Governing Board

Frederick Cohan studies the evolutionary genetics, ecology, and systematics of bacteria.  His principal interests are in the origins of ecological diversity in bacteria and in developing methods for detecting and characterizing newly divergent bacterial lineages.  He is developing and testing a diversity of models for the tempo and dynamics of species formation in the bacterial world.  He teaches courses at all levels from General Education to Graduate courses, and he has recently developed a course on Global Change and Infectious Disease for the Environmental Studies programs.  He was trained in evolutionary genetics, earning his B.S. at Stanford in 1975 and his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1982.  He has published over 50 articles in evolutionary genetics and systematics.  He is a Professor of Biology at Wesleyan University, where he has been on the faculty for 24 years.

Marc Allen Eisner is the Henry Merritt Wriston Chair of Public Policy and Professor of Government at Wesleyan University, where he teaches courses on political economy and public policy, including environmental policy and regulation and governance.  Eisner has written several books, including Antitrust and the Triumph of Economics (1991), Regulatory Politics in Transition (1993, 2000), The State in the American Political Economy (1995), Contemporary Regulatory Policy (2000, 2006), From Warfare State to Welfare State (2000), Governing the Environment (2007), and most recently, The Institutional Evolution of Market and State (2010).  Eisner's published research on environmental regulation has focused on issues ranging from corporate environmental practices to co-regulation. His most recent environmental scholarship explores the regulatory challenges associated with emerging technologies, most notably nanotechnology, and appears in a Resources for the Future volume entitled Governing Uncertainty (2010).

Katja Kolcio, PhD. is Associate Professor of Dance at Wesleyan University. Her research is in social somatic theory, investigating the role of physical engagement and creativity in practices of knowledge production, and about modern dance as a political art form. Katja's choreography engages the community and environment within which it occurs.  Her interests also include integrating traditional arts into contemporary performance.

Publications:
Movable Pillars Creating a Foundation for Dance Studies in the Academy, 1956-1978 (2010, Wesleyan University Press),
Branching Out: Oral Histories of the Founding of Six National Dance Organizations (2000, American Dance Guild, nominated for the De La Torre Bueno Prize),
Faking It: The Necessary Blind Spots of Understanding (2009, Cultural Studies/Critical Methodologies), A Somatic Engagement of Technology (2005, International Journal for Performance Art and Digital Media),
and book reviews in the Dance Research Journal and the New England Theater Journal.

Choreography:
Katja has received choreographic fellowships from the New York State Council of the Arts and Meet the Composer, and has been commissioned to create original choreography/repertory by Wittenberg College, Duke University, Ohio State University (Slavic Studies Program), Antioch College, New York University (Department of Music), and Yara Arts Group (NYC). Choreography has been presented at Judson Church, New York University Black Box Theater, St. Marks Church, The Ukrainian Museum of New York, The Bridge for Dance, La Mama Experimental Theatre, the Ukrainian Institute of America, various community gardens throughout NYC, the Honchar Museum (Kyiv, Ukraine), Kyiv Mohyla Academy (Kyiv, Ukraine) and in colleges around the United States.

Katja received her PhD in Somatics/Cultural Studies and her MA in Dance from Ohio State University and her MA in Political Science from University of Georgia.

Patton came to Wesleyan in 1976 as an assistant professor in earth & environmental sciences.  His research interests are in the general field of geomorphology Locally, his research has focused on the hydrology and geomorphology of the Connecticut and Housatonic estuaries and the geologic development of the small coastal coves on the Connecticut shoreline.  Another line of research is the impact of catastrophic floods on river systems and the geologic history of river systems in semiarid climates.  In addition to publications in scientific journals he is the co-author of, A Moveable Shore: The Fate of the Connecticut Coast (1991), with James Kent, an account of the geologic history and coastal processes active on the shoreline written for the general public.

Krishna Winston is the Marcus L. Taft Professor of German Language and Literature. She is a professional translator with over thirty books and numerous shorter works to her name. Her commitment to the environment and sustainable living has its origin in her childhood, spent on a subsistence farm in southern Vermont. She helped create the the recycling progams at Wesleyan and in Middletown and was an early proponent of the College of the Environment. For many years she has chaired the  City’s Recycling Commission, which is currently promoting the goal of Zero Waste. She serves as vice president of the Jonah Center for Earth and Art and as a member of its Environmental Collective Impact Network. She chairs the education subcommittee of Wesleyan’s Sustainability Advisory Group for Environmental Stewardship.