Arts & Sciences

Shubham Tayal was distraught the first time he was rejected from the university’s elite Emergency Support Team. The second time wasn’t so bad. In the latest “Fail Better,” Tayal explains how Bollywood fusion helped him find his groove.

Matthew Kerr, professor of mathematics and statistics in Arts & Sciences, received a $164,784 grant from the National Science Foundation for a project titled “Asymptotic Hodge Theory, Fibered Motives and Algebraic Cycles.”

Sarah Anderson, a postdoctoral research associate in biology in Arts & Sciences, won the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a three-year fellowship valued at about $200,000.

Researchers led by physicist Henric Krawczynski in Arts & Sciences completed initial construction on XL-Calibur, a new balloon-borne telescope designed to measure the polarization of high-energy X-rays from black holes, neutron stars and other exotic celestial objects.

Abram Van Engen, professor of English in Arts & Sciences, has co-edited a new collection of essays about religious feeling in early American history and literature. 

Henry “Roddy” Roediger and James Wertsch, both in Arts & Sciences, will use a grant from the James S. McDonnell Foundation to encourage the interdisciplinary study of collective memory.

In “Kent Styles,” junior Zachary Stern explores questions of family, trust and the ghosts we can’t escape. This weekend, the play will receive its world-premiere staged reading as part of WashU’s annual A.E. Hotchner New Play Festival.

William B. Tolman has been appointed vice dean of research and entrepreneurship in Arts & Sciences, Dean Feng Sheng Hu announced. Tolman is the William Greenleaf Eliot Professor of Chemistry. 

Scientists in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences will continue to archive and distribute digital data related to the study of the surfaces and interiors of terrestrial planetary bodies under a five-year cooperative agreement with NASA.

Forest Park will host “Requiem of Light: Memorial for Saint Louisans Lost to COVID-19″ on Oct. 2. Conceived and organized by Rebecca Messbarger in Arts & Sciences, the memorial will feature music, community testimonials and words of condolence from interfaith leaders, culminating with the lighting of 1,500 lanterns around the Grand Basin.