Author: Talia Ogliore

Arts & Sciences biologists from the lab of Jonathan Myers determined that tree beta diversity — a measure of site-to-site variation in the composition of species present within a given area — matters more for the ecosystem than other components of biodiversity at larger scales.

A new modeling framework proposed by physicist Mikhail Tikhonov in Arts & Sciences demonstrates how a more complex microbial ecosystem can be more coarse-grainable, making it potentially easier for scientists to understand, than one with only a few microbes interacting.

Michael Nowak, research professor of physics in Arts & Sciences, is part of the global research team that shared the first image of the supermassive black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy.

Ethan Lowder, a December 2021 graduate who majored in the biochemistry track of biology in Arts & Sciences, won the Ralph S. Quatrano Prize; Kayla Wallace, a senior majoring in environmental biology with a minor in anthropology in Arts & Sciences, received the Spector Prize.

Research from the Living Earth Collaborative highlights the cascading consequences of common parasitic infections. Although many of these infections are not lethal, they can still impact health or animal behavior, leading hosts to eat less vegetation. The study led by biologist Amanda Koltz in Arts & Sciences is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Gabriella Smith, a senior biology major in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, is a champion for access to mental health services. She hopes to combine her passion for working with children with her leadership skills to pursue a career in medicine that incorporates patient care, research and advocacy.

Kater Murch, professor of physics in Arts & Sciences, helped an Argonne Laboratory team with their effort to create a new form of qubit, reported in a recent Nature paper. This system shows great promise to be developed into ideal building blocks for future quantum computers.

A team that includes Lee Sobotka and Robert Charity, both in Arts & Sciences, concluded that the role that neutrons play in the creation of carbon, considered the definitive building block of life, is much smaller than previously thought.

William B. McKinnon and Paul Byrne, both in Arts & Sciences at Washington University, played important roles in developing a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. It identifies scientific priorities and funding recommendations to maximize the advancement of planetary science in the next decade.

Joseph Jez was installed as the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences during a ceremony April 4 in Holmes Lounge. He gave an installation lecture, “Exploring Nature’s Machinery.”