3 Students Win Scientific Imaging Contest

Images depicting star collisions, atom movement in yeast ribosomes, and herbaceous plant root scans were the winning entries of the 2020 Wesleyan Scientific Imaging Contest. The Wesleyan Scientific Imaging Contest, held annually in August, recognizes student-submitted images—from experiments or simulations done with a Wesleyan faculty member—that are scientifically intriguing, as well as aesthetically pleasing. The contest is organized by the College of Integrative Sciences as part of the summer research program. The winners included Osama Elgabori '22, Carol Dalgarno '21, and Jolie Villegas '21. Elgabori's advisor is Brian Stewart, professor of physics; Dalgarno's advisor is Michael Weir, professor of biology;…

On April 22, Professor of Physics Brian Stewart held his annual Earth Day Rant. This year's topic was "Bending the Curves: Coping with Crises from Car Crashes to Coronavirus to Climate Change." During his talk, Stewart discussed and compared how a car crash, storm, epidemic, and climate change vary in terms of mitigation, adaptation, perception, agency, cost to the United States, and deaths per 100,000 people. The current epidemic has cost the U.S. more than $2.5 trillion, whereas vehicle accidents amount to $277 billion per year (excluding indirect costs), and storms cause $30 billion per year in damages. All contribute…

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…

The Physics Department's Wave-Transport Lab recently received awards totaling $709,000 to support its ongoing aim to understand and manipulate the movement of waves—sound, mechanical, or electromagnetic—through natural or human-made materials. The lab received a $340,000 grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation program titled "Engineering Dynamical Symmetries for Extreme Wave-Matter Interactions in Elastodynamics," and a $369,000 grant from the Department of Defense's Office of Naval Research (ONR) titled "Waveform Shaping Techniques for Targeted Electromagnetic Attacks." The Wave-Transport Lab was established in 2016 when Fred Ellis, chair and professor of physics, and Tsampikos Kottos, the…

The Summe Program for Research in the Sciences culminated with a research poster session in the lobby of Exley Science Center, with more than 100 students participating. The program, held May 29 to July 26, was open to frosh, sophomores and juniors currently enrolled at Wesleyan. Wesleyan science faculty members served as mentors for student research in their laboratories. In addition to the closing poster session, the students participated in weekly seminars and workshops, a symposium, and various social events. After the poster session, students displayed their posters in the hallways outside the introductory biology laboratories. (more…)

In this recurring feature in The Wesleyan Connection, we highlight some of the latest news stories about Wesleyan and our alumni. Wesleyan in the News 1. Inside Higher Ed: 'Safe Enough Spaces' President Michael Roth is interviewed about defending free speech, inclusion on campus, and affirmative action, among other topics, in connection with the forthcoming publication of his new book, Safe Enough Spaces: A Pragmatist's Approach to Inclusion, Free Speech, and Political Correctness on College Campuses, due out Aug. 20 from Yale University Press. 2. The New York Times: "The World's Smartest Chimp Has Died" William Griffin Professor of Philosophy Lori Gruen writes in…

(Story by Kerisha Harris) For the sixth year in a row, the weeklong Wesleyan Girls in Science Summer Camp welcomed dozens of middle school-aged girls for a week of learning, exploration, and STEM-centered fun. From Aug. 5-9 inside Exley Science Center, the 32 campers in grades 4-6 spent the week learning about everything from how to extract DNA from a strawberry, to the parts of the brain, and even how to make (but don’t touch) an ice-cold comet. By Friday, the young scientists were excited to share all they had learned with their friends and families, and did so through a poster presentation and…

For two weeks this summer, Donglai Yang ’21 used isotope dating of rocks, minerals, and sediments from the Weddell Sea near Antarctica to determine the age of a section of Earth's southernmost continent. Yang, an earth and environmental sciences and physics double major, was selected as one of 10 undergraduate and graduate students from around the world to participate in the National Science Foundation–sponsored Antarctichron/Chronothon 2019 workshop held June 24 to July 8 at the University of Arizona. The workshop introduced participants to geo- and thermochronology through some applications to the geology of Antarctica. Students learned to analyze and interpret their own…

On May 25, members of the Class of 2019 were inducted into Wesleyan’s Gamma Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa Society, the oldest national scholastic honor society. The Wesleyan Gamma Chapter was organized in 1845 and is the ninth-oldest chapter in the country. To be elected, a student must first have been nominated by the department of his or her major. The student also must have demonstrated curricular breadth by having met the General Education Expectations and must have achieved a GPA of 93 and above. Phi Beta Kappa is the oldest surviving Greek letter society in America, founded in December…

In recognition of their career achievements, the following faculty members are being appointed to endowed professorships, effective July 1, 2019: Frederick Cohan, professor of biology, is receiving the Huffington Foundation Professorship in the College of the Environment, established in 2010. Susanne Fusso, professor of Russian, East European, and Eurasian studies, is receiving the Marcus L. Taft Professorship of Modern Languages, established in 1880. William Johnston, professor of history, is receiving a John E. Andrus Professorship of History, established in 1981. Ethan Kleinberg, professor of history and professor of letters, is receiving the Class of 1958 Distinguished Professorship, established in 2008. Tsampikos…

Tsampikos Kottos, professor of physics, and Yaxin Li '19 are the coauthors of an article titled "Coherent Wave Propagation in Multimode Systems with Correlated Noise" published in the April 18, 2019 issue of Physical Review Letters. In this study, the coauthors utilize a random matrix theory approach to unveil a physical mechanism that shields wave coherent effects in the presence of disorder (noise).

Tsampikos Kottos, professor of physics, and Wesleyan University will lead a complex, multi-institution initiative to research and develop the next generation of national instrumentation technology thanks to a four-year, $2,794,606 grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Awarded this August, the grant is the culmination of at least eight years of photonics research by Kottos and his fellow collaborators, and will have significant implications for the future of a variety of technologies employed by the federal government and the private sector. An agency of the U.S. Department of Defense, DARPA funds research and development projects that push the…

3 Students Win Scientific Imaging Contest

Stewart Holds Annual Earth Day Rant on “Bending the Curves”

Kottos Co-Authors Several Publications

Wave-Transport Lab Receives DoD, NSF Grants to Support Research

Undergraduates Share Summer Research

Wesleyan in the News

Wesleyan’s Girls in Science Summer Camp Gets Young Scientists Excited about STEM

Yang ’21 Participates in NSF-Sponsored Workshop on Antarctic History

Members of the Class of 2019 Inducted into Phi Beta Kappa

6 Faculty Receive Endowed Professorships

Paper by Kottos, Li ’19 Published in Physical Review Letters

Kottos Awarded $2.8M DARPA Grant for High-Level Photonic Research