Author: Talia Ogliore

Alexander Thompson, a postdoctoral research associate in earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, updated simulations from an important climate model to more accurately reflect the role of a greener Sahara and the coniferous and deciduous forests of the mid-latitudes and the Arctic.

Laura Escobar Vega, assistant professor of mathematics and statistics in Arts & Sciences, won a Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation for her project “Combinatorial Algebraic Geometry: Flag Varieties, Toric Geometry and Applications.”

The Office of Sustainability offers this guide to events during the month of April — including activities at the Burning Kumquat garden, free lectures and film screenings, recycling and clean-up events and more.

Biologists led by Richard Vierstra in Arts & Sciences have determined the molecular structure of the vital photoreceptor PhyB, revealing a wholly different structure than previously known. The findings, published March 30 in Nature, have many implications for agricultural and “green” bioengineering practices.

With the support of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, climate scientist Bronwen Konecky in Arts & Sciences is piloting a new program to attract and support underrepresented students in the geosciences and prepare them for further studies and careers in the field.

Biologist Susanne S. Renner in Arts & Sciences assembled and edited 15 papers that synthesize and challenge the current understanding of how plants separate into male and female functions for Philosophical Transactions B, published by The Royal Society.

Biologist Michael Landis has developed a new method to measure the extent to which regional geographic features — including barriers between regions, like mountains or water — affect local rates of speciation, extinction and dispersal for species. He considered anole lizards as a test case.

Led by physicist Alex Meshik in Arts & Sciences, Washington University scientists designed and built the device that NASA is using to extract gases from a lunar sample from the Apollo 17 mission.

Precision agriculture is beginning to shape the strategies and choices of farmers around the world, according to a new analysis by Glenn Stone, professor of anthropology and of environmental studies in Arts & Sciences.

Douglas Wiens in Arts & Sciences led one of the first seismic studies of the Patagonian Andes, where glaciers are melting at some of the fastest rates on the planet. The team discovered and described a key link between ice mass loss, uplift and a gap between tectonic plates.