Science & Technology

The field in the 2010 Olin Cup business plan competition was narrowed Nov. 18 as 21 semifinalists faced off in the elevator pitch stage of the race for entrepreneurs at Washington University in St. Louis. Six ventures were selected to advance to the final round of the annual contest that will award $75,000 to the most promising enterprise in February 2011.

On Nov. 18, Paul C. Paris, PhD, professor emeritus of mechanics in the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis, received an honorary doctorate from the University of Paris West, one of many awards to cap his career in fracture mechanics.

Before Google became a household word, engineers like Anna Patterson (EN ’87, EN ’87) were figuring out how to search the Internet and find the most relevant answers to random queries. The director of Google Research returns to campus at 8 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 18, as guest speaker co-sponsored by Olin Business School and the School of Engineering & Applied Science. She will talk about her experience in Silicon Valley as an entrepreneur and member of the Google team.

Washington University in St. Louis has received a $1 million grant over the next four years from the Amgen Foundation to provide hands-on laboratory experience to approximately 100 undergraduates through the Amgen Scholars Program.

In her research, Jennifer R. Smith, PhD, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences and of environmental studies, both in Arts & Sciences, uses the tools of classic earth science to address questions of archeological interest.

An international team of researchers based at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, including a physical anthropology professor at Washington University in St. Louis, has discovered well-dated human fossils in southern China that markedly change anthropologists perceptions of the emergence of modern humans in the eastern Old World.

Scientists from across Missouri will gather Wednesday, Oct. 27, at Washington University in St. Louis to learn — in one jam-packed day — about the latest advances in nanotechnology and opportunities for commercializing them. Co-organized by seven Missouri universities, the 2nd Annual Missouri NanoFrontiers Symposium is co-hosted by Washington University and the University of Missouri-St. Louis and begins at 7:45 a.m. in Whitaker Hall on the Danforth Campus. The meeting is free and open to the public. 

Washington University in St. Louis alum Robert L. Behnken, PhD, a NASA astronaut who has completed two missions to the International Space Station, returns to campus for two lectures Wednesday, Oct. 20, and Thursday, Oct. 21. Behnken will deliver the third annual Robert M. Walker Distinguished Lecture at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 21, in Room 300, Laboratory Sciences building. He also will deliver a colloquium titled “Astronaut Training” at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 20, in  Room 245, Compton Hall. WUSTL’s McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences is sponsoring the lectures.

David Fike, PhD, assistant professor of isotope biogeochemistry in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences, was named a Packard Fellow Oct. 15, a prestigious distinction awarded to only 17 top young researchers nationwide this year.

Klaus R. G. Hein, PhD, of the University of Stuttgart, Germany, gives a European perspective on the future of global energy at the “McDonnell International Scholars Academy Symposium: Global Energy Future” held Oct. 1-5 at Washington University in St. Louis. At the meetings, participants reviewed the progress in research collaborations and identified new research opportunitites that might reduce carbon dioxide emission, improve efficiency of energy utilization or lead to more rapid deployment of renewable energy sources.