Author: Jessica Daues

Cynthia White has been selected to receive The National Council of University Research Administrators 2006 Distinguished Service Award. The award is way to recognize members of NCURA who have made sustained and distinctive contributions to the organization.

The Office of Human Resources has announced the introduction of the Health Savings Account (HSA) and Retirement Medical Savings Account (RMSA) for eligible faculty and staff. These new savings accounts, a major component of the Benefits Plan for the Future, will be effective Jan. 1.

The Concept of Constituency by Andrew Rehfeld, Ph.D., assistant professor of political science in Arts & Sciences, takes on the origins of the country’s electoral districts and how they came to be.

Coach Larry Kindbom’s Playbook of Champions inspires student-athletes for life.

The following are among the new faculty members at the University. Others will be introduced periodically in this space. Anca Parvulescu, Ph.D., joins the Department of English and the Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities in Arts & Sciences as assistant professor. Parvulescu earned a doctorate from the University of Minnesota. Her teaching and research interests include 20th-century American literature, literary and cultural theory, feminist theory and women’s literature, Eastern European cinema and the history of the university. She is writing a book titled Laughter’s Burst: Seriousness, Manners, Feminism. The book traces the emergence of the modern subject as a serious subject formed by and through a prohibition on laughter. It argues that the spirit of the subject’s seriousness permeates modernity’s projects, lending them a certain gravity and immutability. As a result, the deployment of laughter becomes a crucial strategy for philosophers, writers and artists who hope to challenge modernity and its projects. Laughter offers the promise of a new kind of subject and another kind of community. Yan Mei Wang, Ph.D., joins the Department of Physics in Arts & Sciences as assistant professor. She earned a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2002 and spent the next four years as a postdoctoral researcher in biological physics at Princeton University. In her research, she applies quantitative experimental methods pioneered in physics to address fundamental biological questions at the molecular level. At Princeton, she performed the first single-molecule imaging of LacI repressor protein and observed that LacI diffuses along DNA, thereby resolving a decades-old puzzle in DNA targeting by this protein. She will continue to explore gene regulation mechanisms by real-time tracing of single-gene regulator proteins in vitro and in vivo. Derek Pardue, Ph.D., joins the Department of Anthropology in Arts & Sciences as assistant professor, with a joint appointment in International and Area Studies. Pardue earned a doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2004, and a bachelor’s in German literature and music from the University of Massachusetts in 1991. He also holds a master’s of music in ethnomusicology from the University of Texas. For the past two years, he has been a visiting assistant professor at Union College. His research focuses on the representation of hip-hoppers as social and cultural agents. For the past 10 years, he has worked with with rappers, DJs and graffiti artists in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Pardue employs strategies of methodology and epistemology from urban anthropology, critical race theory, discourse theory, cultural studies and ethnomusicology to his analyses.

The following incidents were reported to University Police Nov. 7-13. Readers with information that could assist in investigating these incidents are urged to call 935-5555. This information is provided as a public service to promote safety awareness and is available on the University Police Web site at police.wustl.edu. Nov. 9 9:01 a.m. — A person […]

The No. 2 volleyball team picked up three 3-0 wins Nov. 9-11 at the NCAA Central Region Championship at the Field House.

Photo by Mary ButkusThe campus Knit-In brings together knitting enthusiasts from across campus and the community.

Robert Heider, Ph.D., adjunct professor of chemical engineering, and Milorad P. Dudukovic, Ph.D., the Laura and William Jens Professor and director of the Chemical Reaction Engineering Laboratory, have received a two-year, $111,650 grant from Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville for research titled “Utilizing the National Corn to Ethanol Pilot Plant to Develop a Predictive Model for Distillers Dried Grain for the Fuel Ethanol and Animal Feed Industries.” … Roger J. Phillips, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, has received a three-year, $238,002 grant from NASA for research titled “Tharsis and the Geodynamical and Hydrogeological Evolution of Mars.” … Ibrahim M. Saeed, M.D., clinical cardiology fellow in internal medicine, received the 2006 Leadership Award from the American Medical Association Foundation. The award provides special training to develop their skills as future leaders in medicine. Saeed was one of 55 individuals, residents and fellows to receive the national award, which recognizes those who show outstanding non-clinical leadership skills in advocacy, community service and education, and provides special training to medical students, residents, fellows and physicians to develop their skills as future leaders in organized medicine. … Jacob Schaefer, Ph.D., the Charles Allen Thomas Professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences, has received a four-year, $420,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for research titled “Solid-state NMR Analysis of Chain Packing and Dynamics in Polycarbonates.”

The following incidents were reported to University Police Nov. 1-7. Readers with information that could assist in investigating these incidents are urged to call 935-5555. This information is provided as a public service to promote safety awareness and is available on the University Police Web site at police.wustl.edu. Nov. 3 3:52 p.m. — A person […]