Olivia DrakeFebruary 8, 20101min
Seth Redfield, assistant professor of astronomy, received a grant from NASA on Jan. 28 for his research titled "Probing the Atomic  & Molecular Inventory of the Beta-PicAnalog, the Young Edge –On Debris Disk of HD32297rp." The $48,334 grant, will be applied over two years.

Olivia DrakeDecember 17, 20091min
Lisa Dierker, chair and professor of psychology, and David Beveridge, the University Professor of the Sciences and Mathematics, professor of chemistry, received a $174,999 grant from the National Science Foundation. The grant will support an inquiry based, supportive approach to statistical reasoning and applications. The award will be applied Jan. 1, 2010 through Dec. 31, 2012.

David LowSeptember 22, 20092min
Documentary filmmaker James Longley ’94 has been awarded the prestigious $500,000 MacArthur grant, along with 23 other recipients. Longley’s low-budget, self-financed films are intimate portraits of people in politically volatile countries in the Middle East. While working on his documentaries, Longley lived among ordinary families and gained access to individuals living in places rarely recorded by Western filmmakers. Two of Longley’s works, Iraq in Fragments (2006) and Sari’s Mother (2006), were nominated for Academy Awards. Iraq in Fragments chronicles life in war-ravaged Iraq through the eyes of an abandoned young boy on the streets of Baghdad, the collective energy and…

David PesciSeptember 22, 20092min
5 Questions is a new feature in The Wesleyan Connection that will ask faculty members - surprise! - five questions about their work and activities. This issue, the questions go to Edward Moran, chair and associate professor of astronomy and director of the Van Vleck Observatory. His primary area of study is black holes. This summer he received a major National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for an extensive study on “intermediate mass” black holes. Q: Everyone thinks they know, but once and for all: what is a black hole? EM: Technically, black holes are places where matter has been crushed down…

Corrina KerrAugust 6, 20092min
Anna Shusterman, assistant professor of psychology, recently received a five-year, $716,227 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study "The role of language in children’s acquisition of number concepts." Shusterman will be evaluating 3-to-5-year-old hearing children in her Cognitive Development Laboratory at Wesleyan. She also will be studying deaf and hard-of-hearing children of the same ages who are learning English to try to determine how language delays affect children's learning of number concepts. The grant, which begins this year, comes from the National Science Foundation's Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program. The program is only available to non-tenured faculty. Researchers…

Olivia DrakeAugust 6, 20091min
With a boost from National Endowment for the Arts, Angel Gil-Ordóñez's Washington DC-based orchestra will continue making music for seasons to come. Gil-Ordóñez, music director of the Wesleyan Orchestra, adjunct professor of music, director of private lessons, chamber music and ensembles, learned that his Post-Classical Ensemble received a $50,000 grant from The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The award is made possible through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. "We are still jumping for joy," Gil-Ordóñez says. "It is such an honor, and reassurance that the NEA and the Recovery Act consider that our work must be…