and hundreds more are wounded as a result of gun violence. Through an organization called Everytown for Gun Safety, four Wesleyan alumni are working with lawmakers to pass common-sense laws and policies that build safer communities and save lives while still respecting the Second Amendment. Everytown members research a range of vital issues surrounding gun violence and develop data-driven solutions. To date, Everytown has supported nearly six million mayors, mothers, police, teachers, survivors, gun owners, students, and everyday Americans to make their own communities safer. (more…)

Although dam removal is an increasingly common stream restoration tool, it may also represent a major disturbance to rivers that can have varied impacts on environmental conditions and aquatic biota. In a paper titled "Dam Removal Effects on Benthic Macroinvertebrate Dynamics: A New England Stream Case Study, five researchers from Wesleyan examined the effects of dam removal on the structure, function, and composition of benthic macroinvertebrate (BMI) communities in a temperate New England stream. The benthic—or "bottom-dwelling”—macroinvertebrates are small aquatic animals that are commonly used to study biological conditions of water bodies. The paper is published in the May 21…

More than 110 Wesleyan students, faculty, alumni, and local guests participated in the second annual Power of Language Conference, April 26-27 at the Fries Center for Global Studies. The event was open to the entire Wesleyan community. The two-day event featured six panels that focused on: Creative Language Learning, Crossing Time and Border through Translation, Language and Society, Language in Curriculum, Arabic in the U.S., and Polyphony through Literature. "The presentations ranged from class final projects (such as a comic version of Dante’s Inferno, reimagined at Wesleyan) to senior theses (such as the challenges of translating early modern Spanish into…

William Tyner ’13 was awarded a Fulbright National Geographic Storytelling Fellowship —one of only five of such grants awarded each year. The fellowship is made possible through a partnership between the U.S. Department of State and the National Geographic Society and is a component of the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. It provides opportunities for U.S. citizens to participate in an academic year of overseas travel and storytelling on a globally significant theme. Tyner, who majored in anthropology at Wesleyan and enjoyed courses in the College of Film and the Moving Image, will be working with Code for Romania. He’ll be creating a…

Warren ’13 Talks Virtual Advice, Cartoons, Creativity

Wesleyan Jeopardy! Contestants Remember Longtime Host Alex Trebek

Podcasts by Magruder ’17, Smith ’92, Trufelman ’13 Receive Webby Honors

Gowns4Good, Co-Founded by Catania ’13, Connects Health Care Workers with Alternative PPE

Mannetta ’13 Takes Second on Jeopardy!

Students Engage with Google Employees through Career Virtual Panel

Psychology Faculty, Students, Alumni Present Research at CDS Meeting

4 Alumni Work to End Gun Violence Through Everytown

Researchers Explore the Effects of Dam Removal on Bottom-Dwelling Aquatic Animals

Cultural Experiences Discussed at Power of Language Conference

Tyner ’13 Named Fulbright National Geographic Storytelling Fellow

Alumni Coordinate Campus Visit with 7th Graders