University Marketing and Communications

Senior Maddie Brandenburger is spending nine weeks in Africa this summer working with journalism instructor Mary Martin Niepold (’65) to study the effects of microfinance projects.

Romance languages professor Kendall Tarte has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to explore how the 16th-century French Wars of Religion affected the writers and literary and visual styles of the time.

The quest to develop technologies to replace coal and oil as energy sources is underway in many venues, including a laboratory at Wake Forest. Chemistry professor Ronald Noftle and his student lab assistants have been experimenting with new thiophene molecules and polymers, hoping to develop a thin, flexible, inexpensive and efficient method for storing energy.

The new Documentary Film Program, which will enroll its first graduate students this fall, is a perfect fit for Wake Forest’s commitment to interdisciplinary studies, mentoring and public engagement, say the program’s directors.

A spinoff company of Wake Forest’s Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials is trying to commercialize a new optical fiber-based solar cell that could “revolutionize the power grid,” said David Carroll, the director of the nanotech center.