Arts & Sciences

Research from the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis shows prenatal cannabis exposure may impact child behavior later in life.

A new study involving Washington University in St. Louis researchers finds consumers across the United States and in some European countries are ready to start paying for climate action now.

Daniel Epps, associate professor in the School of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, and Steven Smith, Kate M. Gregg Distinguished Professor of Social Science, weigh in on who has the most to lose before the election if a nomination is completed, how this situation differs from the Senate-stalled Merrick Garland nomination in 2016 and why the nomination system needs to change.

Rebecca Messbarger, professor of Italian and founding director of the Medical Humanities program in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, and Lindsay Sheedy, a doctoral candidate in art history and archaeology in Arts & Sciences, have both been named 2021 Rome Prize Fellows by the American Academy in Rome.

Even before they cast their votes, partisans of different stripes are poised to question the legitimacy of the election outcome, but for different reasons. According to political scientist Steven Smith at Washington University in St. Louis, findings of The American Social Survey, sponsored by the university’s Weidenbaum Center, indicate that the intensity of candidate and media attention about voting fraud threats — real or not — is influencing views of the legitimacy of the election outcome in November.

Washington University’s Deanna Barch was among 59 women psychologists working in academia who took an empirical approach to understanding gender inequities in their field. They find some promising data, but also much work to be done.

More than 1,200 students enrolled in “The Pandemic: Science and Society,” an online two-credit course featuring experts from across disciplines and across the country. The entire university may benefit from the lessons learned.

Hedwig Lee, professor of sociology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, was elected to the prestigious Sociological Research Association. Lee also was appointed to the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine’s ad hoc committee, “Best Practices for Implementing Decarceration as a Strategy to Mitigate the Spread of COVID-19 in Correctional Facilities.”

In recognition of excellence across multiple fields, rising junior Prathamesh Chati in Arts & Sciences has been named the 2020 Florence Moog Scholar.

Researchers from physics and chemistry in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis leveraged data from nuclear scattering experiments to make stringent constraints on how neutrons and protons arrange themselves in the nucleus. Their predictions are tightly connected to how large neutron stars grow and what elements are likely synthesized in neutron star mergers.