Wellesley senior awarded with prestigious Watson Fellowship

Nevatha Mathialagan ’15, an anthropology major pursuing dentistry, has won the Thomas Watson Fellowship, a prestigious honor given to approximately 50 college seniors nationwide each year. The fellowship, sponsored by the Thomas J. Watson Foundation, is awarded to individuals from select private liberal arts colleges and universities across the nation and seeks to give college graduates the opportunity to apply their education and passions globally. Mathialagan is among the students who will be pursuing projects outside of the United States. She will focus on analyzing oral health systems in countries such as Nepal, South Africa and Peru during her Watson year, a project closely connected to her interest in dentistry.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie announced as commencement speaker for 2015

Award-winning author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been chosen to speak at Wellesley’s 137th Commencement, which will occur on May 29 of this year. Adichie, who was announced as the commencement speaker during Senior Soiree, is a novelist and writer from Nigeria known for pieces that focus on African literature. Her most recent book, Americanah, received global acclaim and was named as one the The New York Times Ten

BestBooksoftheYear.Herotherworkshavebeen awarded prestigious prizes such as the Hurston/ Wright Legacy Award and she has written for notable publications such as The New Yorker. In addition to being an established author, Adichie has advocated for feminism in a TED talk, a speech which made a brief appearance in Beyonce’s song “Flawless.”

Wellesley professor publishes research on honey bees

Heather Mattila, a professor in the biological sciences and natural sciences, is a leading ecologist focusing on honey bees. She has investigating why honey bee populations have been in decline, a leading topic in science due to the importance of bees to both the environment and the economy. Her study, which was co-written with Hailey Scofield ’13, was published in PLOS ONE, an open- access, online scientific journal published by the Public Library of Science (PLOS). Mattila and her team were able to conduct their study in a natural hive environment, a rare occurrence that let bees colonize in a realistic environment rather than with incubators. This method gave the researchers the opportunity to examine bee behaviors in a natural setting. The lab continues to study honey bees, and the relationship between nutrition and foraging in the insects.