Faculty Achievements in Fall 2025
Each semester, The Connection shares a collection of publications, fellowships, awards, and other achievements from Wesleyan faculty members. Read more about the accomplishments and contributions the University community makes to broader research and intellectual life below.
Fellowships and Awards
Christian Nakarado, assistant professor of design and engineering studies, was awarded a fully funded researcher in residence position at The Centre for Architectural Structures and Technology at the University of Manitoba for 2025-26 academic year. He will work on a research project entitled “A New Waaginogaan.”
Sadia Shepard, assistant professor of film studies and Global South Asian Studies, received two awards this year for her film Shadow Self: On Agnès Varda's Documenteur. She won the Audiovisual Essay Award at the Marienbad Film Festival in Marienbad, Czech Republic in June and earned Second Prize of the Adelio Ferrero Award at the Festival Adelio Ferrero Cinema e Critica in Alessandria, Italy in October.
Winslow-Kaplan Professor of Music Sumarsam was presented with the International Council for Traditional Music and Dance Book Prize Committee’s Best Book Award for his work The In-Between in Javanese Performing Arts: History and Myth, Interculturalism and Interreligiosity. The book also received the Nancy Straub Publication Award from the Union Internationale de la Marionnette/American Branch.
Publications and Exhibitions
Class of 1958 Distinguished Professor of History Ethan Kleinberg published a book, Temporal Vectors and the Compass of History: Politics and Ethics at the End-Time, with the Bielefield University Press this year based on his Koselleck Lecture in 2021. The book investigates how we should we engage with the past in a time where truth and fact are no longer certainties.
Nakarado published a paper in the September issue of the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians entitled, “Indigenous Persistence and Architectural Preservation in Mount Pleasant.” He also co-authored a paper in Technology | Architecture + Design, “Accounting for Other Lives in Life Cycle Assessment: A Case Study in Designed Reuse and Decay.”
Professor of Art and Environmental Studies Tula Telfair had a solo exhibition of 33 paintings, N a t u r e does not locate itself, at the Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey from Oct. 4 to 5. She also had paintings on display in group exhibitions at the Morris Museum, Art Basel Miami Beach, and the Jerald Melberg Gallery in Charlotte, North Carolina, and two paintings in exhibitions Forum Gallery in New York—Favorite Things and Dawn to Dusk.
Tanner Walker, assistant professor of religion and design and engineering studies, wrote a book, Constructing the Human in the Hebrew Bible, on how authors of the Hebrew Bible construct, reinforce, and challenge notions of humanness in the text. The book was published by Pennsylvania State University Press in 2025.
Valeria Lopez Fadul, associate professor of history and Latin American Studies, and Courtney Weiss Smith, associate professor of English and Science and Technology Studies, co-edited an issue of History and Theory, “Philology Now,” in December.
Oriana Fisher, assistant professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, published a co-authored research paper in the Journal of Biological Chemistry on copper in cells, “Copper acquisition in Bacillus subtilis involves Cu(II) exchange between YcnI and YcnJ.” Fisher also co-authored a paper on nickel ion binding to crystal structures within cells, which was published in Protein and Peptide Letters on Oct. 8.
Teresita Padilla-Benavides, associate professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, and her co-author identified a copper-binding protein that affects muscle development processes in cells. Her findings were published in microPublication Biology on Nov. 19. She also co-wrote an article on how undergraduate research can spark a career in scientific research with two current and former Wesleyan students—Julissa Cruz Bautista ’25 and Antonio Rivera ’26—for ABSMB Today.
Joan Cho, associate professor of government and East Asian Studies, started a position as associate editor of Pacific Affairs for Northeast Asia on Oct. 1.
Visting Professor of Film Studies Ben Model wrote about the storytelling and character development devices of silent film in a new book, The Silent Film Universe, which was published by the Undercrank Productions on June 17. The book features a forward by Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, Emerita, Jeanine Basinger.
Huffington Foundation Professor in the Bailey College of the Environment Frederick Cohan, Assistant Professor of the Practice in Biology and Integrative Sciences Phil Arevalo, and Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies Yu-ting Huang co-authored a paper with former Wesleyan researchers on plastic-oxidizing bacteria. The paper was published on Nov. 13 in the Annals of Microbiology.
Ni Feng, assistant professor of biology and neuroscience and behavior, co-wrote a paper on food hoarding, anxiety, and stress in hibernating mammals. Feng also published a co-authored research paper in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences on hibernation in mammals as a model for studying mechanisms of muscular atrophy resistance, since hibernating mammals experience reduced rates of muscular decay despite extended periods of immobility.
Boris Tezak, assistant professor of biology, will contribute to a cross-continental collaboration of researchers and conservationists studying the impact of climate change on tortoise populations—specifically the endangered Burmese star tortoise. Since tortoise lack sex chromosomes, their sex is determined by the temperature at watch their eggs are incubated, according to a recent publication on the collective in Revive and Restore.
Grants
Associate Professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Amy MacQueen received a $598,500 grant from the National Institute of Health for her research into complex proteins during meiosis, the process in which cells divide and replicate. The grant period extends to September 2028.
Professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry and Integrative Sciences Scott Holmes received a $598,500 grant from the National Institute of Health for his research into gene silencing and chromosome segregation. The grant period extends through August of 2028.
