Exploring space, together

Mission chief Dante Lauretta and project data archivist Kate Crombie — met while in graduate school in earth and planetary sciences in 1993 — the husband-and-wife team have a lot riding on the Atlas V rocket: 12 years of intense, time-consuming work on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission. (photo credit to come)
Dante Lauretta, PhD ’97, mission chief, and Kate Crombie, PhD ’97, project data archivist, are a husband-and-wife team working on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission.

‘No more playing it safe’

Alumnus Garth Risk Hallberg (center), author of the bestselling novel “City on Fire,” came to WashU to deliver an Assembly Series talk in September 2016. Prior to his address, he met with students in the humanities to discuss the writing life. (Photo: James Byard/Washington University)
In City on Fire, Garth Risk Hallberg faces his fears to deliver an epic, sprawling story that explores the people, places and ideas that shaped America’s greatest city.

Siteman survivor symposium March 2

The Siteman Cancer Center is holding a Spring Symposium on Survivorship from noon to 4:30 p.m. March 2 on the Medical Campus. The free event aims to encourage collaboration on cancer survivorship research. Registration is required.

Babcock named VP of health-care epidemiology group

Hilary M. Babcock, MD, an associate professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been named vice president of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA), a professional group that promotes research, education and advocacy for safe health care.

Advice for the lovelorn

Here, in celebration of Valentine’s Day, we present another of the paradoxes, sometimes called the Picky Suitor problem: Can you guess the odds that you will find your one and only among the billions of people on the planet?