Record

Regis J. O’Keefe, MD, PhD, is the new head of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. The former captain of the Yale University basketball team takes a collaborative approach to managing the department. O’Keefe, who specializes in musculoskeletal oncology, said his goal is to make those around him better.

The Center of Regenerative Medicine has received a $4,000 grant from the Society for Developmental Biology to aid in the project titled “Developmental Biology Educational Outreach to St. Louis Public Schools.”

Grant W. Farmer, PhD, a postdoctoral research associate at Washington University School of Medicine and an adjunct professor at Saint Louis University, died unexpectedly April 7, 2015, at his home in Richmond Heights. He was 36.

James L. Gibson, PhD, the Sidney W. Souers Professor of Government in the Department of Political Science in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, received a grant of more than $225,000 from the National Science Foundation for his project titled “Collaborative Research: Testing Models of Representation and Institutional Design in the State Courts’ Consideration of Inequality.”

Three faculty members in the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis have received grants from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research’s Young Investigator Research Program.

National Book Award finalist “Citizen: An American Lyric,” by Claudia Rankine, has been chosen as the 2015 First Year Reading Program selection for incoming students of Washington University in St. Louis.

Adam Schefkind has been selected to receive the 2015 Harrison D. Stalker Award from the Department of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

This year, the Spector Prize, given by the Department of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has been awarded to Will Pierson. Pierson worked in the lab of Hani Zaher, PhD, assistant professor of biology.

Eight alumni from a variety of backgrounds will receive Alumni Achievement Awards from the School of Engineering & Applied Science of Washington University in St. Louis on Thursday, April 23.

In 1976, as a business major at Washington University in St. Louis, Ron Himes began staging theatrical performances. Thirty-eight seasons later, Himes remains founder and producing director for The Black Rep, one of the nation’s largest and most respected African-American theater companies.