Record

Hedwig Lee, professor of sociology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, was elected to the prestigious Sociological Research Association. Lee also was appointed to the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine’s ad hoc committee, “Best Practices for Implementing Decarceration as a Strategy to Mitigate the Spread of COVID-19 in Correctional Facilities.”

Images from on and around the Washington University campuses.

Bring your COVID-19 questions to the next “Ask the Doctors” town hall, scheduled for 6 p.m. Sept. 9 on Zoom with two of the university’s top medical experts, Steve Lawrence, MD, and Cheri LeBlanc, MD.

Mel F. Brown, a former member of the Washington University in St. Louis Board of Trustees, died Sept. 1, 2020. He was 85. Brown was an active, longtime university volunteer. In addition to being a trustee, he served as chair of the Alumni Board of Governors and as president of the William Greenleaf Eliot Society.

In recognition of excellence across multiple fields, rising junior Prathamesh Chati in Arts & Sciences has been named the 2020 Florence Moog Scholar.

Alian Wang, research professor in earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, received a $429,245 award from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology for adapting the compact integrated Raman spectrometer for lunar exploration.

The Healthcare Innovation Lab and the School of Medicine’s Institute for Informatics are holding a Big Ideas competition aimed at innovations in informatics and health-care delivery focused on COVID-19. The deadline is Sept. 30.

The Society for Economic Botany awarded Gayle J. Fritz, professor emerita of anthropology in Arts & Sciences, its 2020 Mary W. Klinger Book Award for “Feeding Cahokia.” The book emphasizes the importance of native crops that were domesticated by America’s first farmers long before corn became a staple food in what is now the U.S. Midwest.

Saher Alam, an adjunct instructor in creative writing in University College at Washington University in St. Louis, has received the Marion Horstmann Online Teaching Innovation Grant.

Jonathan Barnes, assistant professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences, was selected as one of 15 Young Investigators by the American Chemical Society’s Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering. The selection recognizes Barnes’ excellence in polymer research and marks him as an emerging leader in the field.