FaceTime at Wellesley College
A Panel of Faculty Notables**With contributions from student panelist Anna Friedman '04 and audience member Larissa Ranbom '02
Discussing FirstClass's Community Conference
Faculty Profiles
Flick Coleman
A long-standing member of the Wellesley College community, William "Flick" Coleman is a Professor of Chemistry; his research interests are in the area of computational chemistry, with particular emphasis on electronic structure calculations on molecules with unusual bonding.
In his leisure time, Flick is a professional musician, performing around the Boston area in a variety of jazz and chamber groups. He is also an avid folk singer, and has composed a number of songs describing a variety of chemical phenomena.
Beth DeSombre
Beth DeSombre is Frost Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Associate Professor of Political Science; her main focus is on international environmental politics. She works especially on issues of the global commons, such as the oceans and atmosphere. Her recent projects address environmental, safety, and labor standards on ships, and the functioning of global environmental institutions generally.
André Isaak
André Isaak worked as Visiting Assistant Professor of Language Studies for seven years, from 1998-2005, when he left Wellesley to return to his home in Calgary, Alberta. While at Wellesley, he taught courses in general linguistics, historical linguistics, syntax, and Native American linguistics.
Kathryn Lynch
Kathryn Lynch is the Katharine Lee Bates and Sophie Chantal Hart Professor of English; she specializes in medieval English literature, especially the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer.
Professor Lynch teaches courses at Wellesley on Chaucer and other medieval authors; Arthurian romance; monsters, the monstrous races, and exotic regions in medieval literature; reading poetry; and a first-year writing course entitled "Sisters in Crime," focusing on female detective novels.
Julia Miwa
Julia Miwa is a Professor of Chemistry; her research is in the area of bioorganic chemistry, that is, applying the tools of organic chemistry to the study of biological molecules. She is interested in alternatives to lecture and the use of peer-led team learning approaches in the classroom, and in incorporating current research into introductory organic chemistry.
Julie Norem
Julie K. Norem is a Professor of Psychology who teaches courses in personality psychology, research methods, and gender, as well as a seminar on optimism and pessimism. Her research focuses on the strategies people use to pursue their goals, with an emphasis on the strategy of defensive pessimism; and on the ways self-knowledge influences adaptation, performance, and social relationships, particularly among those who feel like imposters.
Larry Rosenwald
Larry Rosenwald is a Professor of English whose scholarly work has focused on American diaries and diaries generally; on the theory and practice of translation, both sacred and secular; on the relations between words and music; and on encounters between languages and between dialects, generally and above all in American literature.
Outside Wellesley, he is a performing musician, both in concerts and on recordings, and in the past eighteen years has written and performed numerous verse scripts for early music theater pieces.