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Congratulations to CIS Major Macy Thompson elected to Phi Beta Kappa for Fall 2024

Summer Science Symposium Prize Winners

Eight students were awarded prizes during the 2024 Research in Sciences summer program. The winners and ten honorable mentions are all listed here.

Senior major Jocelyn Wang received High Honors for her thesis Origins of Ecological Diversity in Bacillus: A Computational Approach to Genomic Analysis of Ecotypes.

• Nakial Cross '25 awarded the Dr. Neil Clendeninn Prize
• Adin Dowling '25 awarded the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship
• Adin Dowling '25 awarded the Karl Van Dyke prize
• Jamar Kittling '24 awarded the Littell Prize
• Jessica Luu '24 awarded the Bradley Prize
• Jessica Luu '24 awarded the Wallace C. Pringle Prize for Research in Chemistry
• Ava Purdue MA '24 awarded the Wesleyan Animal Studies Prize
• Joecelyn Wang '24 awarded the Michael Rice Prize in Computer Science
• Mingyu Wang '24 awarded the Scott Biomedical Prize 

Congratulations to CIS Majors Jamar Kittling and Jocelyn Wang, elected to ¾ÅÉ«ÊÓƵ’s Gamma Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, Spring 2024.

The climate change Earth is experiencing today is similar to that during a period of rapid and intense global warming it experienced some 56 million years ago. Understanding the similarities can help scientists evaluate what is happening in today’s warming world, according to Ellen Thomas, Harold T. Stearns Professor of Integrative Sciences, Emerita.

Key to that understanding is figuring out how much oxygen was dissolved in large swaths of the oceans during that period of rapid warming, called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum or PETM, when average temperatures increased by 5-8^o Celsius or 9-14^o Fahrenheit in a few thousand years, compared to now, Thomas said.

“Most ocean life forms, including fish, need oxygen, so the loss of oxygen would mean loss of an important food source for many people, especially in tropics and subtropics,” she said. 

'Meet Our Researchers' highlights research on campus

A new exhibit in Olin Library celebrates how researchers from all parts of our community—undergrads to emeriti—understand and build upon the entirety of what we know about ourselves, each other, and the environment in which we live. From chemistry to karaoke and paleontology to politics, the eight researchers profiled exemplify Wesleyan’s diverse interests and impacts across disciplines. One of the featured researchers is our own Harold T. Stearns Professor of Integrative Sciences, Emerita, Ellen Thomas.

Meet Our Researchers is located in Olin’s West Corridor and will be on display through this academic year. . 

If you would like to be profiled in 2024-25, please contact Jill Livingston:jlivingsto01@wesleyan.edu.

CIS Major Julissa Cruz Bautista '25 to represent Wesleyan at C.O.L.O.R. Conference

Julissa Cruz Bautista '25, MB&B and CIS major and SACNAS secretary of the board, recieved a full award to attend the SACNAS National conference this fall and to represent Wesleyan's chapter during the 2023 C.O.L.O.R retreat. 

. This retreat will not only equip chapter leaders, but also highlight and strengthen their leadership talents through connection and unity with the broader chapter network. 

Congratulations to Aidan Jones '23

Senior major Aidan Jones receives High Honors for his thesis The Impact of Familial ALS-Associated Mutations on Astrocyte Activation under Serum and Serum-Free Conditions.

Mentor: Alison O'Neil

Aidan exemplifies the ideal of the College of Integrative Sciences. He is majoring in MB&B, works in a Chemistry Department lab, and recently gave a senior research talk at the NS&B Senior Research Celebration. Aidan's thesis work in Prof. Alison O'Neil’s lab explores how genetic mutations that cause ALS moderate the inflammatory response of human stem cell derived astrocytes. This work was presented recently at Quinnipiac University's Neuron conference and is being prepared for publication in a major scientific journal.

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Climate Change category has gone in this fifteenth edition to paleoclimatologists James Zachos (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Ellen Thomas (Yale University and ¾ÅÉ«ÊÓƵ) "for their seminal contributions to the identification of a major natural event in the fossil record that provides a compelling analog for anthropogenic climate change," said the committee in its citation.