Campus & Community

Can theater movement-training techniques help real-life computer scientists improve human/robot interactions? Beginning March 26, director Annamaria Pileggi will put that theory to the test with “Sky Sky Sky,” a world premiere drama featuring three human actors and one PR2 robot. Performances take place in the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre, located in Mallinckrodt Center, 6465 Forsyth Blvd.

Stephanie Kurtzman, director of the Community Service Office and associate director of the Gephardt Institute for Public Service at Washington University in St. Louis, and LuAnn Oros, community consultant on hunger and homelessness in the Community Service Office, recently were recognized by Operation Food Search as important food drive partners.

Oscar-nominated film “Timbuktu,” the Mauritanian masterpiece about Islamist extremists and the community that dares to defy them, headlines this year’s African Film Festival at Washington University in St. Louis, held March 27-29. Other highlights include a youth matinee and a discussion with filmmaker Ekwa Msangi.

Scholars of philosophy, psychology, neuroscience and other sciences of the mind will discuss how insight from their disciplines can help us better understand and eliminate the effects of racial bias in policing during a free forum March 27 at Washington University.

David Sedley, PhD, an internationally acclaimed Greek philosopher, will deliver the annual John and Penelope Biggs Lecture in the Classics for the Assembly Series at 4 p.m. Thursday, March 19, in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom in Anheuser-Busch Hall on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis. The lecture, “What Is Plato’s Theory of Forms?” is free and open to the public.

​Building largely on the momentum generated by “Race & Ethnicity: A Day of Discovery and Dialogue,” held Feb. 5 and 6 at Washington University in St. Louis, a newly formed committee has been created to develop a strategy and action plan to help the university become more diverse, inclusive and welcoming.

The Washington University Libraries’ Documenting Ferguson Digital Archive is seeking faculty, staff and contract workers who are living in Ferguson or surrounding communities to share their stories about Ferguson before and after the Aug. 9, 2014, death of Michael Brown Jr. at the hands of a police officer.

At the Washington University in St. Louis Board of Trustees meeting Thursday and Friday, March 5 and 6, the trustees heard presentations from School of Medicine faculty about advances in cancer research, treatment and prevention and received a report from Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton that included updates on administrative appointments, admissions, athletics and construction.

​Rohit V. Pappu, PhD, has been named the Edwin H. Murty Professor of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. He was installed March 2.

Lisa Wiland has been appointed director of Institutional Research and Analysis for the Office of the Provost at Washington University in St. Louis.