Notables

Neil Richards, JD, professor of law at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, was one of six people recently elected to a two-year term on the Freedom to Read Foundation Board of Trustees.

World-renowned author William H. Gass, the David May Distinguished University Professor Emeritus in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis, recently was awarded the William Dean Howells Medal for his novel “Middle C.”

John DiPersio, MD, PhD, the Virginia E. and Sam J. Golman Professor of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been named to the American Cancer Society’s National Medical Advisory Group for Patient Lodging.

Four students in Arts & Sciences, one of whom also earned a degree from Olin Business School, have received the U.S. State Department’s Critical Language Scholarship for summer 2015.

​Two computer scientists from Washington University in St. Louis, Robert Pless and Roman Garnett, are part of a research team that will use big data to accelerate breeding and the commercial release of sorghum crops that can be used as a renewable energy source.​

Denise Elif Gill, PhD, assistant professor of ethnomusicology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, was named a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). Gill will finish her book titled “Melancholic Modalities: Affect and Contemporary Turkish Classical Musicians.”

The honors are piling up for students in the Department of Classics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Laurie Maffly-Kipp, PhD, the Archer Alexander Distinguished Professor in the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis, was recently elected president of the the Mormon History Association.

School of Medicine faculty members Robert P. Mecham, PhD, and Patrick J. Geraghty, MD, were honored earlier this spring by the Marfan Foundation.

The Department of Music in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis has some news to trumpet. Christopher Stark, assistant professor of music and composer of contemporary classical music, has two notable performances coming up this summer, and student Kelly Stathis was accepted into the Atlantic Music Festival Composition Program.