Science & Technology

For years, Gateway STEM High School students have read Pulitzer Prize-winning climate journalist Elizabeth Kolbert. On Feb. 12, they got to meet her at a special science storytelling program at Washington University in St. Louis. The event was sponsored by WashU’s Climate Across Curriculum program, which connects Gateway STEM in St. Louis Public Schools to faculty experts, campus tours and learning resources.

Environmental engineers at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis have been studying dicamba drift to understand why the herbicide vaporizes and migrates to other crops.

The Association for Psychological Science has recognized three members of the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis — Calvin Lai and Renee Thompson as fellows and Jessie Sun as a “Rising Star.”

Researchers in Arts & Sciences discovered that a common mineral called goethite, found in red soils all over the Earth, tends to naturally trap trace metals over time, locking them out of circulation.

“Santiago Sierra: 52 Canvases Exposed to the Mexico City Air” will open Feb. 23 at the Kemper Art Museum. The installation highlights the contaminants — the ozone, carbon monoxide, and sulfur and nitrogen oxides — that can slowly but surely poison urban environments.

The Office of Technology Management at Washington University in St. Louis recently celebrated a milestone of 100 university startups.

Chao Zhou, a professor of biomedical engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, has been awarded an up to $20 million contract from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health to improve optical coherence tomography systems that can conduct high-resolution imaging of the eyes.

Two Washington University professors — Julie Bugg and Leonard Green — have been named fellows of the Society of Experimental Psychologists.

The Department of Physics in Arts & Sciences is offering a series of free public lectures in advance of the 2024 total solar eclipse. The first one, taking place Saturday, Feb 10, is titled: “Cosmic coincidence: The science of eclipses.”

Jeffrey Zacks, the Edgar James Swift Professor in Arts & Sciences and a professor of radiology at the School of Medicine, has begun a two-year term as president of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences.