Kate CarlisleIf you’ve ever spent an evening looking up old flames on Facebook, shopping online and watching questionable YouTube videos, you may have wished there were a way to preserve your anonymity on the World Wide Web. It turns out there is a way; and a Wesleyan senior’s capstone work explored how to make that way faster and better. Julian Applebaum ’13, a computer science major, spent the year working on a simulation of Tor, a global network run by volunteers, that allows internet users to remain anonymous. There is one problem: Tor is painfully slow. His work attempts to simulate…
Olivia DrakeAnna Swartz '13 delivered the following remarks during the Senior Class Welcome on May 26: Right before I left for Wesleyan for the first time, Ruth, my ninety-year-old neighbor warned me “Make the most of it, college is the best time of your life.” I took her advice to heart, it seemed smart to trust a woman who had done so much living, and I arrived at Wesleyan filled with the loftiest dreams, the highest expectations, ready for my life to be changed. What I didn’t realize at the time is that college isn’t just about what Wesleyan could give…
Lauren RubensteinGlenn Stowell ’13, Isaiah Sypher’13 and Jacob Eichengreen '13 delivered "Senior Voices" speeches on May 25 in Memorial Chapel. Glenn Stowell ’13 The prompt to which I originally responded for the purpose of putting together this reflection asked me to consider what about my experience here at Wesleyan was meaningful. And that left me to do some serious leg lifting prior to answering that question, as I tried to think about how an experience becomes imbued with meaning at all. When we want to make an experience seem meaningful, we often look backward to a moment by which we can illuminate our…
She doesn’t always develop scholarly work inspired by concrete and rebar, but when she does, Zöe Mueller ’13 credits her Wesleyan experience with making it happen. A University Honors recipient and author of a 300-plus page thesis that marries urban design, anthropology, sociology and architectural history, Mueller studied abroad in Brazil and worked in Detroit and Cleveland on a Paoletti Travel Research Grant. These experiences framed her work, which explores American communities riven apart by the interstate highway system in the 1950s. “It got started when I was studying abroad. My host family in Brazil lived above an elevated highway,…
Q: Hannah, what are you majoring in and what are some of your research interests? A: I'm a Latin American studies major, with a concentration in Spanish. I'm really interested in exploring different avenues regarding community development, poverty alleviation, and social policies in Latin America. For my major's research requirement, I wrote a paper analyzing Ecuador's human and social development progress from 1990 to 2010. Q: What is your personal interest in Latin America? A: I grew up in Texas, where I was surrounded by Hispanic influences and debates on immigration. But I first fell in love with the culture,…
Brian KattenWesleyan has its fourth NESCAC Player of the Year in 2012-13 as softball sensation Allee Beatty '13 joined men's soccer standout Adam Purdy '13, women's soccer star Laura Kurash '13 and men's ice hockey scoring leader Keith Buehler '14 with the honor. Beatty also earned NESCAC Defensive Player of the Year accolades. She led the Cardinals with a .421 average, scored 50 runs, drove in 11, stole 25 bases, had a seasonal record eight triples and was perfect in the field with 58 putouts and one assist in center field. Her 152 runs, 12 triples and 114 stolen bases all…
History major Sophia Hussain '13 received a $500 grant from the Grants Award Committee of the Roosevelt Institute. According to David Woolner, Senior Fellow and Hyde Park Resident Historian of the Roosevelt Institute, "the Roosevelt Institute does not normally grant awards to undergraduate students, but given the quality of Sophia's proposal, which was excellent, we decided to make an exception in [her] case." The award is meant to assist Hussain's research at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum.
Wesleyan's WESlam team placed 13th out of 59 college teams from around the country in the 2013 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational, held April 3-6 at Barnard College in New York City. Five students, Evan Okun '13, Lily Myers '15 , Zachary Goldberg '13, Cherkira Lashely '15 and Markeisha Hill '16 competed on the team and Emily Weitzman '14 coached. Lily Myers won the award for best love poem. "'Most moving' was the response Wesleyan got from community ," Okun said. "We were complemented for our creative manner in which we resisted the typical 'slam-poem-formula' that is often over dramatic and…
Rosa Hayes '13 presented her paper on yield spread during The Carroll Round, an annual international economics conference at Georgetown University, in April. The Carroll Round provides a unique forum for research and discussion among the world’s top undergraduates. The goal of the Carroll Round is to foster the exchange of ideas among the leading undergraduate international economics and political economy students by encouraging and supporting the pursuit of scholarly innovation in the field. Hayes' advisor is Masami Imai, chair and associate professor of East Asian studies, associate professor of economics and director of the Freeman Center for East Asian…
Kate Shervais '13 presented her thesis research on "Examining Microroughness Evolution in Natural and Experimental Pseudotachylyte-bearing Fault Surfaces," at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly in April. More than 11,000 scientists from 95 countries attended the conference, which was held in Vienna, Austria. Only 28 percent of the participants were students. Shervais completed her study with Phil Resor, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences. Resor, who received a National Science Foundation grant to study earthquakes in an Italian fault zone, also attended the conference. The NSF grant supported their travel to the conference. "I had a wonderful time and…
In Kilkenny, Ireland, a man spins wool from freshly shorn sheep into rich fibers. A furniture maker in South Pomfret, Vt. studies the natural geometry of wood he turns into tables, chairs and consoles. And in London, England, a silversmith wielding a hammer transforms smooth metal into beautifully shaped and textured bowls, vases and pieces of art. These and other craftspeople are featured in a series of nine short documentary films produced and directed by Piers Gelly ’13 and Daniel Nass ’13. Each film in the series, titled, “The Minds of Makers,” shows the creative process of a craftsperson working…
In this issue of The Wesleyan Connection, we speak with hockey player Nick Craven from the Class of 2013. Craven signed an amateur try-out contract with the Binghamton Senators of the American Hockey League in March. He played in each of the Senators' games March 8-10 as they defeated the Conn. Whale, 3-0; knocked off the Rochester Americans, 4-3; and beat the Hershey Bears, 3-2. Q: How old were you when you first developed an interest in playing ice hockey? How would you describe the opportunity you had to fulfill your ice hockey desires growing up in Ft. Collins, Colo.? A: I first…