student achievements

By Maia Dawson '24 Ivanie Cedeño '22, a lauded entrepreneur, remembers a metal container her grandmother, Eurania, used to have. Cedeño recalls how she would watch her sew. “When she would put clothes away they were all pressed and everything had its spot, everything fit perfectly,” Cedeño said. She is cautious about the precision of the memory, though. Perhaps her love for her grandmother has idealized her recollection. Cedeño’s startup, Sol Blossom Crochet, honors these memories. The company won first place at a presentation to Middletown’s Board of Commissioners, the final stage for a Startup Incubator class she took this…

Sebastian Evans '23 believes that "being human" can't be defined strictly through science. Instead, he turns to the writings of the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca; Alexiad author Anna Komnene; and English playwright William Shakespeare to better understand "something valuable" about what it really is to be human. "In all the humanities, I see and gain a lot of value from the way that we as human beings experience and process the world, ultimately working our way toward discovering how to best live as with and as parts of it," said Evans, who's majoring in the College of Letters (COL) and Hispanic literatures…

Jasmyn Choi '22 vividly recalls when her Korean-born mother was pulled over by police in Los Angeles 12 years ago. Rather than speaking to the driver, who had broken English, the officer leaned into the vehicle to question 8-year-old Jasmyn instead. Jasmyn, after all, had "perfect" English. "I’ve always dealt with the particular trauma of strangers diminishing my mother’s intelligence because of her accent," Choi recalls. "I tremble in anger thinking of the times she’s had her voice stolen from her. We both sat in the car in oppressive silence, yet it was comforting because silence is all we have…

The entrance to the Science Library in Exley Science Center houses a taxidermied peacock that has been restored by faculty and students in the biology department. The peacock, originally rediscovered in 2018 and put on exhibit in spring 2019, is part of a bird collection that was first displayed at the museum in Judd Hall and now belongs to the Wesleyan Museum of Natural History. The restoration team, which includes Professor of Biology Ann Campbell Burke, Yu Kai Tan BA/MA ’21, Andy Tan ’21, and Fletcher Levy ’23, recently updated the display to include new signage and fresh peacock feathers…

This month, the Office of Student Affairs presented the 2021 student prizes. The recipients and awards include: George H. Acheson and Grass Foundation Prize in Neuroscience Established in 1992 by a gift from the Grass Foundation, this prize is awarded to an outstanding undergraduate in the Neuroscience and Behavior Program who demonstrates excellence in the program and who also shows promise for future contributions in the field of neuroscience. Kian Caplan 2021 Ana Finnerty-Haggerty 2021 Andrew Northrop 2021 Fitzroy "Pablo" Wickham 2021 Alumni Prize in the History of Art Established by Wesleyan alumni and awarded to a senior who has…

As a one-year pilot program, the Fries Center for Global Studies has created the Wesleyan Global Fellowship with the intention of awarding graduating seniors nominated but not chosen for the Watson Fellowship, a grant for a year of independent exploration outside the United States post-graduation. The three students who won this new fellowship for the 2021 academic year are William Briskin ‘21, Grace Lopez ‘21, and Indigo Pellegrini de Paur ‘21. “The Watson is a unique program because it gives the fellow complete freedom in designing their project,” according to the Wesleyan & the World blog. “Since the fellowship involves…

This month, five students were recognized with the First-Year Seminar Writing Prize for essays they wrote in their first-year seminars throughout 2020. A total of 137 first-year students submitted to the contest this year. Each winner will receive a $100 prize, and each honorable mention will receive a $50 prize. These students will have their work published online along with an audio recording of them reading their essays aloud. The First-Year Seminar Writing Prize celebrates the work of first-year writers at Wesleyan. The three winners are: Nathan Foote ’24, for “Anti-Gospel,” written for Anne Greene’s Place, Character, and Design. Gissel…

In 2020, Katerina Ramos-Jordán ’21 won first prize in the Center for Book Arts Chapbook Contest for her chapbook titled “ECHOESISTEMAS /lentos cerramientos.” Now, her work has now been published in book form, designed and produced by book artist Erika Morillo. Ramos-Jordán, born in Puerto Rico, is a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow and a 2020 recipient of the Beinecke Scholarship. She is double majoring in English and dance with a concentration in Caribbean studies. “This collection is dense in its tenderness, adding tildes (accent marks) to words in English, harboring dialect, and embracing blank space as cavernous,” contest judge Raquel…

Shawn H. Lin ’22 is the recipient of a 2021 poster award from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’s 25th Annual Undergraduate Poster Competition. Lin’s poster took the prize in Category 3: DNA, Chromosomes and Gene Regulation. This is the second poster award Lin has won this year. In March, he was honored with the Biophysical Society’s Undergraduate Poster Award for his work titled “Elucidation of Interactions Between Integration Host Factor and a DNA Four-Way Junction.” Lin is a Freeman Asian Scholar from Taiwan and is majoring in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry (MB&B). Lin also works in the…

This year, five Wesleyan students were inducted into the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) Honor Society. Thirty-one students nationwide were given this honor. Inducted students must be juniors or seniors with a GPA of 3.4 or higher on a 4.0 scale, belong to a student chapter of the ASBMB, and “demonstrate exceptional achievement in academics, undergraduate research and science outreach,” according to the website. The inducted students include the following: Nour-Saïda Harzallah ’21, a College of Integrative Sciences student majoring in molecular biology & biochemistry (MB&B) and physics. Harzallah, from Tunisia, works in Professor Francis Starr’s physics…

Zubaida Bello ’22 is one of 16 people nationwide to win the Beinecke Scholarship in 2021. Bello, who aims to pursue a PhD in history and become a college professor, will receive $4,000 immediately prior to entering graduate school, as well as $30,000 while attending. Last year, the scholarship was awarded to Mellon Mays Fellow Katerina Ramos-Jordán '21, who was the first Wesleyan student to receive the award in 13 years. “The program seeks to encourage and enable highly motivated students to pursue opportunities available to them and to be courageous in the selection of a graduate course of study…

Four Wesleyan sophomores won consulting company Roland Berger’s annual Case for a Cause competition on Friday, April 9. The competition, which raises money for the Make-A-Wish-Foundation, gives students a space to apply their practical skills and simulate strategy consulting work. Asa Sakornpant '23, Natchanok (Pim) Wandee '23, Sarah Rizky Ardhani '23, and Ransho Ueno '23 belong to the Consulting Pathways Club and are all pursuing the data analysis minor through Wesleyan's Quantitative Analysis Center. Sakornpant, Ardhani, and Ueno are Freeman Asian Scholars and were sponsored by the Gordon Career Center to take part in the competition. (more…)

Solarpunk, Operation Bootstrap, and Cedeño’s ’22 Sol Blossom Crochet

Wesleyan Students Named to National Humanities Leadership Council

Shu Tokita Prize Winners Reid ’22, Choi ’22 Use Literature to Cope with POC Experiences

Restored Peacock Displayed in Wesleyan’s Science Library

Students Receive 2021 Academic Prizes, Scholarships, Fellowships

3 Seniors Awarded Inaugural Wesleyan Global Fellowship

5 Students Honored with First-Year Seminar Writing Prizes

Chapbook By Ramos-Jordán ’21 Published by Center for Book Arts

Lin ’22 Wins Poster Award for Work on DNA, Chromosomes, and Gene Regulation

5 Students Inducted Into American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Honor Society

Bello ’22 Awarded Beinecke Scholarship

4 Students Win Case for a Cause Competition