Olivia DrakeFrancis Starr, associate professor of physics, received a $100,000 grant from the American Chemical Petroleum Fund for his work examining the properties of extremely thin polymer films. These systems have important applications ranging from nano-electronics to artificial tissues. The work will be supported through August 2014.
Middlesex United Way awarded Wesleyan's Program for Student College Success with a $5,000 grant. The award will support the program through Aug. 31, 2013. Wesleyan’s Program for College Success is a comprehensive program that supports first-generation, low-income and underrepresented students as they move through high school and into college. The program serves 100 high school students (25 in each class), helping them to make a successful transition to college. Led by a director and operated by college students and recent graduates, the program consists of a four-week summer session and 40 weeks of programming throughout the academic year. Wesleyan students…
Nadja Aksamija, associate professor of art history, is spending her 2012-13 year abroad in Florence, Italy as a Robert Lehman Fellow at the Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. She is one of 15 scholars to receive the fellowship. I Tatti Fellows are selected by an international and interdisciplinary committee that welcomes applications from Italian Renaissance scholars from all nations. While abroad, Aksamija is researching the Bolognese villa in the age of Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti. "My project investigates the Bolognese villa culture at the end of the 16th century, a period marked by Catholic reform…
Wesleyan's Program for Student College Success received a $10,000 award from AT&T Connecticut on Oct. 12. State Senator Paul Doyle was on hand to celebrate the announcement. This program replaces the former Upward Bound program, which lost its federal funding this year for the first time in 45 years. Wesleyan’s Program for College Success is a comprehensive program that supports first-generation, low-income and underrepresented students as they move through high school and into college. The program serves 100 high school students (25 in each class), helping them to make a successful transition to college. Led by a director and operated by…
The U.S. Department of Education awarded Wesleyan's Ronald E. McNair Post Baccalaureate Achievement Program with a $1.1 million grant on Sept. 31, 2012. The award will support the McNair Program through Sept. 30, 2017. The Ronald E. McNair Program was established at Wesleyan in 2007 and assists students from under-represented groups in preparing for, entering and progressing successfully through post graduate education.
The U.S. Department of Education awarded Wesleyan's Upward Bound Math-Science Program with a $1,250,000 grant on Sept. 12, 2012. The award will be used to support the program through Sept. 30, 2018. Wesleyan's Upward Bound Math-Science and Collaborative Programs prepare hundreds of local youth (from elementary school to high school) for college and strengthen their math and science skills by providing rigorous academic summer experiences as well as ongoing academic enrichment and tutorial support, college visits, and assistance with prep school, college application and financial application processes during the school year.
Wesleyan's Green Street Arts Center received a $7,500 grant from the Middletown Youth Services Bureau on Sept. 27. The award will support Green Street's Arts and Science Afterschool program during the 2013 fiscal year.
The Center for the Arts received a grant worth $6,485 from the New England Foundation for the Arts to support "Voices of Afghanistan." Voices of Afghanistan was the first performance of Music & Public Life, a year-long campus and community-wide exploration of sounds, words, and the spirit of music in public.
Greg Voth, associate professor of physics, received a grant worth $300,000 from the National Science Foundation's Material Research division to support his study on "Rod Dynamics in Turbulence: Simultaneous 3D measurements of Anisotropic Particles and Velocity Fields" through May 31, 2015. In a wide range of natural and industrial situations, turbulent flows carry particulate material. For example, clouds are turbulent flows containing water droplets and ice crystals. Papermaking uses turbulent suspensions of fibers. If the particles are spheres, there are a variety of tools available for measuring their motion. But usually the particles are not spheres, and the movement and…
Wesleyan received a $10,000 grant from the Learning by Giving Foundation to support a Service Learning course titled "Money and Social Change: Innovative Paradigms and Strategies" on Sept. 18, 2012. The course is taught by Joy Anderson '89, visiting assistant professor of public policy. Students will use the $10,000 grant dollars to allocate to local organizations. The course will culminate in students writing a request for proposals based on the personal theory of change around capital and social change that they will develop throughout the course. Learn more about the class online here.
Constance Leidy, assistant professor of mathematics, received a $130,000 grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Mathematics Science to support her research on "Noncommunative Techniques in Knot Theory" through Aug. 31, 2014.
Elizabeth McAlister, chair of the Religion Department, received a grant worth $114,000 from an initiative funded by the John Templeton Foundation, and developed in conjunction with the Social Science Research Council’s program on Religion and the Public Sphere. McAlister plans to study the increase and globalization of what she terms “aggressive forms of prayer,” including evangelical spiritual warfare prayer and political forms of imprecatory prayer, in the context of increasing global militarization. Over the coming years, 28 grantees will participate in a series of interdisciplinary workshops and digital initiatives organized in conjunction with the project. McAlister also is associate professor…