David PesciProfessor Lori Gruen’s The First 100 web site was featured in The New York Times. The web site provides biographies of the first 100 chimpanzees used in scientific experimentation. Gruen is chair and professor of philosophy, professor of feminist gender and sexuality studies, professor of environmental studies. Chimpanzees live 50 to 60 years in captivity, so those who are retired have long histories, although the details can be spotty. On her web site, Gruen has thumbnail biographies of the first 100 chimps used in research in the United States. She hopes to create a similar site for chimps now in…
Olivia DrakeErika Fowler, assistant professor of government, received a grant worth $80,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The award will provide support to the Wesleyan Media Project through October 2013. The grant is shared with Bowdoin College and Washington State University.
Charles Lemert, University Professor and Andrus Professor of Social Theory, emeritus, is the author of Why Niebuhr Matters, published by Yale University Press, November 2011. Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) was a Protestant preacher, an influential religious thinker, and an important moral guide in mid-20th-century America. His work has informed the thinking of political leaders and commentators from Barack Obama and Madeleine Albright to David Brooks and Walter Russell Mead. In this lively overview of Niebuhr's career, Lemert analyzes why interest in Niebuhr is rising and how Niebuhr provides the answers we ache for in the face of seismic shifts in the…
Ed Moran, associate professor of astronomy, received a grant worth $62,804 from NASA for a project titled "Black Holes at the Center of Nearby Dwarf Galaxies." The project involves observations of six dwarf galaxies with the Chandra X-ray Observatory, also known as the "Hubble Space Telescope of X-ray Astronomy." "We have identified 'active nuclei' in these objects, which are powered by the accretion of gas onto massive black holes," Moran says. "The X-ray emission associated with the accretion will give us direct information about the black holes and their surroundings in their host galaxies." The black holes in these galaxies…
Stewart Novick, professor of chemistry, received a grant worth $43,260 from the National Science Foundation. The award is shared with Professor Stephen Cooke of SUNY-Purchase and represents a new collaboration between Professors Cooke and Novick who now co-mentor graduate students and share sophisticated equipment (Fourier transform microwave spectrometers housed in Novick's lab at Wesleyan). The collaboration, which goes beyond this one grant, involves investigating the structures and dynamics of a whole range of systems including large halogenated compounds and molecules involving actinide valence electrons in their chemical bonding.
Like all eating disorders, binge eating only affects women and teenaged girls, right? Wrong. An extensive new study that examined the eating habits of 21,743 men found that binge eating affected 1,630 of them. The rate, while slightly less than the number of women in the same study who experienced binge eating, reveals that this behavior is not limited to female populations. The results argue strongly for including men in future studies and treatment strategies. Published in the Sept. 2011 issue of International Journal of Eating Disorders, the study, titled “Why Men Should be Included in Research on Binge Eating:…
Six Wesleyan researchers, including a graduate student, were authors or co-authors of papers chosen for presentation at this year’s annual meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA) in Minneapolis, Minn., Oct. 9-12. It is the largest annual meeting of the preeminent scientific association in the geologic and earth science fields. Johan Varekamp, Harold T. Stearns Professor of Earth Sciences, professor of earth and environmental sciences, presented two papers. The first, “Wethersfield Cove, Hartford, Conn. – A 300 Year Urban Pollution Record,” detailed a study of the sedimentary record of the cove, which revealed unusually high levels of Mercury. The…
Greg Goldberg joined the Sociology Department as an assistant professor. His research interests include political economy, social theory, media and popular culture, digital and network technologies and music and sound. This semester he is teaching Introductory Sociology and Media and Society. "Thus far, I've found the students at Wesleyan to be ambitious, open, creative and independent thinkers; they are truly a pleasure to teach," he says. "They have sharp critical thinking skills, and are game for anything I can think to throw at them. I've been continually impressed by their ability to engage complex social questions and issues, and I…
Sally Bachner, assistant professor of English, is the author of The Prestige of Violence: American Fiction. 1962-2007, published by the University of Georgia Press in 2011. In The Prestige of Violence, Bachner argues that, starting in the 1960s, American fiction laid claim to the status of serious literature by placing violence at the heart of its mission and then insisting that this violence could not be represented. Bachner demonstrates how many of the most influential novels of this period are united by the dramatic opposition they draw between a debased and untrustworthy conventional language, on the one hand, and a…
Michael Weir, director of the Hughes Program in the Life Sciences, professor of biology, received a grant worth $328,200 from the National Institutes of Health on Sept. 19. Weir will use the funds to support a study titled, "Proteomic Analysis of Translation Initiation of Yeast," through August 2011.
Tsampikos Kottos, associate professor of physics, received a grant worth $140,121 from the National Science Foundation on Sept. 1. The grant will support a project titled "IDR:Novel Photonic Materials and Devices based on Non-Hermitian Optics" through August 2014. Kottos is collaborating with faculty from Southern Methodist University, University of Central Florida, University of Arkansas and Yale University.
Bill HolderStacey Close, a professor of history, philosophy and political science at Eastern Connecticut State University, will spend the current academic year at Wesleyan as an ACE Fellow. Sponsored by the American Council on Education, the program prepares fellows to serve American colleges and universities in leadership positions. “It's a pleasure to welcome Stacey Close to campus,” says President Michael S. Roth. “Wesleyan will surely benefit from the expertise he brings, and I hope he will fulfill his professional goals through his association with us.” Close has served as director of faculty development at Eastern’s Center for Educational Excellence and as…