Newsroom Stories

A total of $2 million in research grants to investigators on both the Danforth and Medical School campuses opens the door for science to begin at the Institute.

The regional is one of seven throughout the United States and western Europe.

Paul DonnellyPaul Donnelly, AIA, PE, the Rebecca and John Voyles Chair in Architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, has received the Distinguished Professor Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. Donnelly is one of only five professors nationally to receive the honor, which recognizes sustained creative achievement in architectural education.

Courtesy photoOlaf KuhlkeCultural geographer Olaf Kuhlke will speak on competing representations of nationhood in post-Wall Germany March 8 for the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. Kuhlke, assistant professor of geography at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, investigates the construction of nationalism and its expression in public spaces. His recent study Representing German Identity in the New Berlin Republic (2004) examines how various social and cultural movements have utilized the human body and metaphors of nature to represent German national identity.

Photo by Joe AngelesJewell Thomas (right), a sophomore majoring in English and in math, both in Arts & Sciences, and Kemper Art Museum docent Danika Cooper explain the art in the “Reality Bites” exhibit to University City High School students.

The following are among the new faculty members at the University. Others will be introduced periodically in this space. Bruce Durazzi, Ph.D., joins the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences as assistant professor. Durazzi earned bachelor’s degrees in music composition and in English literature, both from Oberlin College, and a doctorate in music from Yale University. His research interests include politics and musical modernism, the music and aesthetics of Arnold Schoenberg and his school and gender studies in music. Before joining the WUSTL music faculty, Durazzi taught music theory at the University of Arizona and at Northwestern University. His current research in music theory emphasizes the relationship between music analysis and broader social, cultural and historical issues. Matt Gabel, Ph.D., joins the Department of Political Science in Arts & Sciences as associate professor. He earned a doctorate in political science from the University of Rochester and a master’s degree in advanced European studies at the College of Europe in Brugge, Belgium. He spent 1996-98 at the University of Michigan as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholar in Health Policy Research. His research interests include the political consequences of electoral laws, comparative democratic processes and American health policy. James Spriggs, Ph.D., joins the Department of Political Science in Arts & Sciences as professor. His research interests are in American politics, with a specific emphasis on the scientific study of law and judicial process and politics. He is especially concerned with how institutions (i.e., formal rules or informal norms) shape the choices that judges make. This perspective focuses on how, in attempting to craft law consistent with their policy preferences, judges are constrained by institutional rules endogenous and exogenous to courts. He earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Westminster College, and master’s and doctoral degrees, both in philosophy, from WUSTL. Melanie Jean Springer, Ph.D., joins the Department of Political Science in Arts & Sciences as assistant professor. She earned a doctorate in political science from Columbia University in 2006 and specializes in American politics and quantitative methods. Her teaching and research interests include voting and elections, political institutions, state politics and policymaking, American political development, Congress, political parties and quantitative methods.

Elizabeth D. Ossorio, Ph.D., an assistant professor at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work from 1963-65, died Thursday, Feb. 1, 2007 in Las Cruces, N.M., following a series of strokes. She was 85.

Robin D.G. Kelley, Ph.D., one of the country’s pre-eminent scholars in African-American history, will serve as a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Washington University Feb. 28-March 1. During his visit, he will give two public talks. Kelley, who is professor of history and American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California (USC), is a leading scholar of the modern civil rights movement, jazz studies and African-American music and culture.

The following incidents were reported to University Police Feb. 16-20. Readers with information that could assist in investigating these incidents are urged to call 935-5555. This information is provided as a public service to promote safety awareness and is available on the University Police Web site at police.wustl.edu. Feb. 16 10:21 a.m. — Bon Appetit […]

Colin G. Nichols, Ph.D., recently became the first Carl F. Cori Professor at the School of Medicine. Nichols, who is professor of cell biology and physiology, studies molecules on the surfaces of cells known as ion channels. These channels let charged particles pass into and out of cells and play critical roles in physiological processes from thoughts to movement.