Research in Science Summer Program 2026 Seminar Series

All seminars begin at 1:20pm in Tishler Hall (Exley 150) and are followed by a social on the patio.

Please sign up for seminars via WesNest. All students must sign-up (RSVP) and sign-in to the workshops and seminars they attend. 

• June 4: Sarah Wellons

  Title to be announced

  Sarah Wellons

  Assistant Professor of Astronomy
  Assistant Professor, Integrative Sciences
  

  Dr. Wellons earned her Bachelor's degree at Princeton University and her PhD at Harvard University in 2017.  She did her postdoctoral work at Northwestern University, first as a CIERA fellow and then as an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics postdoctoral fellow.  She joined the faculty at Wesleyan in 2022.

• June 11: Brian Stewart

  Title to be announced

  Brian Stewart

  Professor of Physics
  Professor, Environmental Studies
  Professor, Integrative Sciences
  

  Professor of Physics Brian Stewart at Wesleyan University studies collisions of small molecules.  Fundamental to chemistry, collisions of small molecules are also an ideal context for the study of few-body dynamics, and ultimately some of the most fundamental questions in physics.

  Current work focuses on the mechanism of vibrational energy transfer and chemical reaction of very rapidly rotating molecules.
• June 18: Katherine Brunson

  Title to be announced

  Katherine Brunson

  Associate Professor of Archaeology
  Associate Professor, Environmental Studies
  Associate Professor, East Asian Studies
  

  I am a zooarchaeologist studying the origins of East Asia’s domesticated animals and the environmental impacts of animal domestication in China. I am currently investigating the genetic relationships between domestic cattle and the extinct East Asian wild aurochs. My research interests include ancient DNA, the origins of pastoralism in East Asia, extirpations and extinctions of China’s native mammals, oracle bones and the ritual aspects of animal domestication, bone artifact production techniques, and archaeological collections management. I have participated in numerous archaeological survey and excavation projects across China and at the Maya site of Copan, Honduras.
• June 25: Royette Dubar

  Title to be announced

  Royette Dubar

  Associate Professor of Psychology
  Faculty Ambassador
  

  Royette Tavernier Dubar is a developmental psychologist, whose research program examines the link between sleep and psychosocial adjustment. Professor Dubar uses both subjective (e.g., self-report) and objective (e.g., actigraphy) assessments to measure sleep characteristics, such as sleep duration, sleep onset latency, sleep efficiency, and sleep quality. Her interest in psychosocial adjustment spans a wide range of indices, including  psychological well-being, emotion regulation, interpersonal relationships, and social media use. Some of the statistical tools used in her research include auto-regressive cross-lagged analysis, latent profile analysis, and hierarchical linear modeling. Her interest in sleep and psychosocial adjustment extends to both short term (i.e., day-to-day) and longer term (over months and years) associations, with a particular emphasis on the emerging adulthood years (i.e., 18-to-29-year olds).

  A second line of research uses qualitative designs to examine the role of life story narratives in identity development and psychosocial well-being among diverse groups of adolescents and emerging adults.

  Dubar enjoys cooking, dancing to Caribbean music (soca, bouyon, dancehall, reggae), and spending time with her husband, two sons, and their cat. 
• July 2: Benjamin Elling

  Title to be announced

  

   Benjamin Ross Elling

  Assistant Professor of Chemistry
  Assistant Professor, Integrative Sciences
  

  Ben received his BA in chemistry from Cornell University, where he synthesized polymers for anion exchange membranes in the lab of Geoff Coates. He then attended Stanford University, where he became the first PhD student of Yan Xia and developed methods for sequence-specific polymerization via the ring-opening metathesis of substituted cyclopropenes. Prior to his appointment at Wesleyan, Ben was a postdoctoral scholar in the lab of Professor Will Dichtel, where he designed new covalent adaptable networks and investigated strategies for mixed plastic compatibilization.

• July 9: Maryam Gooyabadi

  Title to be announced

  Maryam Gooyabadi

  Assistant Professor of the Practice in Quantitative Analysis
  

  I'm an Assistant professor of practice at Wesleyan Univeristy. I have a broad educational background with a Bachelor's of Science degree in Computer Science Engineering (CU Boulder) and a Bachelor's of Arts degree in Psychology (CUNY), a Master's of Arts degree in Philosophy, Political science, and Economics (PPE) from the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science (UC Irvine), and a Doctoral degree in Mathematical Behavioral Sciences from the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences (IMBS) in the School of Social Sciences (UC Irvine).  I have experience outside of academia as a program director in China for undergraduate research, founder and co-founder in three tech startups, work in international development in India, and as a lab manager in New York before continuing my graduate education in California. Some of her hobbies include construction, archery, hiking, traveling, cooking, arts and crafts, stone carving, and lion dancing. 
• July 16: Sebastian Zimmeck

  Title to be announced

  Sebastian Zimmeck

  Associate Professor of Computer Science
  Fellow in Applied Computational Data Analysis
  

  Sebastian is an associate professor at Wesleyan University's Mathematics and Computer Science Department. His research interests are information privacy and security. He is developing privacy tech and policy for the web and other systems. To help people exercise their privacy rights Sebastian makes use of AI and program analysis techniques. Sebastian founded Global Privacy Control and is leading the privacy-tech-lab at Wesleyan. He is advising tech companies and governmental regulators.

  Before coming to Wesleyan Sebastian was a postdoc at Carnegie Mellon's Institute for Software Research. He studied computer science at Columbia University (PhD, MS) and was a Google Research Fellow at the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology. He was an attorney with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (California and German bar admissions currently inactive). He studied law at the University of Kiel (PhD, JD) and the University of California, Berkeley (LLM).

• July 24: KEYNOTE LECTURE, Barry Chernoff

  Title to be announced

  Barry Chernoff

  Director, Bailey College of the Environment
  Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences
  Professor of Biology
  Robert Schumann Professor of Environmental Studies
  Professor, Environmental Studies
  

  Professor Barry Chernoff joined the Wesleyan Faculty in 2003 where he holds the Robert F. Schumann Chair of Environmental Studies. He currently chairs the Environmental Studies Program and is Director of the College of the Environment. He teaches courses in Environmental Studies, Tropical Ecology, Aquatic Ecosystem Conservation, Quantitative Analysis and Evolutionary Biology for the College of the Enviornmernt and the departments of Biology and Earth and Environmental Sciences. Chernoff’s research centers on the freshwater fishes in North America and the Neotropical region, primarily those in South America in the Amazon. His research includes, ecology, evolutionary biology and conservation. Chernoff has published more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific works, including 6 books and edited volumes. He has led international teams on expeditions designed to conserve large watersheds of the world, having made more than 34 expeditions in 13 countries. Recently, Professor Chernoff and his students have been working on aquatic ecology and conservation genetics of fishes in Connecticut watersheds. In the past he has held professorial and curatorial positions at the Field Museum, University of Chicago, University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Pennsylvania and the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. He holds a visiting position at Universidad Central de Venezuela. Chernoff has received a number of awards including the Caleb T. Winchester Outstanding Scholar and Teacher Award, 1 May 2006, awarded by Xi of Psi Upsilon, Wesleyan University and a Commendation for Excellence in Teaching, University of Chicago, 2000. Chernoff was elected to the Connecticut Academy of Sciences and Engineering in 2005, where he chaired the Environmental Science and Technology Board until 2010. From 1993-1999, he served on the U.S. National Committee for the International Union of Biological Sciences elected by the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council, and served as Vice-Chairman from 1995-1997 and Chairman from 1997-1999. He serves on the Inland Fish Commission’s Endangered and Threatened Fishes Panel for the CT Department of Environmental Protection. Chernoff co-wrote the script for a short documentary film entitled “Understanding Biodiversity” that was awarded finalist status at a number of film festivals, including Cannes, Toronto and Sundance, and received the Silver Apple Award from the American Educational Network. He has served on the boards of a number of community-oriented foundations, including the Confluence Greenway Project of St. Louis, Mo., and as President of the Sustainable Aquatic Research Center. Chernoff served as President of The Jonah Center for Earth and Art from 2004-2010, and as a Board Member of the Buttonwood Tree Performing Arts Center from 2018-2022, in Middletown, CT. Chernoff was a founding member of the acoustic string band, Mattabesset, and currently performs the electric rock band, Smokin’ Lillies, or as a solo act.