Science & Technology

Liviu M. Mirica, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has won a prestigious research fellowship from the Sloan Foundation. Mirica will use the funds to develop novel catalysts that will be able to efficiently convert the greenhouse gases methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) into useful chemicals.

Last year, the National Collegiate Athletic Association required all aluminum bats used in college play to meet a new performance standard designed to limit the exit speed of the ball off the bat. This year, the National Federation of State High School Associations also has implemented the new standard. With spring training beginning at all levels this month, a WUSTL professor and WUSTL baseball coaches comment on the new bats and how they have affected play.

Kilian Q. Weinberger, assistant professor of computer science & engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, has won a prestigious Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER award) from the National Science Foundation. Weinberger’s CAREER project, “New Directions for Metric Learning,” seeks to solve one of the fundamental problems of machine learning: how to compare individual texts, images or sounds.

At Washington University in St. Louis this semester, the Department of Physics and University College, both in Arts & Sciences, will describe a few great experiments in physics. Four lectures will be held at 10 a.m. on four consecutive Saturday mornings, March 10–31, in the Hughes Lecture Room, Room 201 in Crow Hall.

Washington University in St. Louis has joined a national experiment to develop a new generation of college science and engineering faculty, one equipped to excel in the classroom as well as the lab. Founded in 2003 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL), the mission of the CIRTL network of 25 research universities  is to prepare science graduate students to be as bold and creative in the classroom as they are in their programs of research.

It’s no secret that battlefield trauma can leave veterans with deep emotional scars that impact their ability to function in civilian life. But new research from Washington University in St. Louis suggests that military service, even without combat, has a subtle lingering effect on a man’s personality, making it potentially more difficult for veterans to get along with friends, family and co-workers.

Frank Yin, PhD, ambassador to Tsinghua University, a partner institution in the McDonnell International Scholars Academy, invites Washington University in St. Louis faculty and students to participate in Tsinghua’s annual English summer camp, which will be held from June 26 to July 13, 2012. The English summer camp is an intensive English language experience for Tsinghua students. Each day is devoted to lessons, lectures, and various activities, including seminars, song and dance competitions, and other games. WUSTL native or near-native English speakers are invited to join the camp as visiting teachers and volunteers.

Frédéric Moynier, PhD, 33, assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences and a member of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has been named the recipient of the 2012 Houtermans Award and the Nier Prize, both given for exceptional work by a scientist younger than 35.

A giant experiment is under way at the Tyson Research Center, Washington University in St. Louis’ 2,000-acre outdoor laboratory for ecosystem studies. The experiment, led by Tiffany Knight, PhD, associate professor of biology, will test three different variables in 32 glades with the goal of establishing best practices for restoring not just degraded glade habitats but degraded ecosystems in general. The experiment is expected to draw collaborating scientists locally and around the world.

The lab of Jospeh Jez, PhD, associate professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, crystallizes proteins so that people can see what they look like in three dimensions. But getting proteins to crystallize is difficult and involves an element of luck — so one of Jez’s main jobs is to be the lab’s unreasonable optimist.