Arts & Sciences

The American Institute of Architects St. Louis recognized Washington University in St. Louis’ Bryan Hall with a 2020 Merit Award in Architecture. Bryan Hall had at one time housed office and lab space for the McKelvey School of Engineering. It was transformed into additional research space for the Department of Chemistry in Arts & Sciences.

Saori Pastore, assistant professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, helps explain what happens in nuclei when they decay, scatter among each other or come into contact with subatomic particles. Her recent paper, “Weak Transitions in Light Nuclei,” published in Frontiers in Physics, contributes to a body of increasingly accurate, descriptive calculations of nuclear structure and reactions.

The 2020 presidential election is over. Joe Biden has won. And yet the clarity and consensus that elections once brought, however grudgingly, now founders on the shores of post-fact partisanship, says Douglas Flowe, assistant professor of history in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

The most powerful aspect of the Whitney Museum’s 2018 retrospective ‘David Wojnarowicz: History Keeps Me Awake at Night’ was not hanging on a wall, but rather was vibrating through the air. In an empty room the artist’s voice consumed all who entered, its crushed granite timbre almost tactile to the ear.

John Baugh, the Margaret Bush Wilson Professor in Arts & Sciences, has been elected president of the Linguistic Society of America executive committee, which oversees the nonprofit body representing the country’s linguistics academicians.

New federal policies for paid leave, quality and affordable childcare, fair work schedules, and living wages are more important than ever.

Kris Kleindienst, AB ’79, is co-owner of Left Bank Books. During this year’s multiple crises, Kleindienst has found reading, and the community bookstores provide, more important than ever.

Alumna Andrea Grant remains committed to the institution that provided her with an exceptional education. She participates in events, serves in leadership roles, provides scholarships for promising A&S and law students, and much more.

On Nov. 7, Joe Biden was declared the winner in Pennsylvania, making him president-elect of the United States. Yet it had been clear since Americans went to the polls Nov. 3 that Biden would win the popular vote. The days of uncertainty and drama were entirely due to the arcane and archaic mechanics of the Electoral College, says Rachel Brown, an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

A fossil discovery in South Africa suggests that P. robustus evolved rapidly during a turbulent period of local climate change about 2 million years ago, resulting in anatomical changes that previously were attributed to sex. An international research team including anthropologists at Washington University in St. Louis reported their discovery in Nature Ecology & Evolution on Nov. 9.