environmental studies

Science in Society major Stacy Uchendu '17 is participating in Wesleyan's Ronald E. McNair Post Program, which assists students from under-represented groups in preparing for, entering and progressing successfully through post graduate education. Stacy is researching second generation biofuels as a McNair Scholar.

Two Wesleyan faculty members presented talks at the 14th International Conference on the History of Science in East Asia, held in Paris, July 6-10. On July 7, Miri Nakamura, associate professor of East Asian studies, read from a paper titled "Atomic Maids," which focused on the role of Japanese housekeepers in mystery novels that were indirect criticisms of nuclear issues. On July 9, Bill Johnston, professor of history, professor of East Asian studies, professor of Science in Society, professor of environmental studies, spoke about the changing role of the environment in ideas about disease causation in 19th century Japan. The conference is held every four…

Gary Yohe, the Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, was reappointed by Mayor Bill DeBlasio to the third New York City Panel on Climate Change on June 30. Yohe and 18 other experts are tasked with ensuring that the best available climate science continues to inform the city's resiliency planning. The panel will build on reports by previous panels, and will "look at climate risks through the lens of inequality at a neighborhood scale, as well as focus on ways to enhance coordination of mitigation and resiliency across the entire New York metropolitan region," according to a press release from the…

Gary Yohe, the Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, wrote in The Hartford Courant about Pope Francis' encyclical on climate change--"a very valuable and much needed injection of morality into the scientific and economic discussions on climate change — it is quite likely a game-changer." While scientists, economists and other professionals have long made a case for taking action to reduce emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change, Yohe writes, "The pope's encyclical adds a moral dimension to this case with nearly 200 pages of inspiring text about man's pollution and the immorality of emissions. He notes that the…

Students enrolled in the Introduction to Environmental Studies course presented their artist's books, children's stories, documentaries and story maps during the class's annual Project Showcase on May 14 in Exley Science Center. The class is taught by Kim Diver, visiting assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences. Suzy Taraba, director of Wesleyan's Special Collections and Archives attended the event and spoke to the students about artist books. Photos of the event are below: (Photos by Aviva Hirsch) (more…)

Erika Taylor, assistant professor of chemistry, assistant professor of environmental studies, has co-authored a paper published in FEBS Letters, an international journal established for the rapid publication of final short reports in the fields of molecular biosciences. The paper, which is an expansion of her lab’s work on the enzyme Heptosyltransferase I, is titled "Cloning and Characterization of the Escherichia coli Heptosyltransferase III: Exploring Substrate Specificity in Lipopolysaccharide Core Biosynthesis," The paper is co-authored by her former graduate student Jagadesh Mudapaka. FEBS Letters is published by Elsevier on behalf of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies. Taylor also is the co-author of “Improving Alternate Lignin Catabolite Utilization of LigAB…

Wesleyan’s Green Street Teaching and Learning Center has received a $12,500 grant from the Petit Family Foundation to support the center's Girls in Science Summer Camp. Green Street Director Sara MacSorley accepted the gift from Dr. William Petit. The Green Street Girls in Science Summer Camp will take place August 3 - 7 and will be open to girls entering grades 4, 5, and 6. Erika Taylor, assistant professor of chemistry, assistant professor of environmental studies, Ruth Johnson, assistant professor of biology, and Christina Othon, assistant professor of physics, will participate in the five-day program, covering topics from biochemistry to physics and culminating…

Lori Gruen, professor and chair of philosophy, discussed her new book, Entangled Empathy: An Alternative Ethic for Our Relationships with Animals, with University of Colorado Professor Emeritus Mark Bekoff in The Huffington Post. Bekoff calls the book "a wonderful addition to a growing literature in the transdisciplinary field called anthrozoology, the study of human-animal relationships." Gruen defines "entangled empathy" as "a process whereby we first acknowledge that we are already in relationships with all sorts of other animals (humans and non-humans) and these relationships are, for the most part, not very good ones. We then work to figure out how to make them better and that…

A book by Marc Eisner, the Henry Merritt Wriston Chair of Public Policy, was selected as a winner of the Outstanding Academic Titles by Choice in 2014. Eisner's book, The American Political Economy was published in 2014. In this innovative text, he portrays the state and the market as inextricably linked, exploring the variety of institutions subsumed by the market and the role that the state plays in creating the institutional foundations of economic activity. Through a historical approach, Eisner situates the study of American political economy within a larger evolutionary-institutional framework that integrates perspectives in American political development and economic sociology. Eisner also is chair…

Erika Taylor, assistant professor of chemistry, assistant professor of environmental studies, is the author of a paper "Exploring Allosteric Activation of LigAB from Sphingobium sp. strain SYK-6 through Kinetics, Mutagenesis and Computational Studies," published in Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Vol, 567, pages 35-45, February 2015. Co-authors include graduate students Kevin Barry and Joy Cote; Erin Cohn '15, Abraham Ngu '13 and former graduate student Jason Gerbino. Development of renewable alternatives for petroleum derived fuels and chemicals is of increasing importance because of limits on the amount of fossil fuels that are available on the planet. In an effort to improve the utilization of…

Two faculty members and two graduate students co-authored a paper published in the July 18 edition of the academic journal, Biochemistry. Erika Taylor, assistant professor of chemistry, assistant professor of environmental studies; Manju Hingorani, professor of molecular biology and biochemistry; chemistry graduate student Daniel Czyzyk; and molecular biology and biochemistry graduate student Shreya Sawant wrote the paper, "Escherichia coli Heptosyltransferase I: Investigation of Protein Dynamics of a GT-B Structural Enzyme." It appears online here. Biochemistry is a publication of the American Chemical Society.

Fred Cohan, chair and professor of biology, professor of environmental studies, is the co-author of "Species," published in the Encyclopedia of Genetics, Amsterdam, Elsevier, 2013; "Accuracy and efficiency of algorithms for demarcating bacterial ecotypes from DNA sequence data," published in BMC Genomics, 2013; and "Speedy speciation in a bacterial microcosm: New species can arise as frequently as adaptations within a species," published in the ISME Journal's Advance Online Publication, 2013.

Uchendu ’17 Researches Production of Biofuels as McNair Scholar

Johnston, Nakamura Present Papers at History of Science in East Asia Conference

Yohe Reappointed to NYC Climate Change Panel

Yohe: Pope’s Encyclical on Climate Change ‘Quite Likely a Game-Changer’

Environmental Studies Class Presents Artist’s Books, Projects

Taylor’s Papers Published in Molecular Biosciences, Biochemistry Journals

Petit Foundation Awards Grant to Green Street

Gruen Discusses Her New Book Entangled Empathy

Choice Names Eisner’s Book a “Outstanding Academic Title”

Paper by Taylor, Students Show How Enzymes Break down Lignin

Taylor, Hingorani, Students Co-Author Paper in Biochemistry Journal

Cohan Published in Encyclopedia of Genetics, Genomics Publication