faculty achievements

Three Wesleyan faculty recently received Academic Research Enhancement Awards (R15) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). R15 grants stimulate research at educational institutions that provide baccalaureate training for a significant number of the nation's research scientists, but that have not been major recipients of NIH support. Awards provide funding for small-scale, new, or ongoing health-related meritorious research projects, enhancing the research environment at eligible institutions and exposing students to research opportunities. Amy MacQueen, associate professor of molecular biology and biochemistry, received a $492,900 award on Aug. 7 for her research titled "How do Synaptonemal Complex Proteins Mediate the Coordinated?" MacQueen…

Takeshi Watanabe, assistant professor of East Asian studies, is the author of Flowering Tales: Women Exorcising History in Heian Japan, published by Harvard University Press in January 2020. The book is the first extensive literary study of A Tale of Flowering Fortunes (Eiga monogatari), a historical tale that covers about 150 years of births, deaths, and happenings in late Heian society, a golden age of court literature in women’s hands. According to the publisher: Takeshi Watanabe contends that the blossoming of tales, marked by The Tale of Genji, inspired Eiga’s new affective history: an exorcism of embittered spirits whose stories needed to be…

Martha "Marty" Gilmore, George I. Seney Professor of Geology, professor of earth and environmental sciences, is the author of a research article titled "Present-day volcanism on Venus as evidenced from weathering rates of olivine," published in Science Advances Vol. 6 on Jan. 3, 2020. According to the paper's abstract: At least some of Venus’ lava flows are thought to be <2.5 million years old based on visible to near-infrared (VNIR) emissivity measured by the Venus Express spacecraft. However, the exact ages of these flows are poorly constrained because the rate at which olivine alters at Venus surface conditions, and how that…

Professor of History William "Vijay" Pinch, a scholar of South Asian History, recently consulted on Laal Kaptaan, a Hindi feature film directed by Navdeep Singh. The film was released in India in October 2019 and can be viewed on Amazon Prime in the US. Director Singh referred to one of Pinch's books, Warrior Ascetics and Indian Empires (Cambridge University Press, 2006), in imagining the period and the drama's lead character, a warrior ascetic in the late 18th century. Pinch was then contacted to read and comment on the script, and to answer questions during the filming. In November 2020, Pinch and…

Tsampikos Kottos, Lauren B. Dachs Professor of Science and Society and professor of physics, is the co-author of several new publications. They include: "Constant Intensity Conical Diffraction in Discrete One-Dimensional Lattices with Charge-Conjugation Symmetry," published in Optics Letters, Vol. 45, Issue 1, January 2020. "Enhanced Sensing and Nondegraded Thermal Noise Performance Based on PT-Symmetric Electronic Circuits with a Sixth-Order Exceptional Point," published in Physical Review Letters, Vol. 123, Issue 21, November 2019. "Adiabatic Thermal Radiation Pumps for Thermal Photonics," published in Physical Review Letters, Vol. 123, Issue 16, October 2019. Fred Ellis, professor of physics, co-authored this piece. "Effects of…

Nicole Stanton has been announced as Wesleyan University’s 12th Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, with her tenure beginning on May 15, 2020. Stanton joined Wesleyan in 2007 as an associate professor of dance, has twice served as chair of the department (2008–2011; 2014–2017) and is currently serving as Dean of the Arts and Humanities. A dance artist and an educator by training, Nicole’s work explores the cultures and histories of the African diaspora, especially the ways in which the arts and dance serve as sites of reclamation and platforms for cultivating community. Nicole earned a BA in…

Hari Krishnan, associate professor of dance, is the author of a new book, Celluloid Classicism: Early Tamil Cinema and the Making of Modern Bharatanatyam, published by Wesleyan University Press in August 2019. According to the publisher: Celluloid Classicism provides a rich and detailed history of two important modern South Indian cultural forms: Tamil Cinema and Bharatanatyam dance. It addresses representations of dance in the cinema from an interdisciplinary, critical-historical perspective. The intertwined and symbiotic histories of these forms have never received serious scholarly attention. For the most part, historians of South Indian cinema have noted the presence of song and…

Megan Glick, associate professor of American studies, is the recipient of the Alison Piepmeier Book Prize for her book, Infrahumanisms: Science, Culture, and the Making of Modern Non/personhood (Duke University Press, 2018). Awarded by the National Women's Studies Association (NWSA), the Piepmeier Book Prize honors the author of a groundbreaking monograph in women, gender, and sexuality studies that makes significant contributions to feminist disability studies scholarship. The award comes with a $1,000 prize and honors Alison Piepmeier, an active member and leader of NWSA whose scholarship examined the intersection of feminist and disability studies, with a particular emphasis on reproductive decisions…

Hilary Barth, professor of psychology; Andrea Patalano, professor of psychology; Joanna Paul '18; and former postdoctoral fellow Chenmu (Julia) Xing are co-authors of a paper titled "Probability range and probability distortion in a gambling task," published in Acta Psychologica in June 2019. Barth and Emily Slusser, a former postdoctoral fellow, are the co-authors of a paper titled "Spontaneous partitioning and proportion estimation in children’s numerical judgments," published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology in September 2019. Barth; Patalano; Slusser; Alexandra Zax, visiting scholar in psychology; and Katherine Williams, lab coordinator; are the co-authors of a paper titled "What Do…

Khachig Tölölyan, professor of letters, professor of English, was honored as the preeminent scholar of diaspora studies in general, and the Armenian Diaspora in particular, at the International Conference for the Society of Armenian Studies held at the University California, Los Angeles, on Oct. 12–13. The conference, titled “Diaspora and ‘Stateless Power’: Social Discipline and Identity Formation Across the Armenian Diaspora During the Long Twentieth Century" marked the association's 45th anniversary, and drew scholars from Italy, Mexico, France, Armenia, England, Portugal, the Netherlands, Germany, and around the United States. They came to present new papers and to hear Tölölyan’s keynote…

Martha Gilmore, the George I. Seney Professor of Geology, professor of earth and environmental sciences, believes we have a lot to learn from studying Venus—yet the United States has not sent a mission to the Earth-sized planet since the early 1990s. That’s why Gilmore has proposed a major flagship mission concept study to assess whether Venus was ever a habitable planet by looking at its rocks and atmosphere. In October, NASA agreed to fund the planetary mission concept on Venus submitted by Gilmore, a planetary geologist, and colleagues at several other institutions, who come from varied disciplines. Gilmore, who is…

On Oct. 16, Richard Grossman, chair and professor of economics, discussed the latest unemployment numbers and current state of the economy with Todd Feinburg at WTIC in Hartford. This month, the national unemployment rate has fallen to a new low—3.5%. "Historically, and certainly for the last 10 years, the number peaked at 10% after the financial crisis, and it's been working its way down ever since," Grossman said. "That doesn't mean all is wonderful if you're in the labor force. There's a lot of other things going on ... people working part-time who would like to be working full-time ...…

MacQueen, Coolon, Mukerji Receive NIH Academic Research Enhancement Awards

Watanabe Explores Japanese Historical Tale in New Book

Gilmore’s Paper on Venus’s Volcanoes Published in Science Advances

Pinch Consults on Recent Hindi Feature Film

Kottos Co-Authors Several Publications

Stanton Announced as Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

Krishnan Authors New Book on Tamil Cinema, Bharatanatyam Dance

Glick Wins Book Prize from National Women’s Studies Association

Papers by Barth, Patalano, Others Published in Psychology Journals

Tölölyan Honored as Preeminent Scholar of Diaspora Studies

NASA Funds Study of Gilmore’s Venus Mission Concept

Grossman Discusses Latest Unemployment Trends on WTIC Radio