poulos researches fire effects in arizona

Adjunct Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Helen Poulos traveled to Arizona in March 2019 to research fire effects of the 2018 Pinery Canyon Fire on agaves in the Chiricahua Mountains. Poulos is working on the project in collaboration with Wes astronomy major Hunter Vannier ‘20.

While in the Grand Canyon State, Poulos also spent time researching the effects of the 2017 Frye Fire on mixed conifer forests of the Pinaleño Mountains, a project in collaboration with Dr. Don Falk at University of Arizona.

You can read more about Poulos’s research on the 2011 Horseshoe Two Fire in the Chiricahua Mountains, here.

sher ’07, students seek to improve material development through understanding electron transport

Meng-ju Sher Group

The research explored here, “Spectroscopic Studies of Hybrid Perovskite Solar Cells,” was undertaken as part of the College of the Environment’s Faculty-Student Research Grant Program, which provides opportunities for faculty and students to work together on research projects.

Meng-ju Renee Sher ’07 is assistant professor of physics, assistant professor of integrative sciences, and assistant professor of environmental studies at Wesleyan University. Sher received her bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan in 2007 and PhD degree from Harvard University in 2013.

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coe faculty-student grant program supports o’connell’s antarctic research

This past January, Nethra Pullela ’20, Liz Atalig ’21, and Jackie Duckett ’20 joined E&ES Professor Suzanne O’Connell on a journey to the center of the earth–traveling to  the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) at Texas A&M University to collect data and samples for O’Connell’s “Where Was the Antarctic Oligocene Ice?” project, funded by the COE’s Faculty-Student Research Grant Program.

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oteiza publishes street theater research

. Berengei at Los Dominicos, photograph by José Luis Sánchez, 2018Associate Professor of Theater Marcela Oteiza’s research has just been published in the Journal of Theatre and Performance Design. The article includes text and photos from Wesleyan students who participated in the study abroad winter session 2018– including the photo above, by Jose Luis Sanchez. Street Theatre and the Scenographic Gaze: Santiago a Mil International Festival, January 2018, is available now.

Read more about Marcela in Wesleyan magazine.

quijada publishes new book

Buddhists, Shamans, and Soviets by Justine Buck QuijadaCongrats to Assistant Professor of Religion and COE fellow Justine Quijada, whose new book, Buddhists, Shamans, and Soviets: Rituals of History in Post-Soviet Buryatia, will be published in March by Oxford University Press.

In an early review, Laurel Kendall, chair, division of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History says, “In Justine Buck Quijada’s thoroughly engaging ethnography of contemporary Buryatia, a miraculously preserved Buddhist corpse counters the artificiality of Lenin’s ‘scientifically preserved’ remains and the body of a Russian Orthodox saint visits the local Cathedral where celebratory bells drown out the drum beats inaugurating a new urban center for shaman practice. Simultaneously inhabiting the chronotypes of multiple historic pasts-indigenous, Buddhist, Russian Orthodox, Soviet-the rituals and celebrations of Quijada’s subjects blur and blend and defy any attempt to effectively categorize them by religion, ethnicity, or nationality politics. The result is a provocative read for anyone interested in these subjects.” –Laurel Kendall, Chair, Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History

Click here to read more about Justine’s work and to watch her presentation, “Is Animism Good to Think With?” from this year’s Where on Earth Are We Going seminar.