Wesleyan Advancing Visionary Exploration in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics
One of our missions is to highlight members of the Wesleyan scientific community. They may be faculty, staff, students, alum, or people or organizations in the surrounding community. If you would like to make a nomination, please email Anika (adane@wesleyan.edu) their name, contact info, and brief details about why they are a good candidate so we may reach out.
With three years passing from Inclusion in STEM’s first interview of Professor TeresitaPadilla-Benavides, it was more than time for an update about MB&B’s Assistant Professor. 2023 was as an eventful year for the Padilla-Benavides lab, with the NIH providing an approximately 1.9 million dollar grant, R01, to cover all indirect and direct costs of research. Citing…
Growing up in Taiwan, Professor Meng-ju (Renee) Sher felt that she had two career paths to choose from: to be a doctor or to be an engineer. At present day, she is neither. Instead, she is a scientist researching renewable energy materials, and a tenure-track faculty member of Wesleyan’s Physics and College of Integrated Science…
Jocelyn Velasquez Baez entered Wesleyan a math major on the pre-med track. But when multivariable calculus didn’t pique her interest, she started to wonder if she had chosen the wrong path. It wasn’t until she landed in a science in society (SISP) course, that she started enjoying what she was learning. Her courses centered on…
Ellen Thomas was originally told at her alma mater, the Utrecht University in the Netherlands, that women couldn’t study earth sciences. But she refused to let this stop her. At Wesleyan, Thomas is the Smith Curator of Paleontology of the Joe Webb Peoples Museum of Natural History and Harold T. Stearns Professor of Integrative Sciences,…
Fa’alataitaua Fitisemanu ’24, a molecular biology and biochemistry (MB&B) and chemistry double major, knew he wanted to conduct research on campus and set about making it happen. After reaching out to Professor Teresita Padilla-Benavides, he joined her lab during his sophomore year to coincide with his participation in the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Program, a fellowship…