Arts & Sciences

Faculty experts from across Washington University in St. Louis draw upon their research, their instruction, their experience and their thought leadership to proffer insight and ideas for the new administration, the new beginning.

Geophysicist Michael Wysession, professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, teaches a popular undergraduate course called “Energy and the Environment.” He breaks down President-elect Joe Biden’s 9-point Energy Plan, point-by-point.

James L. Gibson, who has studied and written extensively about the evolution of South Africa’s democracy in the post-apartheid era, has been elected to the Academy of Science of South Africa as an honorary foreign associate.

The Center for the Humanities in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis recently announced its 2021-22 cohort of faculty fellows. Faculty fellows spend a semester in residence at the center, giving them space and time to make great progress on their research and book projects.

Gaining control of the flow of electrical current through atomically thin materials is important to potential future applications in photovoltaics or computing. Physicists in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis have discovered one way to locally add electrical charge to a graphene device.

Physicists in Arts & Sciences, including Brian Rauch, are part of a team funded by NASA to develop the concept for the most sensitive survey of cosmic ultra-high energy neutrinos ever conducted. 

While there are no formal rules about how the Senate should function in the event of an even split, there is a template, says an expert on congressional politics at Washington University in St. Louis.

New research from Washington University in St. Louis reveals the core structure of the light-harvesting antenna of cyanobacteria — including features that both collect energy and block excess light absorption. Orange carotenoid protein plays a key protective role, according to Haijun Liu, research scientist in chemistry in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Jeffrey Zacks, associate chair and professor of psychological and brain sciences in Arts & Sciences, and of radiology at the School of Medicine, received the Mid-career Award from the Psychonomic Society.

How will this year’s celebrations be remembered? The answer will be “differently than normal” for some individuals, but collective memory for the pandemic itself is likely to fade quickly for most people.