Yale West Campus

04/08/2026

A burst of color on campus is making winter a distant memory!

04/02/2026

How to clean a Jaguar! Top tips from the Yale Peabody Museum. Part 2: Testing for pesticides and X-raying.

How taxidermy mounts were made is fascinating. Back in the day, arsenic and other pesticides were used to protect skins from pests that would eat them. For this reason, conservators always proceed with caution when working with taxidermy.

Postgraduate Associate Riley Thomas is currently working on a project related to pesticides at the Peabody and with the Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage (IPCH), so she was a great person to analyze our jaguar.

Using X-ray fluorescence (or XRF) – a non-destructive analytical technique that helps us determine elemental composition - Riley found that the skin does in fact contact arsenic, so extra care will be taken so we don’t disturb the toxins too much.

Next, alongside IPCH’s Jiuan Jiuan Chen, Director of Conservation Imaging, we figured out what the jaguar mount is made of, again using X-ray techniques to reveal an internal metal armature (or framework) that seems to have been wrapped in burlap and molded with clay to form the jaguar’s muscles.

This technique matches very well the taxidermy style of the 1960s – so we’re excited to be piecing together the history of our jaguar, which was originally inside the Tropical Rainforest Diorama at the Peabody.

Join us for Part 3 to see some fun photos of the areas of the jaguar that are receiving conservation treatment!

yaleipch

03/27/2026

How to clean a Jaguar! Top tips from the Yale Peabody Museum.

Natural History Conservator Mariana Di Giacomo and the Exhibitions team are preparing a jaguar for exhibit this spring.

Part 1 of 4 is the Condition Review. Are we talking light wash and brush up or deep reconstructive surgery? The review will set the timer on how long treatment of the specimen will take.

The beautiful animal is receiving treatment at the Shared Conservation Lab, part of the Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage on Yale’s equally beautiful West Campus 😍

Let’s walk around this amazing creature and take notes:

👉 She seems in great condition but needs some love
👉 No obvious pest damage, which could mean that pesticides have been used (stay tuned for more in Part 2!)
👉 Those whiskers are dir-ty!
👉 The goal of the conservator is to make the specimen look alive, but the nose and lips look dry and will need treatment to look wet
👉 Claw missing on front left paw
👉 Patches of hair loss need to be repaired
👉 Other natural scrapes and damage from animal’s hunting habits will be preserved (carnivores seldom appear perfect in the wild)
👉 Original taxidermist staples noted
👉Jaguar mounted on branch made out of parts of real wood with plaster, putty (some of which is not the conservator’s favorite) and chicken wire 

Mariana will draw on photographs for accurate comparisons when reconstructing specific areas. She’ll balance preserving the specimen with the most important consideration of all: our ethical responsibility to do as much as we can to give the jaguar a second life, both as museum specimen but also for future education, research, and joy.

Tune in for Part 2! Testing for pesticides and X-raying the Jaguar with colleagues at IPCH!

03/24/2026

Steady hands and tasty treats marked Eid Al Fitr on West Campus Monday, as lab mates and colleagues gathered to mark the end of a month of fasting. The themed lunch, sweet treats and henna designs were the idea of grad student Nadiya Jaunbocus (2), who was joined by Slavoff lab mates Christine DeRosa (1), Ashleigh Purvis (7) and Nikita Dewani (10), together with staff and scholars from across campus.

Henna, or Mehndi, is a 5,000-year-old tradition using paste from the Lawsonia inermis plant to create temporary, intricate body art, symbolizing luck and joy.

Different social gatherings at West Campus are hosted in partnership between the campus community and YWC Administration as part of our Community Action Plan.

Nikitaa Dewani

03/13/2026

Ideas from our community are turned into events for our community. Coming soon at Yale's West Campus:

03/09/2026

“A university should do good work in its local city and state, so partnering with Promise is the perfect way to engage locally in what we do here on West Campus.”

Part guide, part advisor, part therapist – good mentors can make all the difference in a science career, especially during the early undergrad years. Meet postdoctoral scholars Samantha Shepherd and James Hutchison, dedicated mentors who are helping shape a better future for science by welcoming local students to the labs at Yale’s West Campus. Read the full interview here https://bit.ly/localmentors and through our bio link.

03/05/2026

“It is the long history of humankind…that those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed” - Charles Darwin

Today four of the Institutes at West Campus participate in our Cross-Campus Collaborative science talks,where scholars share new research to stimulate scientific connection and propel fundamental work related to human health. Today’s speakers were Andreas Pintado-Urbanc, of the Simon Lab at the Yale Institute of Biomolecular Design & Discovery, and Eason Cao, of the Lin Lab at the Yale Nanobiology Institute. The Yale Cancer Biology and Systems Biology Institutes also participate in the monthly talk series. More information can be found on the West Campus web calendar.

02/11/2026

A new nanodevice from Yale collaborators Chenxiang Lab and Martin Schwartz will enable researchers to better understand how physical forces impact how the cells in our bodies behave. The approach could help identify drugs that influence how cells respond to force.

Read the full story from Mallory Locklear, here: https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/tiny-device-illuminates-big-impact-force-has-on-the-body/

Lin's lab is part of Yale's Nanobiology Institute, of which he is also Associate Director. Home to scientists bridging Yale School of Medicine, Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science, the Institute seeks to unravel cellular organization and dynamics by developing and utilizing cutting-edge tools to dissect and build complex biological assemblies.

Researchers invented a nanodevice that can tug on individual proteins, enabling a deeper understanding of how force affects our bodies.

01/16/2026

From the elegant gothic arches of Old Campus to the contemporary curves of West Campus, there’s a blend of architecture at Yale that reflects the dynamic environment found throughout campus. What’s your favorite campus building? (We know you like our Barn 🙂.)

01/13/2026

Meet Mary Kay Wegman, DNP, APRN, Associate Director of Clinical Operations at the Yale Center for Clinical Investigation (YCCI). Mary Kay oversees YCCI’s West Campus Research Unit, which serves as a hub for Yale investigators conducting outpatient clinical research studies, including infectious diseases.

Not that the resident of our hometown of Orange is new to West Campus. Back in January 2014 Mary Kay’s daughter was among the students displaced from Peck Place elementary school after a pipe burst and caused flooding. Initially dispersed among other elementary schools, officials worked on a solution and West Campus stepped up to provide a temporary home for the school at Building 410.

“My daughter graduates college this year, but we have fond memories of West Campus. It’s great to be back here as part of our infrastructure for facilitating clinical and translational research.”

You can learn more about the work of Center’s clinical operations at https://yaleedu.sharepoint.com/sites/YaleCenterClinicalInvestigation/SitePages/Clinical-Research-Operations.aspx

Big picture: Yale School of Nursing relocated to the West Campus in 2014, further integrating health care with the five fundamental health science Institutes already on campus. Complementing this “bench to bedside” landscape, Yale Medicine’s reproductivity and fertility center became the first clinical facility to relocate to the West Campus in 2019, followed by YCCI clinical operations hub in 2021.

01/07/2026

Could the simplest bacteria offer clues about complex mammalian cells?

The Karatekin Lab at the Yale Nanobiology Institute have uncovered common genetic ingredients that suggest a greater role for physical tension gradients in membrane fission – the process vital to functions such as fertilization, viral entry, and neurotransmission.

Alongside lab members Ane Landajuela and Carolina Gomis Perez, the West Campus team published their review in Science Advances today.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adz7607