Author: Susan Killenberg McGinn

Washington University in St. Louis awarded honorary degrees to five prominent people, including a 2004 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry and a pioneering scholar of African and African-American literature, during the university’s 145th Commencement ceremony May 19. During the ceremony in Brookings Quadrangle, the university also bestowed academic degrees on more than 2,500 students.

Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis recognized the achievements of five alumni and a special friend at a ceremony May 19 in the Arts & Sciences Laboratory Science Building. Edward S. Macias, Ph.D., executive vice chancellor, dean of Arts & Sciences and the Barbara and David Thomas Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences, presented Distinguished Alumni Awards to five individuals who have attained distinction in their academic or professional careers and have demonstrated service to their communities and to the university. Macias also presented the Dean’s Medal to John A. Berg, associate vice chancellor for undergraduate admissions, for his support and dedication to Arts & Sciences.

Washington University will bestow degrees on more than 2,630 undergraduate, graduate and professional students during its 145th Commencement at 8:30 a.m. Friday, May 19, in Brookings Quadrangle. The university also will bestow honorary degrees on five individuals. Sir John Major, former prime minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and a leading authority on the changing global landscape, will deliver the 2006 Commencement address. His talk is titled “The Changing World.”

John MajorThe Right Honorable Sir John Major, former prime minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and a leading authority on the changing global landscape, will deliver the 2006 Commencement address at Washington University in St. Louis. The university’s 145th Commencement will begin at 8:30 a.m. May 19 in Brookings Quadrangle. During the ceremony, Washington University will award honorary degrees to five prominent people, including a 2004 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry and a pioneering scholar of African and African-American literature. The university will also bestow academic degrees on more than 2,500 students.

They are Alan Bender, Barbara Levy Landes, Sanford Loewentheil, Kate Hilliker Murashige and Jill Evans Petzall; John Berg will receive the Dean’s Medal.

Washington University in St. Louis will award honorary degrees to five prominent people, including a 2004 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry and a pioneering scholar of African and African-American literature, during the university’s 145th Commencement ceremony May 19. During the ceremony, which begins at 8:30 a.m. in Brookings Quadrangle, the university will also bestow academic degrees on more than 2,300 students.

Alexander Calandra, Ph.D., professor emeritus of physical science in physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University, died Wednesday, March 8, 2006. Calandra, who joined WUSTL in 1947 and retired in 1979, was nationally known for his work in science education. He was 95.

Photo by David KilperFrank J. Stadermann displays the laboratory’s most recent acquisition for analysis — a cometary dust particle from that mission.The Laboratory for Space Sciences is among the first in the world to receive samples from a NASA mission — microscopic specks of cometary and interstellar dust.

A member of WUSTL’s cosmic ray research group, he was involved in some of the world’s most successful studies of the composition of galactic cosmic rays.

KlarmannCosmic-ray astrophysicist Joseph Klarmann, Ph.D., a professor emeritus of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, died Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2006, at St. Mary’s Health Center in Richmond Heights, Mo., of complications from a bicycle accident in Forest Park last September. He was 78.